What’s the Best Mustache Wax in 2017?

Mustache wax is a crucial part of your grooming regime if you're rocking a killer 'stache and are looking to keep it in place the entire day. Our top pick was the Secondary Mustache Wax by CanYouHandlebar, it has a superior hold with great firmness that stands above their competitors. If you're looking for more information then check out the price on Amazon and read other men's reviews:

Secondary Mustache Wax by CanYouHandlebar

Secondary was designed to provide superior hold and it does just that. It has excellent firmness and almost no scent, making it applicable to all men. Created from natural ingredients, this is safe and kind to your skin.

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What's the difference between mustache wax, oil and balm?

If you're new to the world of facial hair it can often feel overwhelming and confusing. There are so many different products out there and it can be difficult to tell the difference between them and understand what they are designed to do.

To start with, there are three main types of product; waxes, oils and balms.

Each of them share a very similar set of ingredients but the slight differences make a huge impact on their purpose and they should each be used in different circumstances.

Beard Oil is to Condition

Beard oil is designed to be used on both your beard and your mustache, but it's purely there to condition the beard and make it healthier. Beard oil is the most popular type of facial hair product that you'll see and it consists of two types of ingredients; carrier oils and essential oils .

When you grow facial hair you'll notice that the skin underneath your hair can become dry as a lot of the water that was hydrating your skin is now stored inside the hair instead.

Beard oil is designed to help to nourish the skin with the necessary oils that it's missing and to soften the hair. You'll notice that beard oil will allow you to slightly style your facial hair, but because it lacks beeswax, it will quickly fall out of place.

Therefore, the oil is only designed to condition the hair and care for the skin, it won't allow you to style your facial hair at all.

Beard Balm is the Middle Ground

Beard balm is halfway between an oil and a wax, it doesn't have the same concentration of beeswax that a wax has and therefore it's not quite as hard and doesn't allow you to style your mustache in the same way.

Beard balm offers the same benefits that beard oil does, but it also has some styling properties. If you style your mustache with a balm it should stay in place for a couple hours, but after that it's likely to soften and you will lose your style. For a stronger hold you need to upgrade to a wax.

Mustache Wax Will Keep it Stiff

Mustache wax is designed to give you the ultimate style. Whilst it does have some carrier oils and often some essential oils, it won't offer you the same benefits that a balm or beard oil will.

Instead, most of the recipe is consisted of beeswax and butter. The beeswax is what allows for the incredible hold that you'll get from your wax. Companies normally label their products as soft, medium and strong hold. The only difference between the recipes is the ratio of beeswax to other ingredients, the more beeswax they include the stronger the hold will normally be.

Beeswax is a completely natural and safe ingredient that you can use to shape your mustache without any excessive chemicals that you might find in commercial hair gels.​

How Can You Pick the Best Mustache Wax?​

When you're choosing between products the first thing that you'll want to consider is the look that you're going for. Depending on what you're trying to achieve you'll need to buy either a soft, medium or strong hold wax.

The strength of wax you need will depend on how thick your hair is, how much you want to defy gravity and the time period it needs to be held for. In our opinion, most people are best of using a strong wax in most scenarios. It's hard to overdo it and you can simply use less of as strong wax if you feel like it's too much.​

How Did we Rank Our Picks?

Given that a lot of waxes are very similar it can be hard to decipher between them and decide which ones to recommend and which ones to avoid.

We used Amazon for a lot of our research because they have such a wide range of products and more reviews than any other website. This makes it very simple to see the opinions of thousands of different men with varying lengths of hair, types of hair and in different temperatures.

We believe that this form of reviewing is far superior to us simply using the product once ourselves and then making a decision. It's much better to collect as much data from thousands of men and use that instead.

When we were picking the rankings there were a few factors that we considered:

Price - The cost of the products is obviously very important, it wouldn't be fair for us to compare a $10 wax with a $500 wax. We tried to give weighting to those products that were cheaper and we also considered the amount of product in each can.

Hold - When we looked at the quality of the hold we tried to avoid the idea that stronger is best, even though we prefer a strong hold, we tried to compare the hold to the category that the company advertised is as. For example; if it was sold as a soft hold then we wanted it to feel soft and if it was a strong hold is should be strong and not medium.​

Scent - Unfortunately, a lot of retailers are still including harsh and strong scents in a lot of their grooming products. Here at Known Man we prefer products to have little to no scent, there's no need for the extra chemicals and too many scents aren't universal. Regardless, we tried to be open minded and considered what we think most men will enjoy.]

Peer Reviews - We spend countless hours looking at reviews of each product all across the internet so that we could come to an educated conclusion and make a recommendation that we stood behind.​

Mustache wax is used by men to hold the style that they want. It’s very similar to the principle of hair gel, except that it’s far stronger in order to allow you to style your mustache.

To create this post we looked at 5 of the most popular products to attempt to decide what the best mustache wax is once and for all. We considered; tens of reviews of each product, the ingredients, the smell and the price. Doing this we have come to the conclusion that the mustache wax that we think is the best is the Secondary Wax by CanYouHandlebar . It’s super firm which allows for an incredibly firm hold, it contains all natural ingredients and it’s available at a relatively good price.

