Mustaches for Kids :: New York

What is a mustache?

November 16th, 2011 by Ali

'I know."

The first week of mustache growing can be tough. New growers can be fall victim to introspection and self doubt, even existential crisis. It’s in that spirit that we pose the question: What is a mustache?

Just hair on the top lip? Well obviously not; if it were, every poser in a goatee could be said to have a mustache. Why, I’d have a mustache every time I forgot to shave for a week. No, a mustache is defined by it’s boundaries – by the space around it. If there were no space, there would be no mustache.

And then: any hair on the top lip? No indeed. My 5 year old son has some hair on his top lip, you could hardly call that a mustache. For a mustache to be a mustache, it must be visible and verifiable by other people. Someone else must validate the mustache. A mustache has to reach a certain level of visibility, before that you are merely ‘Growing A Mustache’, you do not ‘Have A Mustache’.

Interestingly, I’d suggest that the top lip part is not vital, you could have something that looked like a mustache anywhere and there is a slim chance that it might be referred to as a mustache. Even hair itself is not vital; a milk mustache is a good example of that.

So, I claim it’s just these two things:

• Mustache-shaped, as defined by a boundary of non-mustache
• Visible and noticeable by a third party

Entry Filed under: Checkpoints,Growers