A pavements and construction equipment duty identifier patch is seen on an airman’s uniform during training at Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center in Edinburgh, Ind., March 4, 2023. (Jonathan Padish/U.S. Air Force)
Career field identifier patches and 57 colors of nail polish are out, gig lines and short hair are in, according to an Air Force order that reverses dress and appearance regulations loosened just one year ago.
“I expect compliance with these updates as the military duty of the total Air Force,” Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Allvin wrote in a memo Friday. A copy was posted Wednesday on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page, where it quickly accumulated more than 700 comments.
Allvin banned the career field identifier patches worn on airmen’s camouflage-pattern utility uniforms.
“Over the years we have increased the number of approved tabs to where now we have over 134 approved tabs,” he said in a video uploaded Monday to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. “As we identify ourselves as one type of airman or another, with one specialty or another, we really diminish ourselves.”
The video was posted to the official Air Force website on Wednesday.
“Our real value is our integral part of a winning war fighting team,” Allvin added.
He also reduced the permitted colors of nail polish from 60 to three; now only “clear, or French or American Manicure” are allowed.
He clarified that hair may not touch the ears and all male airmen not on a waiver must be clean shaven at the start of each duty day.
The update also defines the dress uniform’s “gig line” — the front edge of a buttoned-down shirt’s alignment with the outside edge of a belt buckle or trouser fly.
“The gig line should be straight and neat,” Allvin’s memo states.
The policy updates take effect Saturday but do not apply to Space Force guardians, according to the memo. It does affect the Air National Guard.
In its last update to dress and appearance regulations in February 2024, the Air Force expanded the authorized nail polish colors, ponytails for female airmen and updated mustache guidelines, among many others.
A spokesperson for the Secretary of the Air Force acknowledged an email Wednesday morning requesting clarification, and said more information should be available that day.
Some comments on the Air Force amn/nco/snco post were critical of the memo. One person sarcastically wrote he was glad to see the Air Force “tackling important issues” that will help stem the service’s “overwhelming mental health crisis.”
Others saw the updates as a step forward, with one commenter saying the Air Force should “bring back boot polishing and uniform ironing.”
