Beard Grooming Tips: How to Maintain an Awesome-Looking Beard

Having a beard goes beyond just growing a beard. Once you’ve grown one, you will need to maintainh good beard grooming habits to keep your beard looking awesome. In this article, we will go over some of the best beard grooming tricks and tips to help you achieve an awesome-looking beard!

Trimming Your Beard

If you’re growing a beard, or already have one, the first thing that you need to know is how to trim your beard – whether it’s to maintain your beard’s length, or to clean it up.

Below you’ll find five tips for beard trimming to help you get started with your bread grooming.

1. If you don’t know how long you want your beard to be, begin using a higher guard number and slowly work down from there to find the best guard size.
2. Use a beard comb to keep everything in place, including your mustache. Snip away any stray hairs that hang over your lip or stand out.
3. The best way to take care of your mustache is to use some facial hair scissors – they’re also great for spot-checking.
4. Electric beard trimmers have guard lengths, and they are different from one trimmer to another.  Sometimes a “1” means “1/4,” and other times, it simply means “1mm.” You will need to figure out what your guard lengths are on your trimmer and then determine which size you prefer to use.
5. You should never trim your beard when it’s wet. Always do it when it’s dry because this is how it will look throughout the day.

Even if you plan on growing out your beard, you still have to trim it as part of your monthly beard grooming routine.

If you are looking for a good electric beard trimmer, here are a couple that we recommend.

Philips Norelco MG7750/49 Multigroom Series 7000.   With 23 pieces and a five hour runtime between charges, this Philips Norelco trimmer is a good solid choice for your shaving and trimming needs.  It has self-sharpening blades that will last for up to five years.

Braun Beard Trimmer BT7240.  This is a more expensive choice, but Braun  is known for the quality of its products.  With 39 length settings, this beard trimmer has all of the necessary attachments and features to trim your beard.

Please see our guide, How to Choose the Best Beard Trimmer for more beard trimmer suggestions.

Fading Your Beard

You can use your trimmer to achieve the perfect beard fade. You’ll find the steps below.

1. Put the three-guard on your trimmer and buzz your entire beard.
2. Switch the guard to a one and trim from your Adam’s apple to about two inches under your jaw.
3. Using a two-guard, buzz the leftover two-inch area, fading and finessing the 1 zone into the 3 zone.
4. Remove the guard and trim below your Adam’s apple and any stray hairs on the side of your neck.

Fading your beard has never been so easy with these simple steps.

Trimming Your Beard Neckline

Before you start fading your beard, you need to create a defined neckline. Doing this helps prevent you from accidentally creating a neckbeard and will also show how serious you are about beard grooming.

Trimming your beard neckline is pretty straightforward. Take two fingers and place them right above your Adam’s apple. Imagine that there is a U-shape that connects to the back of each ear and meets in the middle at the base of the U. You then want to take your trimmer and shave everything below this line, with no guard on. You can also do this with a razor if you prefer!

For more details on how to trim your beard neckline, see our guide: How to Trim a Beard Neckline the Right Way

Trimming Without the Mess

Are you searching for a no-mess trimmer? Several trimmers on the market have built-in vacuums that will pick up 90 percent of those pesky stray hairs. They’re a bit more expensive, but having one of these trimmers will save you time in clean-up and keep your significant other happy.

Remington Hc6550 Cordless Vaccuum Hair and Beard Trimmer.  This all-inclusive kit includes the trimmer as well as length-adjusting and tapering combs.  The kit also contains barber scissors, a brush, and blade oil.  The trimmer will run for up to an hour between charges.

Three Myths, Debunked

Three common myths revolve around having a beard, so let’s debunk them.

Myth 1: There are certain vitamins and food that spur faster beard growth

No vitamin or food will make your beard grow faster. However, amino acids are needed in our diet to help grow hair. This is why some guys who are anemic have trouble with their beards thinning.

Myth 2: Your beard will be fuller if you shave more often

Shaving has nothing to do with the rate at which your facial hair grows. One of the reasons that this myth exists is because after shaving, the thinner tips of your beard hair have been removed, leaving the thicker stubble to grow out, and giving your beard a thicker appearance.  Over time the stubble will grow new tips, leaving you exactly where you started on the thickness scale.

Myth 3: Gray beards are coarser

As we get older, hair follicles get smaller, but structurally speaking, gray beards aren’t that different from regular beards. If a gray beard seems coarse, it’s most likely because it’s full of split ends and hasn’t been properly conditioned.

Keeping Your Beard Soft

One of the most important things about beard grooming is keeping your beard soft to help prevent the dreaded beard itch.

“You are what you eat.” We’ve all heard this phrase before, and the same can be said about your beard. If you aren’t feeding it anything, your beard can become a brittle skeleton, scratching everything it comes in contact with, including your skin. This is how beard itch happens.

You can avoid this by routinely applying beard oil, nourishing balms, and conditioning creams to your beard, regardless of the length. All of these things hydrate your beard hairs, help with flying astray and frizzing, and even soften them.

These oils and creams also help to hydrate your skin under your beard, reducing dry skin and beard dandruff.

Steps to Applying Beard Oil

You typically want to apply your beard oil once per day after you get out of the shower. It might seam logical to apply beard oil when your beard is wet, but actually this is the best time to apply it. Chances are, you’ve taken a warm shower, so your hair cells and pores are open. This makes it so that the oil can be absorbed effectively. Make sure to pat down your beard with a towel before applying the oil, because this method works for damp beards, not soaked ones.

