CanYouHandlebar Kent Moustache and Beard Combs

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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!

How to apply beard oil

Instructions:

As with most things, there is more than one way to apply Beard Dry Oil and Traditional Beard Oil. Master beardsman, Andy Pokorski shows us his method for applying beard oils to his award winning beard. Included below are written instructions and videos to help you on your bearded journey! First things first, in order to apply beard oil and use your Beard Care Kit, you will need to own one! Here is where you can pick the best Beard Care Kit for your needs. Here is where you can pick up a world class Kent beard comb. We made some videos that cover beard and moustache care, over here.

1. First, check out the videos! to see master beardsman Andy cover beard and moustache care
2. Get out your CanYouHandlebar oil: Open your new CanYouHandlebar beard oil and set it aside
3. Oil your brush: Gently twist your beard oil brush on top of your Dry Oil and twist a quarter turn or so. If you are using a traditional beard oil, add a nickel sized dollop to the center of the brush
4. Condition the front: Start on one side and brush the Dry Oil down into the beard from the sideburns. Move on to the middle and other side.
5. Condition the back: Now, make sure you brush oil onto the underside of your beard.
6. Optional comb through: If you’d like you can comb your beard out to ensure total coverage. If you do this comb your beard horizontally and then finish by combing down and out into the final shape
7. Optional hand sculpting: If you’d like, grab the outside of your beard and stroke your manly beard into its final stately form.
8. Not optional: Admire your birthright in the mirror and each time you see the branded question mark, ask yourself what you need to do to be the sort of man you want to be.

Repairing a handlebar that won't stay together

Repairing a handlebar that won't stay together

A customer wrote in and asked about ways to prevent a handlebar from splitting apart at the curls. I have meant to write an article about this for a while now. These are the techniques that have helped me out a lot in my handlebar moustache journey. Ahhh, repairing the split in the moustache. The snakes-tongue, as I call it. The best way I have dealt with this is some combination of the following:

Mini flatiron.

About $25 on Amazon. I let it heat up for 5 minutes while I am oiling my beard, checking for errant nose hairs or trying to find the dime that rolled off the counter under the cabinet. Anyway, this flatiron (used VERY carefully, so as no to burn you or char your moustache) is a wonder product. It brings all of the hairs to the same angle from whatever their natural growth patterns was. A pro-level variant on ironing is to compress the hairs (again, carefully) between the paddles and then turn my wrist to around 90 degrees so that the ends of the handlebar turn up and then gently pull the iron towards the tips, away from my nose. This puts a gentle curl to the hairs like scissors to ribbons, if you will. It is better to take many quick passes at your moustache than to try to pressure cook those hairs. I have done this scores of times without incident but it is possible to burn those hair right off if you forget you are flat-ironing your moustache and start watching a Breaking Bad marathon.

Too much / too little wax:

Wax is sorta like fuel in an aircraft. Too much and it is too heavy and crashes. Too little and you run out and it crashes. The good news is, no one dies when you are figuring this out. I mean, that is really good news. If people died manicuring their handlebar, the liability policy I could have to take out would bankrupt me. Try altering quantities and journal the results. I am kidding about the journal. Actually, that would be interesting to read. So, journal. Then please share it. Include flowery language like they did back in the Civil War era too, please.

Moustache comb.

Not "a comb I use on my moustache," but a bona fide (please note use of fancy Latin--that means I am serious) moustache comb. Preferably from Kent. Preferably purchased on CanYouHandlebar.com (link). Here is why: the teeth are super fine, so they separate the warring factions of the snake tongue into discrete hairs and coerce them into playing nicely with one another. Regular ol' black grandpa combs (of which I have owned dozens) were "ok" but no great shakes for wax distribution. Ideally, each hair should have a super thin coat of wax and should gently touch the hair next to it like a pack of youth group kids in inner-tubes going around the bend of a slow river.

Occasional trimming.

When my handlebar gets super long, then my gravity defying feats begin to falter. This is not a recommendation, just something I have done on occasion.

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!

How to properly apply moustache wax

Quick version of how to apply moustache wax

I spent some time today creating a guide for applying moustache wax.

• Pre-work: warming the wax
• Step One: admire the can
• Step Two: scrape some wax
• Step Three: transfer to finger tips
• Step Four: rub between fingers
• Step Five: confirm wax is melted
• Step Six: wax back of moustache
• Step Seven: wax rest of moustache
• Step Eight: wipe off excess wax
• Step Nine: confirm all is well

Moustache wax application under different scenarios

Touch ups:

In this picture I am just doing a “touch up” so I focused mostly on the ends of my handlebar moustache. In addition to touching up the tips, I occasionally add a little wax to the lip line before dinner to keep those hair out of my mouth and a dab for any fly aways. I basically trace the side of the moustache, starting in the middle and working my way out to the ends. The ends are where most of the wax is needed. The middle of the moustache doesn’t support or look good with a ton of wax because you are breathing out at ~98.6 degrees all day long and constantly melting anything you put there.

Fresh application:

When I have just taken a shower, I start with a totally dry moustache (oil and water don’t mix!) and put a light amount of wax in the center, working my way out and, as above, focus most of my attention on the tips. I like to use a hair dryer on low heat to ensure no wax clumps are visible and to make sure I am not dragging a comb through wax that at holding strength. If you pull a comb through wax that isn’t warmed you may pull out hair ahead of schedule. I recommend combing the freshly waxed hairs down first and then to the right and left. After the hairs are combed I gently twist the ends toward my face, using extra wax as necessary.

Under construction:

If your handlebar moustache is still in the growing phase, use more wax because it is training the hairs to grow the right direction, soothing the skin underneath that my be scratched by hairs as they grow out and it will help you resist the temptation to trim at the hairline and give yourself a mullet handlebar moustache. After three months, start using less wax in the middle (see above).

