"Personally, I'd be suspicious of a Turk who couldn't grow a mustache, " said Cengiz Altug, a salesman from Istanbul who has worn a bushy mustache for 35 of his 56 years.

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Seated to his left, Alijan Ibragimov laughs approvingly as Chodiev recounts the time they insisted Machkevich grow back a mustache after he had shaved it off.

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"Movember is the perfect excuse for men to trial facial hair, especially those who worry about not being able to grow a full beard or mustache, " she says.

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Although he ambles around Whitechapel in his brown hat and green jacket with a six-shooter strapped to his waist, it was the mustache (he would never grow one for himself), and Warlow's larger-than-life concept of Jackson, that made things come alive for Rothenberg.

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