If you’ve been part of the bearded population for a while now, you’ll know how important it is to look after your facial hair. If you’re new to the beard club, where do you start?
Cleaning and trimming a long beard can feel daunting, especially if you’re growing a beard for the first time. Well, we’re here to tell you that you shouldn’t feel intimidated. Follow these simple steps to keep your long beard looking and feeling great.
How to Look After Your Beard
To make sure your beard looks its best and smells great, there a two main grooming steps to follow regularly to help your beard look fuller and healthier.
1. Cleaning – Just like the hair on our head, beards require regular washing to help remove dead skin cells and beard flakes, and to keep it smelling fresh.
2. Trimming – Nobody wants a scraggly-looking beard. Regular beard trimming helps your beard to look and feel fuller. When trimmed using the right products, beards are left feeling soft.
Check out this simple, step-by-step guide to learn how to trim a long beard and keep it clean.
How to Clean Your Long Beard?
One of the biggest challenges with keeping a long beard clean is getting rid of beard flakes.
Skin naturally produces an oil called sebum to keep itself hydrated. However, particularly long beard hairs absorb a lot of this oil, leaving the skin under your beard prone to dryness, itching, and flaking. These dead skin flakes make your beard appear dirty.
While you might be tempted to use a bar soap to wash your beard and remove the dandruff, this could exacerbate the problem. Most bar soaps are rich in sodium which strips the skin of its natural oils, leaving it dry and prone to flaking. Instead, use a shampoo specially formulated for long beards.
Is Beard Shampoo Necessary?
The short answer is yes! While it can be easy to lump beard shampoo with normal hair shampoo, they each serve a different purpose.
Standard hair shampoos are often designed to tackle the oilier scalp area, making them unsuitable for facial skin which is usually drier. The skin around your chin often requires extra oil because it disperses nutrients to your beard, reducing its oil retention rate.
For this reason, beard shampoos are often formulated with moisturising ingredients to hydrate facial hair and support healthy-looking skin.
Best Beard Shampoo for Long Beards
We recommend using our King C. Gillette Beard and Face Wash. This beard shampoo is not only designed to give long beards a thorough clean but is formulated with argan oil, avocado oil and coconut water to help replenish the moisture and nutrients lost during the beard-washing process.
How Often Should You Wash Your Long Beard?
We recommend washing your long beard at least twice a week to keep it clean. Don’t go overboard though! Washing your beard too often will strip away the skin’s natural oils, resulting in a dry, unhealthy-looking beard.
How to Trim a Long Beard
Regular beard trimming may seem counterintuitive, especially if your goal is to increase its length. However, beards that go untrimmed often appear unruly, untidy and thinner than they are. Not ideal!
Beard trimming also allows you to mix up your style now and then. If you’re looking to switch up your facial hair our guide to the best long beard styles is packed with inspiration.
New to beard trimming? Follow these tips to achieve your ultimate beard goals.
Tip 1: Apply a Shaving Gel on your long beard
Edge your beard using a shave gel. Our Gillette Labs Quick Rinse Shaving Foam is designed with convenience and comfort in mind, helping you to effortlessly achieve a neat edge.
Tip 2: Use a Sculpting Beard Trimmer
Finding the best tools to help you achieve accuracy and precision when beard trimming can be daunting. Luckily, we’ve developed the ultimate beard trimming kit: The King C. Gillette Beard Trimmer & Safety Razor Styling Kit.
With 3 different comb heads, our device is super versatile to suit all your beard trimming needs - whether you’re going for a slight snip, want to neaten up your edges or plan to remove the bulk of your beard.
Tip 3: Tidy Up Your Beard Neckline
Now that your beard length is trimmed and uniform, it’s time to tidy up the edges.
Check out this guide to tidying up your beard neckline for the sharpest beard look:
Tip 4: Finish with Beard Oil
After trimming a long beard, keep it feeling soft and smelling fresh by applying beard oil. Massage into the skin then comb through the beard for an even distribution and smooth finish.
What is Beard Oil?
Beard oil plays a dual role by both softening your beard and moisturising the skin underneath. The King C. Gillette’s beard oil is a lightweight, non-greasy solution for a coarse beard.
Formulated with argan, jojoba, avocado, macadamia seed and almond it’s specially formulated to deliver the hydration your beard and skin need to achieve a healthy feel and appearance.
Applying our signature scented beard oil after shaving - fragranced with notes of cardamom, ginger, sage, sandalwood and cedarwood – not only helps to prevent a long beard from looking scraggly but provides your beard with a healthy-looking shine and a masculine aroma your partner will love.
For more tips on how to look after a long beard, check out our article on mistakes to avoid if you have a long beard.
