The best thing about entering the new decade is an important realization. Beards are here to stay. In fact, 80% of men said they feel more confident when they are wearing some kind of facial hair!
If you’re one of those men, you’re in luck. Beards are in style, and you don’t even have to go to your barber to get them taken care of. There are some simple steps you can take to get your dream beard right at home. Let’s talk about how to care for your beard.
How To Care For Your Beard: Trimming
Beard trimming is important for making your beard look professional. It also prevents your beard from taking over and altering the overall shape of your face. With the right trimming techniques, you can use your beard to give natural highlights to your jawline and facial features, and make it look like you had it done professionally!
Cheek Line
The cheek line is important to get right, but it’s too often overlooked. Having a crisp, straight line on the top of your beard looks super professional, and it will accent your cheekbones perfectly!
To get this right, you want to find where your mustache and beard connect and make that the top of your line. If your beard and mustache connect close to your chin, look for the point where your mustache starts turning into the handlebar shape. That’s a good line to use.
Alternatively, look where the top of your beard starts thinning out the most on top and turning into strays. The parts that look like stray hairs are the ones you want to get rid of. If the beard is a little patchy or blonde, be careful to not go too low.
Neck Line
This will make it or break it. For this, you need the right lighting. Do you have a window or light source on one side of your mirror, but not the other. If so, fix that. You need light all around for this, considering you’re watching yourself work from an awkward angle.
There are a few different styles for this, and figuring out what’s right for your face shape is important. You want it to accentuate your jawline, hide any extra skin or fat under your chin, and look like it’s meant to be there. If your neck goes straight up and has a clear angle under your jaw, then your line is easy to find! Leaving hair under the chin is perfect, you just want to stop it when it transitions into your neck!
To do this, figure out the right line. Draw it with a marker if you want, or grow out your neck hair in the early stages of growing out your beard, and work up slowly. Then, adjust the angle of your face in the mirror, take pictures, ask someone else to judge, and you’re good to go. Once you have it, take care to remember it! It’ll save you stress throughout your beard-wearing life!
Take your time on this. Start with a pair of clippers when your shaving your neck and slowly work closer to the line you want. If you have the line figured out, you can also shave that first and work down, but only if you’re confident in the line!
Side Burns
Getting in front of the ears is tricky. The hair usually goes in a different direction than the rest of the face. Focus on the hairline coming down from the top of your beard, and try to drop it straight down. Starting with a fat set of clippers will help you get this line straight.
From there, make the line and immediately pull the clippers back to your ears. After that, it’ll be easy to see the line you created, so just run over the stubble with a razor and you’re good to go!
Finding The Right Length
For the rest of your beard, you can just add an attachment for whatever length you like and bring it down to a uniform length! Start high and work down until you find one you like! Doing your cheeks one length and the goatee another is perfectly acceptable and easy to do, too!
You want to find a length that looks good on your face, that you’re comfortable maintaining, and that doesn’t get too messy.
If you don’t have a pair of clippers, or if your beard is too soft to work well with them, find something you can use to get as close to uniformity as possible. The thickness or your fingers can work, if the length is right! Pinch clumps of hair between your index and middle finger (or whichever two work for you), and snip it off with a good pair of scissors. This is advised mostly for softer beards, but if it works, it works!
Beard Care Products
In the shower, or after you trim your beard, take care of it. A messy, unwashed beard is easy to spot. A good beard and face cleanser will do the trick to keeping it clean and clearing any oil buildup, but that’s not enough.
You also need to prevent the beard from building up oil and gunk, just like you do with the hair on your head! After your beard is clean, you definitely want to use a beard conditioner to keep it looking fresh, crisp, and professional. If your beard dries out too much, add some beard oil to it.
No matter what though, make sure you give it a brush at the end of your beard care routine. If you do this at the right time, it’ll prevent it from getting too messy throughout the day.
A nice, shiny beard that’s well-maintained adds so much to your overall presentation, so take it seriously!
Keep It Growing!
Now that you know how to care for your beard, get it growing, and get it going! There’s no time like the present to add some style to that handsome face!
Keep up to date with our latest style news, and show off that new beard to the world!
