How often should I wash my beard or moustache?

Photo: jenny downing

Overview

If you ask four people how often you should wash your beard, you will get five answers. The following is my take, but I trust you'll experiment and find what works for you. But before I offer my $.02, I know guys with amazing beards that swear by weekly shampooing and others that go daily. So, it is not like one or other other is a guaranteed terrible idea. I shampoo every day or two and I always use conditioner. I shampoo more or less often depending how messy of an eater I have been more than anything, (or if I have been around smoking or other things that stick to hair). More important that HOW OFTEN is HOW you condition.

Things to consider as part of your beard hygiene regimen:

Soaps and Shampoos

If you use a soap or shampoo that is not too harsh and you scrub the skin under your beard well, you will clear out the microorganisms that cause a lot of itchiness and flaking. (This is the same reason we scrub our underarms with soap). You know I sell some great beard soap. Try it, if you haven't yet. It does a good job of getting you clean without being too harsh, without pulling hairs our prematurely, and it smells great in the morning. No matter what you will lose a few hairs per day. This is normal.

Use a good beard oil

Use a good beard oil every day or every other. You don't need a ton. Just a nickel sized pool in your hand. Start at the ends and work your way toward your face. Contrary to what you may have heard, the goal isn't to coat your chin skin with oil like putting maple syrup on pancakes. Your skin already produces oils. You are getting the parts of the hair that your sweat doesn't reach. If you have flakes--skin conditions notwithstanding--it is your cleaning regimen NOT a lack of beard oil that is to blame.

What I have learned from the experts

Like I said above, there are LOTS of strong opinions. Mine come from experience and from conversations with barbers, Title Beard and trainers at the Aveda institute so I tend to take them at their word as experts. The good news is, it is relatively inexpensive to experiment and find out what works for you! Be sure to check out the TitleBeard Facebook page again for tons of reviews and tips!

Here are some thoughts from Brian at TitleBeard that are along the same line:

"...I wash my beard everyday. Many beardsman advocate only washing once or twice a week, but I have always said that with proper cleansing and conditioning products, daily washing is fine. But if you don’t like washing your everyday, don’t! Also, on average, I condition my beard in the morning after I get out of the shower, and again before I go to bed, and if I decide to use a beard wax to achieve a particular look that day, I may end up using anywhere from 3-4 different beard products throughout the day. Do you have to do this? Absolutely not, it is simply what works for me."

Introducing Beard Oils: Wisdom and Initiative

About Beard Oil:

Throughout the ages, across all peoples and religions, oil has been used in ceremonies to provide a physical symbol of what was happening at a deeper spiritual or relational level. The ritual of oiling one's beard is a great time to think about the deeper topics of life. The day is young and we are looking at ourselves in the eyes as we stand in front of the mirror. The CanYouHandlebar oils are meant to provide you some good thoughts to consider during these few moments while the day is still in front of you.

About Wisdom Beard Oil:

This oil is built around the warm scent of fresh cut spruce. It is warm and fresh but definitely masculine. The mental image I had in mind when I was mixing this oil was that of spending time with a patriarch on a porch, watching the sun come up and the dew evaporate off the ground as the day warms up.

About Initiative Oil:

This is a beard oil that inspires me to put in the hard work and the hours to build something worth having. This is a more brisk scent and is made from a stack of brisk citrus tones. It is a mature take on citrus. It was important to get the freshness of lime and bergamot without creating something cloying. I think I nailed it.

How do I apply this stuff?

Depending on the size of your beard, pour between a dime and quarter sized puddle into your hand and massage it into your beard. Wash hands or rub them on the dog. You can also use the beard brush, just try to keep the oil on the surface by holding the brush in an angle in your hand so all of the oil doesn't run down into the brush as much. If you go this route, go right side, left side, underside and then top so that you don't get oil on only part of your beard. Repeat if necessary.

Thoughtfully designed

The base oil was designed to help your beard look great and maintain its health. The aroma is made of high quality essential with no cheap fillers. The attention to detail extends to the labeling. Knowing that your beard oil will likely be stored in your bathroom where water and small amounts of oil will get onto the label, we spent a little extra and used water- and oil-proof labels! Your oil will look as good from the day it arrives until you've used the last drop!

Why Use Beard Oil

History of beards

When I tell people what I do I am often asked, “why does a person need a beard oil?” The reason may not be obvious at first. Until recently, mankind didn’t bathe everyday or so and the oils from our sweat made it into our beards and kept them looking pretty swell. These days we need to replace the oils we lose down the shower drain by adding good oils back to the hair every day or two.

Hair cannot be repaired

Having a beard can make a man feel very alive. However, strictly speaking, all of that hair is dead and despite what you might have heard you cannot repair damaged hair. All you can do is keep it from getting brittle and splitting to begin with. Hair that is well maintained will look good several years after it has left the follicle. Several of the guys I know with amazing beards recommend washing the hair with shampoo around once a week and using a conditioner.

Applying beard oil

After towel drying (avoid heat from hair dryers if possible), a little beard oil will make the beard look good, smell good and stay in good working order for years. A good beard oil brush will help get that oil all the way into the hair and massage the skin too. CanYouHandlebar offers a handsome and very useful beard oil brush!

Why use a quality Handlebar Moustache Wax?

Training your Handlebar Moustache

You may not know this but all hair has a direction it wants to grow. Some areas like to swirl clockwise or counter-clockwise, some grow straight out, some grow left, others right. What you need to do is get them to grow out to the sides and then up into a curl, the length of which you decide. What a quality wax will do is force the hairs into the uniform direction you decide. This is kind of the same effect as "bed head" or "hat head." the chief difference being that this hair training is on purpose and will be repeated daily until these new habits become second nature to your moustache hairs. Believe it or not, you need more wax during the first three months than after your handlebar moustache is fully grown.

Soothe your skin

A good moustache wax has both wax and oils. These provide the holding power you'll need (see training section, above). A side benefit these ingredients is that they provide a barrier of protection against the irritation of newly growing hairs.

Condition your Handlebar Moustache hairs

A good moustache wax also adds oils to hair that probably got washed off when you rubbed a bar of soap all over it. I'm no Surgeon General and I am making no medical claim. That said, ladies tell me hair needs a little oil to look better and last longer.