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Sideburns are patches of facial hair on the sides of one's face, in front of the ears. They were originally called burnsides, possibly after General Ambrose Burnside. His hairstyle, commonly known as mutton-chops or chops, connected thick sideburns via the moustache but left the chin clean-shaven.

Sideburns may end at mid-ear level; they may end at the earlobe; or they may extend downward and follow the jawline, nearly meeting at the chin. They can be slender or wide, clipped closely or allowed to grow bushy. They can end in points, or bluntly, and be either cut squarely or flared wide, following the hairline on the upper cheek. They can be worn alone, or in combination with a moustache or a goatee. However, when they extend from ear to ear via the chin, the sideburns are merely part of the beard, and thus are not known as such.

Indigenous men of Mexico, who shave their heads and wear their sideburns long, as well as Colombians, who wear their sideburns long and typically do not have any other facial hair, are said to be wearing balcarrotas.

After the clean-shaven period of the eighteenth century, sideburns, like beards, became greatly popular in the nineteenth century throughout the Western world, a trend later adopted in Japan. Nineteenth-century sideburns were often much more extravagant than those seen today - very bushy and extending much further down, almost to the chin. As with beards, sideburns went widely out of fashion in the early twentieth century, but made a comeback in the 1960s and 1970s among the younger generation. Thus, depending on one's perspective, growing sideburns may be seen as stuffily Victorian and ultra-conservative or a sign of 1970s-style rebelliousness. Today sideburns enjoy an intermediate level of popularity.

Men known for their sideburns

See also

Facial hair

Koteletten | Balcarrotas | Polisonger

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Sideburns".

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