For it to be the most effective, you should focus on getting the oil down to the skin underneath your beard instead of only applying the oil to the ends of your beard.

How much oil you’ll need to use depends on the size of your beard. Huge beards typically take seven to eight drops, whereas smaller beards might only require three or four drops.

V76 by Vaughn Beard Oil.  This beard oil was named GQ Magazine’s best in 2019 for preventing dryness. It’s easily absorbed, and it will sooth your facial hair and skin.

How to Apply Balm

You’ll want to start by rubbing the balm between your palms to emulsify it, and then you’ll work it through your beard, making sure to get down to your skin. Not all of the balm will come off your hands: you can use the excess to apply it to your hair or to dry areas of skin.

For most beards, using a nickel’s worth of balm is enough to cover your entire beard. If you’re unsure of how much you’ll need, you can always start out using less than a nickel’s worth and add more as you see fit.

Woody’s Beard Balm.  This beard balm is made from coconut oil and beard wax.  It will leave your beard shiny and will control the frizz.

The Essentials for Beard Grooming

Beard Brush

Beard brushes are essential for several reasons. First, they help with distributing the oils if you have a long beard, pulling it from the shaft to the rest of the beard hair.

Secondly, they help exfoliate your skin under your beard, and then you don’t have to deal with beard dandruff. Third, they yank out any debris from your beard that you would’ve missed otherwise.

You don’t need to use your beard brush more than once per day, and the best times to brush out your beard are in the morning or when you’re fresh out of the shower styling.

You’ll want to start by brushing your beard out if you have a short beard – say about half an inch worth of hair – it’s a matter of brushing straight down and getting the beard hairs to go in the direction you want them.

Below you’ll find a list of some important things to consider when brushing your beard:

• If you have a short beard, you need to be careful when using a beard brush. You can easily irritate your skin if you brush too hard. If you only have a couple of weeks’ worth of growth or a stubble beard, you’ll want to brush your beard less frequently until it is grown out more.
• Brushing is a natural treatment for your beard because it evenly distributes natural oils throughout the hair of your beard.
• Everyday brushing will help make your beard softer.
• Brushing can even add volume.
• Too much brushing can cause split ends and an overly fuzzy beard.

One beard brush that we recommend is the ZilberHaar Beard Brush with Soft Boar Bristles.  This beard brush is made in Germany and is very high quality.

Beard Comb

Beard combs aren’t as effective for everyday use as beard brushes, but nothing beats them if your beard is tangled. You might think that you know how to comb your beard already, but you’re wrong. Using a comb on your beard involves employing techniques to help you make the most of your beard grooming experience.

Your beard comb should have both narrow and wide teeth arrangements. The wide teeth are to use on your beard – which is thicker – and the narrow teeth are to be used on your mustache.

You’ll want to start by using the comb in a way where the teeth are facing upward. You’ll want to have a relaxed grip on the comb – almost like using a toothbrush – so you can maintain control while combing. Next, you’ll start combing your beard with an upward motion to fluff the hair away from your face. The goal of this is to separate the hairs so you can effectively get rid of the bed-beard look.

You’re going to end up running into snags. Snags don’t mean that you have knots in your beard, rather it’s caused by individual strands of your beard hair growing in differing directions and crossing over each other. When you hit a snag, don’t force it out. Instead, you should gently pull it with your beard comb. Keep in mind that combing your beard isn’t a race, and there aren’t any bonus points for combing faster than someone else.

After you’ve combed out your beard out layer by layer, use the comb to shape your beard. You can use some products and your hands to apply finishing touches after you’ve combed it into the shape you want.

The Hunter Jack Beard Comb for Men is made of wood and comes in a leather case.  This is an excellent choice for a beard comb.

How to Clean Your Beard

Another important part of beard grooming is washing your beard. You’ll want to use a beard wash and a beard softener.

Beard wash is gentler on your beard hair and facial skin than regular shampoo. This is because it contains milder ingredients that help create a gentle lather.

To apply your beard wash, you’ll want to put a small amount in your hand and rub it into your wet beard during your shower. You don’t need to use it every time that you shower unless you work in a place where you’ll have dirt and grime in your beard hair daily. If you spend most of your workday in front of a computer, daily washing isn’t necessary.

Once you have rinsed out the beard wash, then apply the softener throughout your beard. Let the softener sit in your beard for a couple of minutes while you continue showering, then rinse it out right before you get out of the shower. You’ll find that leaving the softener in your beard for a couple of minutes makes a huge difference in your beard conditioning.

Viking Revolution Beard Wash & Beard Conditioner Set. Many men swear by Viking Revolution’s products, and this beard wash and conditioner set comes with both argan oil and jojoba oil to soften your beard and keep it smelling great!

Parting Words

Growing a beard isn’t as easy as avoiding shaving for a couple of weeks and acting like nothing has changed except for some new hair. You must groom your beard to keep it clean, stylish, and awesome looking. Keeping up with beard grooming is simple if you follow all of the tips we’ve provided in this article.

Trimming your beard helps keep it healthy while also helping you maintain the perfect length. Applying beard oil and balm helps keep your beard hair soft and luxurious, while washing it with beard wash and softener helps to keep it clean. Brush and comb your beard daily to get rid of beard dandruff and unwanted debris from your beard hair.

These are the main steps to beard grooming, If you keep it up, you’ll soon find that your beard is softer, cleaner, healthier, and awesome looking.