It’s that time of year again! Here’s another instalment in the definitive guide to scientist moustaches, TIR’s annual celebration of some great minds and the great moustaches that went (just) before them. Links to parts I-VII can be found at the end for real moustache aficionados.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Movember Foundation is a charity focused on men’s health issues – prostate cancer, testicular cancer, suicide prevention, and mental health in particular. “Mo Bros” grow moustaches – sometimes dashing, sometimes daft – for the 30 days of November in order to help raise awareness of these issues. It’s fun, and it’s an important cause that TIR is proud to support (and participate in!) each year.

PHYSICIST MOUSTACHES

Name: Jagadish Chandra Bose 🇮🇳

Known for: His work on radio microwave optics, which strongly influenced those focused on the more practical application of transforming radio into a means of communication. He discovered millimetre-length electromagnetic waves, was the first to use a semi-conducting crystal to detect radio waves, and additionally carried out groundbreaking work on plants and biophysics. Established the Bose institute in Kolkata, India.

Moustache: Zappa (or should we be calling a Zappa a Bose instead?)

Moustache rating: 8/10. Too expansive to be a Chevron, too groomed at the top lip to be a Walrus or an Imperial, too genteel to be a Hungarian, and not curled upwards to be a handlebar, this is a statement ‘tache and coupled with those heavy-lidded eyes it’s enough to take your breath away. Bose was clean shaven in his later years, which seems a shame given that he blazed such a trail not just with his science, but with his grooming.

Name: Peter Grünberg 🇩🇪

Known for: Discovering the giant magnetoresistive effect (GMR), together with Albert Fert, which enabled the development of gigabyte-capacity computer hard drives.

Moustache: Chevron

Moustache rating: 7/10. Nothing flashy or unorthodox about this, with its clean lines going to the corners of the mouth, tidy manicuring at the top lip, and luxuriant but constrained growth. Its value though comes in how it acts as a visual counterpart to Grünberg’s innately puckish expression – the alertness in his eyes and the energy in his frame shine through in almost every picture you see of him, so this stately and sedate anchor in the middle of his face grounds everything. Imagine how he’d look without it – neurotic and slightly unhinged.

Name: Ivan Puluj 🇺🇦

Known for: Discovering X-rays independently of and roughly contemporaneously with Wilhelm Röntgen, alongside publishing prolifically on cathode rays. Invented a device for measuring the mechanical equivalent of heat, and was also a strong promoter of Ukrainian culture. He published articles supporting Ukrainian language, pushed for the opening of a Ukrainian university in Lviv, and translated the Bible into Ukrainian.

Moustache: Handlebar

Moustache rating: 8/10. Swoon. If he hadn’t been a scientist, he could have been a movie star. From middle age onwards he sported a full beard, but look at this youthful god, a Slavic Clark Gable. Notable too how the waves in his hair are beautifully complemented by the curving line of the Handlebar. Pure class.

CHEMIST MOUSTACHES

Name: Leopold Ružička 🇭🇷🇨🇭

Known for: His work on the chemistry of biological compounds, which included terpineol (of interest to the perfume industry), being the first to synthesise musk on an industrial scale (again, of great and direct interest to the perfume industry), and synthesising the sex hormones androsterone and testosterone. 

Moustache: Lampshade

Moustache rating: 4/10. Like many of his age, Ružička had a Toothbrush moustache in the 1930s but sensibly extended the margins in the post-WW2 period. It’s still unsatisfactory though,  and a question mark rather than an exclamation mark. Why constrain it when it’s so patently capable of growing more? Why have such a limited moustache when you have such a naturally large muzzle? What’s needed here is a Horseshoe, or an oversized Handlebar.

Name: Henry Taube 🇨🇦🇺🇸

Known for: His work on redox reactions and coordination chemistry, with a particular specialisation in electron transfer. He was the second Nobel chemistry prize laureate to hail from Canada, and remains the sole Nobelist from Saskatchewan.

