Growing a Basic Beard into a Manly Mane

So you’ve got a beard sprouting from your face. But, that’s not all that goes into it. Are you properly caring for your majestic face warmer?

We often get engrossed in the thoughts of growing legendary beards and start contemplating various styles but forget that beards ultimately require regular maintenance. Maintaining your beard and keeping it healthy on a regular basis is just as important as brushing your teeth. After all, you want your beard to be the best beard it can be, not some scraggly bird’s nest.

Let’s go over some tips on transforming that ordinary facial hair of yours into a hearty and majestic mane.

Maintaining a Healthy Beard

Clean It

One topic that’s always discussed is the frequency of washing your beard in order to keep it clean and healthy. We’ve found that shampooing your beard twice a week is the best course of action.

You don’t want to shampoo too often as it will remove the natural oils your beard produces, drying out your beard, the skin underneath, and possibly leading to dandruff. Some of the chemicals in shampoos are also notorious for damaging facial hair, especially if used too much. Choosing a light, natural shampoo formulated for cleaning beards is the safest method.

Shampooing twice a week or about every three days is usually plenty for removing dirt, grime, and leftover taco fillings. Spread out the days you shampoo your beard and get a feel for your beard and how it reacts to your hygiene routine. If your beard stays super dry for too long after shampooing, you may want to try just once per week.

Protect It

After cleaning your beard, I recommend conditioning it with a beard oil. Some of the many benefits of beard oils include their capability to moisturize dry hairs and provide a thin layer of protection against the dreaded elements. Beard oil also penetrates down to the roots of your beard hairs and further moisturizes and protects the skin underneath that far too often gets neglected when covered by a lion’s mane.

Besides wholesome protection, beard oil makes beards look damn good. They do this by adding shine and radiance to the average, bland-looking beard. While some oils might have a more matte finish, most will give your beard a noticeable glossy effect.

A good beard oil is very effective for any beard and something I highly recommend any serious beardsman acquire and make use of on a regular basis.The great thing about beard oil is it doesn’t take much — even for a large beard. A couple drops after your beard shampoo session and you’re good to go. The majority of them are also infused with great, manly scents as an added bonus.

Trim It

A proper beard grooming routine is an absolutely essential way to keep a beard healthy and in tiptop shape. First off, using a beard comb each day helps remove dead, scraggly hairs and makes way for new, growing hairs. Beard combs not only help keep it healthy, but help make your beard neat and presentable by taming unruly hairs.

Other requisite utensils are beard scissors. Trim away extra long beard hairs to keep your profile nice and neat, rather than scraggly and unkempt. Beard scissors are also great at keeping split ends at bay. Split ends will continue to grow split unless the ends are trimmed away. For this, a sharp pair of scissors is far superior to electric trimmers. Electric trimmers don’t provide the same level of clean, straight cuts and may actually cause split ends.

Using beard scissors for the first time can be a daunting task, especially when you’ve spent so long growing your masterpiece and are anxious to not screw it up. Remember to cut as little as possible each time. You can always come back around for more if needed, but it’s going to take a lot longer to grow back if you cut off too much.

If you’re very uncomfortable doing it I recommend seeing your local barber. You don’t want to make the mistake millions of men make when trimming their beards. Find a reputable barber with experience that you can observe trimming your beard. A great barber would be happy to walk you through the steps and give you some tips for trimming your beard at home. Not to mention, barber beard sessions are amazing. Have you ever had a hot towel treatment? It’s out of this world.

Don’t Touch It

Some of us get into this habit of touching, pulling, or playing with our beard throughout the day — either intentionally or out of habit. Most of us touch the hairs around the chin, in particular. Frequently touching your beard can stunt the growth in that area and damage your beard hairs.

You’ll see guys asking why the center of the beard under their chin doesn’t grow as fast. Habitually toying with beard hair could be damaging hair follicles, thinning out your mane, and preventing uniform beard growth.

Touching your beard can also strip it of the naturally produced oils and added beard oils that keep it healthy. Stripping oils from your beard leads to dryness and can then lead to dandruff. This is akin to removing your body armor in the heat of battle and asking why a sword has just pierced your gut.

Your hands are filthy as hell. Throughout the day, they’ve accumulated dirt, germs, and grime from touching pens, door handles, steering wheels, cash, and what have you. Now you’re going to transfer colonies of living bacteria to your face and wonder why your skin is growing ingrown hairs and why your beard glows like the sun when positioned under a blacklight.

If you want your beard nice and healthy, quit fondling your beard. Enforce a hands-off policy and touch it as little as possible.

In Conclusion

Keeping a healthy beard is very important. There might be a lot more to it than you’d initially thought. Hopefully these tips will help you step up your beard game to the next level. Develop good beard grooming habits today and in short time, you’ll see them pay off in the form of a majestic, manly mane.

Guest post by Wesley Oaks. Wesley is the owner of iManscape.com a website where men, beards, and manscaping THRIVE! Check out his website and follow the iManscape on Facebook for more from Wesley.