How to Care for a Beard: 8 Ways to Maintain Your Beard

If you’re searching the internet to find out how to care for a beard, you’ve arrived at the right place.

The art of styling, caring for, and maintaining facial hair doesn’t need to be complicated. You might think that caring for a beard leads to convoluted answers and grooming tips, but this isn’t necessarily true.

The eight simple tips for maintaining your beard that you’ll find below are simple and easy to follow, and they don’t require that you spend hours in the bathroom, working on your beard. Just a few minutes a day is enough.

First, Be Patient

An amazing beard comes from self-restraint. During the first few weeks of growing your beard, resist that feeling of needing to style or trim.  In other words, don’t touch it for the first four to six weeks. By leaving it alone, you’re allowing the hairs to grow in fully so that you can work with the natural shape of your beard.

Use Your Face Shape to Shape Your Beard

Certain styles can look really weird on certain types of faces, so it’s important to know which type of face you have.

Read our article How to Trim a Beard for Your Face Shape – Our Simple Guide, to determine your own face shape and which beard types will work best with it.

Then do some research on the internet for examples of these types of beards.  By doing this, your beard will look better, and you’ll feel amazing.

Go to a Local Barber for Your First Beard Trim

For the most part, you’ll be able to care for your beard on your own.  But for the first trim, it can help to go to a knowledgeable barber. It can be difficult to trim your beard’s neckline for the first time, and your barber will also be able to give you professional tips.

Do the research about your face type first, so that you will be able to ask the right questions. Your barber will have tons of good input, but you want to weigh his advice with what you want for yourself.

Know When and How to Trim

Trimming is essential to having a well-groomed beard – even if you’re planning on growing it out. Once it’s grown out you will need to trim your beard regularly.  Invest in a high-quality face trimmer and find the right technique that will suit your overall beard plan.

Regularly Wash Your Beard

The first step in caring for your beard is washing it regularly, especially in the early stages of its growth. Growing a beard can be itchy in the beginning, and washing it regularly will help.

Remember that it’s not just about your beard hair, but also the skin underneath. Head shampoos will tend to dry out your facial skin, so make sure that you use a good beard shampoo/wash.

Check out our article Best Beard Shampoo: The Complete Guide to Finding the Best Wash for Your Beard for our recommendations.

To properly wash your beard, scrub the beard a few times each week with your chosen beard wash, then gently pat your beard dry.  Don’t rub too hard — an overenthusiastic toweling can lead to split ends and frizz.

• Using warm water, wet your hands
• Apply a small amount of beard shampoo (about the size of a dime) to your hands and gently massage it into your facial hair
• Once the shampoo is lathered all over your facial hair, rinse it with warm water
• Pat dry and follow with beard oil

Use Beard Oil

Beard oil can be a tricky product to use because, depending on your beard, some products can be too heavy, some too shiny, and some too dry.

Some beard oils will also work really well when your beard is short, but will not work so well once your beard is longer.  So try a few until you find the right one for your beard – you’ll know which one is right.

• The best time to apply beard oil is after a shower because your facial hair will be clean and will easily absorb the oil
• Apply around three drops of oil to your hand (you can always add more later)
• Warm the oil by rubbing your hands together, making sure to evenly coat your hands
• Work your hands through your beard, brushing down the sides of your beard, the front, and your mustache
• Brush or comb your beard to evenly distribute the oil and style your beard

Check out our article 14 Best Beard Oils: A Guide to Beard Oil and Its Uses for some beard oil recommendations and more tips.

Train Your Beard

Regularly trimming your beard will help you maintain your chosen beard shape, but trimming isn’t the only thing that you will need to take care of. Brushing or combing your beard daily will help wrangle stubborn hairs and help train them to grow in a downward direction. Like applying beard oil, it’s best to brush or comb your beard after having a shower.  You can even use a soft-hold styling wax, which can help tame any flyaway hairs and keep your beard in shape.

Don’t Forget Your Mustache

Unless you have decided to grow a chinstrap – which we hope you didn’t – growing an amazing beard also means growing an incredible mustache. Keep your mustache looking neat with little trims every four days to tame any stray hairs. Focus your attention on the area under your nose with a pair of grooming scissors, and keep it naturally sculpted with medium-hold mustache wax.

Fuel Up

Building a house is impossible without bricks, and the same concept applies to facial hair. Your beard is made from fat and protein, but it’s also reliant on Vitamins B9. B3 and B5. This means you should incorporate more lean meats, leafy greens, milk, egg yolks, and plenty of nuts. If you’re committed to a healthy beard, you can also round out your diet with supplements.

Many of the vitamins in supplements that are sold to promote beard growth can be helpful. Sadly, none of them are going to make your beard grow where no beard has grown before.

Final Thoughts

Stop searching for how to care for your beard and reread this article. The eight easy-to-follow tips that you’ve just read are the best tips that you’re going to find anywhere. They cover all the bases of caring for your beard and keeping it healthy and in shape.

Remember that the two most important tips are to wash your beard regularly and to use beard oil. These two tips are the ones that are going to have the most impact on how healthy your beard looks and feels.

Remember that you will need to be patient when growing a beard because it’s not going to happen overnight. To grow the best beard, you need to take the time to let it grow in and care for it properly.

By following these eight tips, you’ll have an amazing beard. You won’t need to do anything special, just take the time to care for your beard.

Want to learn more about caring for your beard? Check out our article How to Shape Your Beard Into Magnificence – As Advised by a Proper Barber for some tips about trimming and shaping your beard.

And see our article How to Use Beard Care Products Properly: A Guide for Men for some tips on choosing from and using the many beard care products that are currently available.

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