So, although we’ve already told you exactly which wax we thought was the best, we’ll still go through all five to give a quick review. The large majority of them are more than good, but Secondary Wax stood-out for us.

5 Best Mustache Waxes for Men​

CanYouHandlebar Secondary Mustache Wax

Canyouhandlebar wax tin
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We love everything about this product from the ingredients through to its performance, it’s everything you could want in a wax and all at a competitive price.

When they said that this was “ extra strength ” they weren’t kidding. This is an extremely firm wax that’s going to require some serious thumb work just to get out of the tin, but once you’ve warmed it up it will give a very firm hold. For those of you looking to style a formidable handlebar , this is the stand-out winner. The strength of the wax is the most important consideration and this is the king.

As with anything you’re putting on your body it’s nice to know exactly what the ingredients are. Fortunately, the Secondary Wax only contains natural and safe ingredients, notably there is no petroleum which is really nice to hear . We’re seeing more mustache waxes including petroleum to ensure that it can remain soft enough to use, but for the sake of our health we’d rather avoid it.

It does also mention that it’s made in the USA for those of you who love to support local products. Generally, this doesn’t make a huge difference but could potentially prevent a company from not disclosing harmful ingredients.

The wax itself has almost no scent at all which for many men is a relief, too often there can be a strong scent and when under the nose all-day can be rather unpleasant.

Fisticuffs Cigar Blend

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This is our second favorite wax and one of the more popular products out there. Many men swear by this and use it as either a daily wax or a stronger wax for events.

Unlike the CanYouHandlebar waxes, this does contain petroleum to keep the product workable and to ensure that you can apply it easily. Again, we’d rather see waxes without it but it is what it is.

The reason why this is second rather than first is mainly because the performance just isn’t as great. The hold of the wax was weaker, likely because ingredients like petroleum make the wax easier to work with, but also prevent it from hardening and keeping your hair stiff.

On the positive side, it is a little cheaper than some competitors and therefore could be an ideal first wax for someone with a small and newer ‘stache.

Although we hate scents on waxes, this one wasn’t bad. They claim that it has a “rich cigar scent with vanilla after notes”, realistically it’s more vanilla with a touch of tobacco. It’s not a bad smell and isn’t particularly strong either.

As with many beauty products there is a lot of individuality and preference involved. If you’re looking for a softer wax for a regular everyday hold then this is likely to be a better fit for you, but do bare in mind that this will mean re-applying and styling during the day.

Woodsmen Mustache Wax

The Woodsman Wax

To start with, this is another all-natural wax which is really great to see. It’s also created in Texas and has excellent customer service which is a great bonus.

The wax itself is relatively soft, but provides a firm hold that is more similar to the CanYouHandlebar waxes. The look is a bit too greasy for us and is reminiscent of a pomade rather than a wax. While the hold seems to be solid the greasiness of the product can mean the hairs begin to separate and prevent you from forming the perfect handlebars.

We’d also note that many users have complained about the smell. Again, scent is a very personal choice so it’s crazy to us that these brands even continue to add scent. We’d much prefer it to be scentless.

Wild Willie's Original

This is another popular wax that claims to have all-natural ingredients. They’ve managed to include a few handy ingredients such as butters, vitamins and essential oils which will treat your hair as it’s styled. That’s a really nice addition but unfortunately is does detract from the end hold.

As with any product you’ll get wildly different reviews, but quite a few men have complained that the hold is weak and that it often droops after a few hours. It seems that although it’s hard at first it can quickly turn into an oil and reduce the hold. It could be the case that the extra ingredients have prevented the wax from holding as well as it should.

On the other hand, we’ve seen some excellent mustaches styled with Willie’s and there are claims that it can hold all day. However, with one too many poor reviews it would be impossible to rank this above any of the products we’ve already discussed, especially at this price point.

Clubman Pinaud Wax

This isn’t going to be a popular opinion.. but we are ranking the clubman in last place. Many men adore this product and recommend it as the go-to wax, but there are far too many complaints of white ‘dandruff’ style flakes and a poor scent.

Regardless, the hold is very good for a product in a tube but it does wear off quickly. If you want to keep the style strong then you’ll have to re-apply through the day.

In the package they’ve included a small comb, I’m not sure why because it’s extremely thin and weak, breaking very easily.

Clubman products are generally very good but this is an exception. Many men really do love this wax but we can’t see it ourselves.

This wax is mainly there for convenience, it comes in a handy tube and can be applied with relatively little effort. For that, we can understand carrying this as a refresher, but when we are looking for the best moustache wax there are better contenders.

Conclusion: What's the Best Mustache Wax?

In conclusion, all of these products are going to be great; for the right person. Each of them has different strengths and weaknesses, they will hold differently depending on your hair type and the style you’re going for and their value is relative based on your own income. However, the one standout wax that we would recommend is the CanYouHandleBar Secondary wax. It has all-natural ingredients, an excellent hold and almost no scent.

About the author

Jack Prenter

Jack has been fascinated by fashion for decades and spent huge amounts of time researching it and becoming an expert. He's written for many well-known publications and is in the process of opening an online clothing store for men. Jack studied at the University of Nottingham and is now based out of Toronto, Canada.