How to care for your beard

I’ve had a full-face beard for close to 6 years as of writing this article, and I’ve gone down to the skin twice in that time: once during the lockdown and once last year for no real reason at all.

Having a large beard is similar to being heavily tattooed (which I also am)—you get used to having it/them and forget that, to other people, especially strangers, it’s quite a striking look. Because of that, I find myself getting the occasional compliment from a stranger, albeit more when streaming or during other online activities than in real life.

I thought I would share my personal thoughts on the growing phase, cleaning, and grooming. This isn’t to say that my thoughts are perfect, but I have the receipts.

Growing

I’ll start this topic off with a hard hitter: If you don’t have the genetic ability to grow facial hair, I can’t help you.

However, that being said, I do have some tips for you—well, one tip—and this comes from my own personal experience:

• If you have “bum fluff,” aka soft baby hair on your face, shave it off.

I joined the Army at 16 years old, and I had the whitest baby hairs covering my face, yet I was forced (literally) to shave every day. After a few years, I was no longer shaving baby hair but actual beard hair. I didn’t get many opportunities to truly test my beard-growing abilities until later in my career when I was on paternity leave and post-deployment leave, at which point I knew I now had the ability to grow a beard.

Growing phase tips

It’s my opinion that when growing an actual beard (not the baby hair stage), it’s akin to nurturing a houseplant. You need to give it attention daily, follow a routine, rotate it, and water it to see results (ok, maybe not that last part).

• Invest in a good comb and use it daily. Use it to guide the hair down, and over time your beard will naturally grow even and straight.
• Get comfortable shaving your cheek and neckline.
  • You’ll only need to shave the neckline until your beard becomes long enough that you can’t see your neck, but in the growth stage, it’s vital for not looking like a complete mess.
  • Cheek lines will always need shaving. The method I used when growing the beard in was to literally take a ruler, place it from the middle of my ear to the corner of my mouth, and shave along it. As your beard gets longer and thicker, you can freehand it a couple of times a week.

Cleaning

Cleaning can be broken into two phases as the method will change at each phase.

Growing in phase

During this phase, I would clean your entire face with a daily scrub, including the stubble/short beard. Your beard is growing out of your skin, so it’s important to have healthy skin (and it’s just a good thing to do).

Thick/Long beard phase

If this is the phase that you want to get to (like mine), then the game will change a little.

For the first 5 years of my beard life, I had very short hair or a completely shaved head, so my shower routine was a simple body wash, even when my beard was long. I now have long hair, past my shoulders in fact, so I now shampoo and condition my hair every day, which means I also shampoo my beard at the same time.

I don’t, however, condition my beard. I feel like it makes it too soft, which can make it go a little crazy in the wind.

Grooming

I’ve mentioned how neck and cheek lines are important during the growth stage of your beard, but I haven’t mentioned what to do when your beard hits “long” status.

One of the first things that will make you realize you have to start doing some manual grooming will be when you start dragging parts of your beard into your mouth when you’re eating. This is caused by the hair at the corners of your mustache and will get very annoying very fast.

If you have a significant other, you will no doubt be requested to trim your mustache in order to expose your lips. This is a simple enough task and one that I carry out with a pair of nail scissors. Just remember: you can’t put hair back on, but you can always take more off.

When you hit the stage of having a beard like mine, another grooming/trimming step that I carry out maybe once a month is to take the scissors to the main body of the beard after a good wash and dry. After it’s been freshly washed and dried, you will see the stray hairs start to stick out, which is the perfect time to snip them off, one hair at a time.

Bonus points

• I personally believe that beard oil is a con, and there’s no need for it at all. In fact, if you use beard oil and don’t properly clean the skin under the beard, it can cause blocked pores and be very painful.
• When trimming, just remember to always take off less than you think. You can quite literally remove months of growth in a single snip.

This has been a bit of a freehand brain dump, so feel free to tweet me with any questions at @grapplingdev.