Many men never even take the time to care for their beards, even if they choose to grow one.
Unfortunately, a lack of maintenance and care can result in irritated skin, an unruly and untamed beard, and unhappy significant others due to coarse facial hair.
Caring for and grooming your beard need not be complicated, and common beard-related skin and dryness issues are easily overcome with the right grooming practices and tools.
Here are five essential grooming tips that will help you keep your beard looking and feeling healthy.
1. Get in The Habit of Trimming Regularly
Whether you just want to maintain length or grow out your beard, regular trimming should be a part of your routine. Eliminating dead and split ends will help maintain your beard's appearance and health.
Trimming should be performed at least once per week. Ultimately, it's a matter of preference, but regular care is essential.
You'll want to invest in a good comb, clippers, scissors, and moisturizer or beard oil if you don't have these items on hand already. Also learn how to trim a beard the right way so you don't make unnecessary mistakes.
Thanks to the popularity of beards, beard oil has also been getting significantly more attention as of late. It's a product that moisturizes the skin beneath your beard, keeping your skin and beard healthy. We'll take a closer look at beard oil in just a moment.
2. Don't Forget To Wash Your Beard
Your beard requires regular cleaning. Not only does it come in contact with foods and drinks throughout the day, but it can also be affected by oils and dead skin cells. As a result, daily washing needs to be made a priority.
Unwashed beards can also cause irritation and itching, which tends to be worse when you're in the early stages of growth. To avoid excessive irritation, give your beard the same care you would give the hair on your head.
It's worth learning about the various beard growth stages so that you know what to expect, and what maintenance work you'll need to do to grow a thick and healthy beard.
3. Apply Beard Oil
Beard oil can help prevent dryness, and can be used at every stage of growth to moisturize and prevent skin flaking. It can also help with unruly hair that you just can't seem to control.
Beards tend to dry out your skin, and can cause redness, dryness, flakiness, and irritation.
This is why it's essential to care for your skin and beard with the use of beard oil, which can help with appearance as well as overall health. It will also soften your beard, making it less coarse and sharp to the touch.
Find out what the best beard oil is for optimum results. You'll want to apply it every morning to slightly damp towel dried hair.
4. Train Your Beard
Unless you're one of the lucky few with great genetics, your beard isn't going to grow looking neat and tidy. In many cases, it will be downright unruly as it starts to come in, and gaining control of it can be a challenge.
You'll want to spend some time training your beard so that it grows in the way you want it to. A good brush is par for the course, and you'll want to take some time to brush it on a daily basis. Make good use of that brush!
Don't stop brushing your beard even after it has started growing the way you've trained it to. Regular brushing will support beard health.
5. Soften Your Beard
As we've already established, beards have a tendency to grow in coarse and unruly. With regular maintenance, you can improve its appearance, but it can be a challenge to get it feeling soft and smooth.
This is because beards make it easy for your skin to dry out. And if you aren't regularly trimming and maintaining your beard, it will likely have split ends too.
There are other beard softener options worth exploring, such as beard balm. Brushing your beard with a boar hair brush and shampooing and conditioning can also help with keeping your beard softer to the touch.
Men with active dating lives or significant others will want to keep their love interests happy with a softer, cleaner, and neater beard.
Final Thoughts
We've covered the essential grooming tips for the bearded man, and you should now have a better idea of how to groom a beard.
Caring for your beard will require a bit of your time, but the process is simple. Follow the steps outlined above, and you'll have a better-maintained beard than most men out there.