Facial hair is a beauty to behold when it’s perfectly groomed and neatly maintained. It can enhanced a man’s handsomeness and tell good tales of his maturity, his ability to take responsibility and uphold personal hygiene. It’s that serious. Growing a shabby beard is easy, anyone can do that. It’s serious business learning how to grow a neat beard.
Not everyone can grow facial hair, if you can and are willing to make it long, smooth and cultured like Albus Dumbledore’s, there is some work to do. Hair naturally can be very troublesome, especially if you have strong rubbery hair like mine. Some beard even have a mind of their own and they are out to grow wild like a crazy rebellious teenager.
But your face is its dwelling place, so it must follow your rules. Beard growing can be nice, if you follow the routine of keeping it nice.
What Kind Of Beard Do You Need?
This must depend on your kind of face and how wild your hair can be. For the guys with long faces, you are so in luck. Almost all kind of beard will fit you. From the full face one to the nice trim from the moustache blending noiseless into the beard, everything will be nice.
Beware if you have a round face or a flat face however. You must chose a beard structure which fits your face. If you don’t know your way around that, seek advice from your barber.
Ready, Set, Grow Beard!
Like I said growing a beard is easy but needs some commitment. The major limiting factors however is if you can really do it genetically. You can only grow a beard if you have inherited the ability to do so.
If you are so gifted then there is nothing stopping you, really. These are the step to learn how to grow a neat beard.
1. Decide You Want And Stick To Your Decision
Sounds easy? It’s isn’t. When the beard gets to the itching state, many get irritated and shave the damn thing off. You want to grow a beard, shaving it is out of the question. Grow, grow, grow, don’t shave, shave, shave.
Besides there are ways of reducing or eliminating the itching. If you really want to grow a beard, you will find ways around it.
Always remind yourself why you want the beard. It might change your appearance and might attract some taunts or criticism. If you are not thick skinned, you might tick and give up on the beard. Remember your face is yours. If you want a beard, you have every right to grow one.
2. Let Your Beard Grow
The next thing to do after making the decision to grow a beard is to let your beard grow. Sounds ridiculous? Not quite. You are used to shaving so it is hard to drop that routine. Eventually you will get used to it and it will save you some time off the morning.
Depending on your growth rate, you should let your beard grow for about a month before grooming. This will be challenging especially if your skin itches. The itching however is a phase, it will pass, you’ve got to endure it.
If you can’t endure, there are ways to reduce your irritation. You can use a gentle shampoo (remember, gentle. You want to reduce the irritation and send your young beard into a frenzy) and apply a moisturizing lotion. If that doesn’t work, use some baby oil. It will bring you some relief.
3. Train your beard
A young beard is like a child that you have to train to act in a certain way. By trimming your beard, you decide which direction it should grow. Without “training” it would grow anyhow and gives more trouble trimming and keeping in place.
How do you train your beard? You have to brush it in a direction you want it to grow. If the hair grows standing and pointing in all cardinal points, you can condition it to grow towards your chin by brushing it towards this direction. In time the beard “understands” and grow like you want it to.
4. Let The Pruning Begin
So you have been growing your beard for about four weeks since you learnt how to grow a neat beard. It surely looks wild now. Wild beards are not beautiful just like unweeded front lawns. It’s time you removed every strain of hair which didn’t accept your training.
You can go to a barber shop and ask for a nice trim or if you don’t trust them to get what you want (I seriously doubt it. It’s their job you know) you can do it yourself. All you need is a clipper, a mirror and the idea of what you want.
The chin is a good place to start. Determine how long or curvy your chin neared will be and hold on to that level. If you want it to be very very long, I think you should still hold up on the trimming.
The cheeks are another place to trim. From the mirror, decide how thick or otherwise your beard should be. Be careful with trimming here, one wrong step and all your efforts can be seriously hampered.
Even at that do what you’ve got to do. If you make a mistake, you can learn from it and correct yourself. Get a nice cheek trim and you are good to go.
Wash your beard every day with shampoo and apply oil on it for a sparkling sheen. If it’s thick enough, you can comb it or brush it. Both ways to will training it to grow in that direction.
Trim your beard to the way it is every week, a beard is like a farm, don’t let it run wild with weeds.
Now You Know
Now that you have learnt to grow a neat beard join me on a little adventure. I am currently growing my beard so let’s grow it together. Let us change our looks, who knows that girl of your dreams might just be a beard lover. It’s worth a try, what do you think?
Shisdulo 😉
