Figuring out the best beard trimmer for your particular facial hair situation is a personal journey, because great beards come in many shapes and sizes: there’s the perfect stubble, of course, or a beard that’s artfully shaped and styled. But even if you opt to grow a long beard, you will still need to know how to trim it as it grows. And for all of those situations—for basically anything besides a close shave—you need a good beard trimmer.
Lucky for you, we’ve tested the best beard trimmers on the market, through mountain-man winters, quarantine ‘staches, and close summer stubbles. Our favorites all have their strengths— price, precision, cutting power, potential for head-to-toe use, travel or gym friendliness, even tidy vacuum functions. So we combed through the entire market—we expect that you’ll be able to find the perfect beard trimmer for your scruff in the list below.
Best All-in-One Beard Maintenance Tool
Beards deserve more than a simple, uniform trim. Consider a beard kit with various heads and guards, all of which can detail the hedges in interesting ways: Some of them draw clean lines, while others work to spot-check hairs in hard-to-clean places (like removing hair from right under the nose without accidentally shaving half of your mustache off). This Philips kit is THAT kit, with a washable trimmer and heads that tend to eyebrows, mustaches, nose hairs, and even your head—but it shapes up beards best of all.
The GQ Reader Best Seller
Our internal analytics tell us that this Hatteker kit is the top seller among GQ readers, and for good reason. First, it’s a high-quality all-in-one kit that covers every kind of hair-trimming task, from lineups to sideburns to beards, eyebrows, and body hair It holds an hour-long charge of 90 minutes of plug-in time—enough for a week vacation. Overall, it’s a bargain, since it’s a damn good (and comprehensive) workhorse.
The Best Vacuum Trimmer
Beard trimming gets messy, fast. You get clippings in your beard, on your hands, in your sink, but Remington’s trimmer keeps the process clean while also keeping your beard tidy. It sucks up the large majority of hairs as they fall, making for easy disposal afterwards. This is a dual hair clipper and beard trimmer, and although it’s not cordless, that wall power will give you a strong, consistent cut. Many beard trimmers can’t handle the more difficult task of cutting head hair, which tends to be thicker and less cooperative. So if you want a device for both—and one that cleans house, then here you are.
The Best Travel-Friendly Trimmer
This pair of lightweight, battery-powered trimmers is great if you need to line up edges and snip at strays while away from home. (Why pack something expensive and cumbersome for a weekend away?) The nose-hair clipper might not be worth packing on all but the longest trips, but it cleans up fuzzy nostrils hand errant eyebrows ably.
The Best Toss-in-Your-Gym-Bag Beard Trimmer
A true all-in-one device. Braun’s low-cost, high-quality trimmer kit can do far more than tidy up your beard: swap in the nose and ear trimmer, the precision head, or the longer guards for general upkeep. It’s the perfect, lightweight tool to tote in your gym bag or travel dopp, offering a couple weeks of beard-trimming sessions on its 60-minute charge. This particular model comes with a Gillette ProGlide razor, for any bare-skin detailing you may want to do (like a neck or cheek cleanup).
The Best Beard Trimmer for Keeping Body Hair in Check
Panasonic’s trimmer has 19 different settings and cuts at a dizzying 9,800 cuts per minute. And while it’s one of the more dominant beard trimmers on this roster, it is also wonderfully suited to maintain your chest, groin, and back hair. It can also handle a simple buzz cut, though we’ll always advocate for using a separate, full-on hair clipper for that.)
The Best Budget Beard Trimmer
There’s no shame in not wanting to buy an expensive beard trimmer. In fact, it’s good to start with a smaller investment, in case you’re unsure of how long you’ll be growing things out. King C. Gillette has answered the call: it can trim between 1-21mm with its bare head and three guards.
The Best Beard Trimmer for Lineups
Bevel’s ergo-sleek trimmer took home a GQ Grooming Award a couple years back, and has yet to be replaced. It’ll give you a clean, barber-caliber line-up along the cheeks, burns, mustache, and neck. It’s your go-to device for neckline cleanups too: Steady-handed significant other or best friend not included. It’s also great if you want to maintain a short stubble and are otherwise prone to ingrown hairs. Oh, and if all-black-everything is your game, then there’s a Bevel trimmer for that, too.
