You’re sporting an amazing beard – now it’s time to care for it and keep it healthy and handsome for a long time to come.
Before we start, if you’re sporting a beard, you’re definitely adding character and ruggedness to your appearance. That said, beards have their own personality if not well tamed. So, that’s what we’ll be exploring today in the next 7 tips.
Tip #1: Keep it Clean
To care for your beard, you need to keep it clean by regularly washing it just like you do your head hair. It can get clogged with dust, dandruff, and other debris that gives it an off appearance. Simply use beard shampoo during your shower to ensure it stays clean.
Tip #2: Condition your Beard
Shampoo cleans your beard, but it doesn’t do anything for the hair itself. Conditioner on the other hand creates a protective coating over the hair follicle. Think of it like filling up potholes on the road. This ensures the hair can bend without cracking and be subjected to heat without splitting. This ends up making it soft to the touch and shiny.
Tip #3: Nourish the skin under the beard
Every day, use good quality beard oil to nourish the skin underneath your beard. With all that hair, your skin can get dry, become itchy and begin to flake. Beard oil prevents that. Remember, care for the skin under the beard, and you care for the beard.
Tip #4: Coat the board with balm
Once you’ve applied beard oil, coat the hair itself with balm. Beard balm is effective in keeping your hair from drying out and also makes it easier to shape.
Tip #5: Brush your Beard
Once you’ve applied balm, it’s important to ensure all the hair follicles get even coverage. This is best achieved with a quality board bristle beard brush. Use the beard brush to stroke your hair in the direction you want to shape your beard and that will keep it straight, but also coat all the follicles with the balm. This also ejects loose debris from your beard and keeps it from tangling. For that reason, it’s good to have a beard brush handy throughout the day.
Tip #6: Shape Your Beard
Use a heated beard comb or a fine tooth circle comb and blow dryer to shape your beard and make it straight. The best way to do this right is to book an appointment with your barber and ask him to show you the hand technique. Once you’ve shaped your beard, use the cold shot of the blow dryer to cool the balm down fast and lock the hair into shape.
Tip #7: Trim your Beard
Now, I recommend this tip with caution. Only use sharp beard shears to cut stubborn fly-aways. Fly-aways are those annoying beard hairs that refuse to bow to your direction. They stick out like twigs. For those, go at them with shears. BUT, do not use the shears to shape your beard or take out chunks of hair. It will only mess up the beard. I’ve seen people shave off their whole beard because they made one mistake with the shears or buzzers. Reserve major re-shaping of the beard to your barber. That’s why we’re here!
So, in essence, care for your beard by using shampoo, conditioner, beard oil and beard balm. Then shape it with a beard brush, blow dryer, and shears. But, leave the major work to the barber. By doing all this, we guarantee you’ll be sporting one incredible, jaw-dropping, head-turning beard. All that’s left is the mustache. But that’s for another article.
We hope you’ll enjoy your next haircut and beard trim with Oakville’s Best Barbershop, Goldwyn & Sons.
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