Like anything else pleasant and lovely, growing an adorable beard is not an easy task. You cannot expect to wake up one morning and find a beautiful mustache or beard. You need to work and practice patience for ultimate results. It is a standard for all types of beard styles you may admire or want to keep.
This post will take you through the seven most important tips to follow to groom your beard. With adequate preparation and accessories, you can do all beard maintenance at home. You will not need to visit your barber every time. You can now save yourself some time and money so that you can do other stuff.
Follow these seven essential steps and hacks for all your beard maintenance needs.
1. Clean and Moisten It
We all know that you do not want dirty and dry facial hair. Cleaning is essential, and moisturizing your beard will also help it stay soft and smooth. Washing your face each morning or when you enter your bathroom is not enough for beard grooming.
While grooming your beard, you should get a shampoo designed for the purpose. Your face skin cannot use the ordinary soap you use for the rest of your body. If you have been going for everything available, then you need to adopt a new approach for the sake of the beard you want to keep. Also, condition your beard after washing to keep it smooth and soft.
2. Brush and Trim
Once you have finished cleaning your beard, you want to make it neat. After drying your beard, take your beard brush and run it through the beard following the growing direction. Essentially, it should be downward for the front and from the neck toward the tip of your chin.
Brushing helps to smoothen the surface and remove any entanglements in between. When the beard stretches, it is easier to identify where there are inconsistencies so that you can trim it to maintain a constant shape and look. While a beard clipper is enough for the purpose, you would need a pair of scissors for the mustache to avoid the clipper guard getting caught in your nostrils.
3. Always Define Your Neckline
Your facial hair should have a limit where you want it to appear. When trimming it, you can maintain a particular size that you desire. Clear off everything else. Your neckline will dictate how far you can cut the beard. But this can vary from person to person.
As a simple guideline, you can use the adam apple as your marker. If you shave it close up around the jaws, your appearance will change like a double chin. But leaving it to grow everywhere down the neck is worse because it will no longer be a beard, but a bush.
4. Remember to Oil the Beard
If you have not been applying oil on your beard, then you have been doing it a great injustice. Maybe that is why it is breaking off and hard to maintain a consistent appearance. Like any hair, the beard needs oiling to maintain that softness because water dries off quickly.
Most people prefer to apply Australian beard oil twice a day to keep it moist. If you have finished trimming the beard, now oil it and pass a beard comb through it. Apart from making the oil to get to the deeper parts, it will highlight some of the areas you did not finish well when trimming, and you can then use a pair of scissors to give it a final touch.
5. Maintain the Beard in the Shape of Your Face
Your face needs to be consistent. Trimming your beard in the wrong way can cause your face to look scary. You should try and maintain the beard style that matches the shape of your face. Although it might not be easy to make conclusions early, you should try what is closest to your appearance. However, you cannot ignore personal preferences.
6. Practice Patience
Patience is that single element lacking in most people’s plans. You cannot attain the best results on the first day - regardless of how smart you are. To get the best beard that you can admire and improve your appearance, you need to wait for your beard to be ready for shaping.
You cannot choose the best style when you only have little hair on your face. Give it time to grow thick and long enough to start working on it.
7. Check Your Diet
While you are thinking about keeping a neat beard, you should not forget that you need to grow it first. You cannot take care of what you do not have. The hair on our body grows well when we eat the right amounts of nutrients. Anemic people often suffer beard thinning. Therefore, you should ensure that you have enough amino acids in your diet to maintain all your hair.
In summary
Beard grooming is a significant part of men’s daily life. You want to maintain the best shape, size, and texture of your facial hair. You will need to practice patience and practice more, without forgetting about the investment that comes along. However, the other option is not the best - shaving everything and remaining with a bald chin.