Emergency touch-up tips:

I live in Michigan and have had to apply or reapply wax under less that optimal conditions. Here are some tips and tricks for these emergency situations. In a vehicle: crank the heat up to high and use it to warm the wax and to blow onto your moustache after application to melt any clumps. I turn all vents “off” except for the one right in front of me to get maximum airflow on my face. Then I cup my hands to aim all of the air at my moustache. This is surprisingly effective.

Armpit:

Your armpit is the closest you can get to your body’s core temperature that isn’t illegal in some states. Putting your wax in your armpit for several minutes will soften it better than riding shotgun in your pants pocket (where I normally carry my Primary6)

Cup your hands:

If all else fails, you can use your own breath to soften the wax you’ve just applied. The trick is to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Cover your mouth like you are sneezing and you will be exhaling nearly 99 degrees of heat to your moustache. After 10-15 breaths you can usually get a pretty decent outcome. Just pay close attention to clumps and use as little wax as possible to reduce the amount of wax as possible–the less you use, the less you have to try to warm with your own breath. The tips you can warm by rolling them back and forth with your thumb and forefinger.

For the full article click here.

Grow a real Handlebar Moustache, not a fake one!

Resist the urge to trim!

If you are like I was, it will go against your usual habits to resist trimming. Because facial hair is cut at a 90 degree angle to the shaft each time you shave, when it starts to grow and make contact with the skin, it will be scratchy. The natural tendency will be to cut off the offending hairs--especially the ones that annoy you by itching your lips or the corners of your mouth.

Here's the thing: you may need these hairs later and should not trim anything until at least two or three months in when you can positively confirm the offending hair is truly useless. You want to have as many hairs as possible to work with once you get you moustache up and running. Trust me on this one.

I repeat: resist the urge to trim!

The worst thing you can do is to trim along the lip line like you do when maintaining a goatee or short cropped moustache. This will give you a mullet-moustache. No good. Think of your hairs as chess pieces--would you purposely sacrifice every one of your pawns for a short-term gain at the beginning of the game? You wouldn't. Those pawns may become powerful players someday. Stay strong!

The basics: how to grow a handlebar moustache

The growth period of a handlebar moustache:

Many people ask me how long it takes to grow a respectable handlebar moustache. When I say, "about three months," I can see crests falling. There are a few points I would like to make about this. Just because your handlebar moustache is not fully mature early on, it doesn't mean it looks bad right up until day 90. In fact, it can look pretty decent all the way through the growing. During the growing period you may end up using a little extra wax to keep untrained hairs out of your mouth. Yes, I said untrained hairs. Unless you have had a handlebar for a while your moustache thinks it is "business as usual" and will grow is its natural pattern. It may surprise you that lip hair has a pattern, but just like the hairs on your beard or your head moustache hair has a preferred growth pattern. This three month growing period does two things. First, it allows the inner hair to catch up to the outer hairs. Second, the time period allows the wax to train the hair to go the direction you want it to grow.

Tricks during the growing period:

These are all optional but may make you feel more comfortable joining the handlebar moustache fraternity. Use what you like and ignore the rest.

Week One and Two:

Week Two through Six:

Week Six and beyond:

Note:

The "dont's" of moustache growing:

Like the tricks, above, these are guidelines I am offering to you, man-to-man, not rules. Experiment and let me know if you find a better way!

Trimming:

I advise that you give it two to three weeks before trimming any hairs. If a single hair is driving you nuts--guillotine it, but if you can bear it, let them all grow until you get a good idea of which hairs will play along and which ones need to go. I strongly advise against cutting the hairs directly above the lip (which you are used to cutting if you have a goatee now) because then you end up with a handlebar mullet! You want those hairs to grow out and meet the outer hairs in order to get that full and natural look. After a couple of weeks you will start to notice that some hairs just don't belong. I have a few that grow North of the main part of my moustache that just never blend in well, so I trim them with little, sharp sewing scissors. I also trim a few hairs right beneath my nose for the same reason.

Overnight training:

Now this may be controversial, but I noticed that sometimes not matter how much I fiddle with my handlebar or applied wax, the ends tended to curl out to make bull horns (and these do not look great and photograph even worse) or one handle would get bent the wrong way on my pillow as I slept, so I turned to extreme measures. I used a DIY moustache snood while sleeping for a few nights in a row. I went to the drug store and picked up, for a few bucks, a package of nylon stretchy headbands with the little rubber nubs and wore the bad around my moustache and then around the back of my head where that line is under the bump on the back of your skull. This wasn't too tight for me and is reportedly not amorous in nature, but gives you eight or so hours (while sleeping) of hard core moustache training when needed. I have only done this a couple times.

Dedicated comb:

If you are using wax, you will want a dedicated comb so that you don't get wax in the hair on your head when combing it. (This doesn't apply to me exactly, because I am bald on top and keep the remaining hair short.) You will find this accumulates wax, so run it under hot water and use some good dish soap (I like blue Dawn) and a badger haired brush or old tooth brush to clean up the residue here and there. Pro-tip: Blow brying your combs to melt the wax and then wiping on a paper towel may sound like a good idea but then your comb melts like one of Dali's clocks and that will not help you grow Dali's moustache!

Hairs fall out--no biggie:

Hairs will fall out and though it can feel like a setback when you have been spending so much time and energy to get long curled hairs, know that it is normal. One caveat: if your moustache has a heavier coating of wax on it, don't pull a comb through at room temperature because in this specific scenario you may actually be pulling some "live" hairs clean out of their socket due to friction. I recommend cupping your hands and breathing that deep warm lung air into your moustache before combing or passing a blow dryer on low heat over your moustache a few times to soften the wax before combing. This is especially true of stiffer waxes.