Moustache: Painter’s Brush

Moustache rating: 7/10. The Painter’s Brush is not a popular style, and Taube almost proves why, but this is nonetheless about the finest example of it you’ll ever see and you have to admire a man who leans into something. Shaved below the nose, delimited by the smile lines around the mouth, and with the top lip left meticulously clear of offending strands, it’s a style that few will rush to follow nowadays, but you have to respect somebody when they commit to something properly and see it through.

Name: Percy Lavon Julian 🇺🇸

Known for:  Synthesising progesterone, oestrogen and testosterone from the plant compounds stigmasterol and stiosterol, both purified from soybean oil using a protocol of his own design. The industrial-scale production of these hormones enabled treatment of hormonal deficiencies. In the private sector, he organised the first plant in the world for the production of isolated soy protein from soybean meal at industrial-grade purity. This was subsequently used to develop firefighting foam that was put to use on WW2 ships, and was reckoned to have saved the lives of thousands of military personnel. Later founding and then selling his own chemical company, he became one of the first Black millionaires.

Moustache: Pyramid

Moustache rating: 8/10. The Pyramid is a difficult ‘tache to pull off, because it only works with a certain amount of contrast between the hair colour and the skin, and also requires an inordinate amount of grooming to keep it in shape, but when it’s done properly – as here! – the results can be spectacular. Julian is another standard-bearer with movie-star looks and he just oozes wealth and sophistication. He took the crosspiece to Pencil thickness in later years but it’s at its best here. Everyone can immediately tell this is a man with an eye for detail.

BIOLOGIST MOUSTACHES

Name: Nikolai Koltsov 🇷🇺

Known for: Proposing the concept of a cell cytoskeleton, and – remarkably presciently! – predicting that cellular traits would be inherited through a “giant hereditary molecule” with “two mirror strands that would replicate in a semi-conservative manner using each strand as a template”. His career was curtailed by political persecution in Stalinist Russia, and his abrupt death may have been the result of poisoning.

Moustache: Walrus, with long goatee

Moustache rating: 9/10. Magnificent. On bigger men the Walrus conveys a kind of grandeur but Koltsov shows too how it can be used to communicate mystery – we cover our mouths when we’re concealing our emotions, and the Walrus is defined by its total obfuscation of both lips. Perfect for a man who had to think about what he shared, and who had to choose his words with care.

Name: Umetaro Suzuki 🇯🇵

Known for: Being the first person in the world to isolate vitamin B1 (thiamine) and showed that it could be used to cure beriberi (which at the time was killing more than 10,000 people a year in Japan alone). Became a scientific advisor at Sankyo (nowadays the pharma giant Daiichi Sankyo) and helped, amongst other things, with developing Japan’s first synthetic agricultural chemical, which paved the way for Sankyo to enter the agrochemicals sector.

Moustache: Pyramid

Moustache rating: 4/10. Suzuki can’t be flawed for his immaculate maintenance on this growth, but its one which doesn’t work to help him. The downcast angle of his eyebrows finds an unhelpful mirror in the contours of the pyramid, and so the whole effect is one of dragging your eyes downwards towards his chin. He’dve been better served with a Petit Handlebar to give his expression a bit more playfulness and pizzazz. 

Name: Melchior Treub 🇳🇱

Known for: His work in tropical botany, particularly the parasitic Balanophoraceae and hemiparasitic Loranthaceae. Travelled extensively in East Asia and published almost as widely, with key contributions to the plant diseases affecting various crop plants.

Moustache: Hungarian

Moustache rating: As a tall, lean, and rather cadaverous man, Treub shows what a powerful enhancement a well-chosen moustache can be for a gentleman’s features. With this bold, flaring, and effervescent Hungarian he positively transforms his demeanour from one of mere solemnity into real gravitas.

Mo fan? Want mo’ Mo’s?

Then click on the links for more “Great scientists, great moustaches” from 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2025!

More information on the Movember Foundation and its work can be found here.

(My winter 2023 moustache – 4 months of growth)