Don't shave for 3 days and you have a 3-day beard... It's not quite that simple, but the 3-day beard is clearly one of the easier beards to style. Nevertheless, there are some traps you can fall into. To make sure that doesn't happen, read through these 5 mistakes that you should avoid at all costs with a 3-day beard.
What is a 3-day beard?
First of all, we should clarify what a 3-day beard actually is. I have already mentioned it: not shaving for 3 days does not result in a 3-day beard. If the hairs are between 0.5 and 4 millimetres long, you can call your facial hair a 3-day beard. Since each person's hair grows at a different rate, it also takes different amounts of time for different men to reach this length. How long the hair actually has to be (there is a big difference between 0.5 and 4 mm) depends on various factors, which you will learn about below. In general, however, the hair should be so short that it is still " stubby" and does not lie down yet.
Mistake 1: You Trim Your Beard Too Short
Of course, you have to trim your beard (more on that in a moment) but if you trim it too short, in most cases, you're not doing yourself any favours. "In most cases" is to be taken literally here because the length, or rather the shortness of the hair, only doesn't matter if you have extremely dense beard growth and dark, fast-growing beard hairs. For everyone else, the rule is: don't trim it too short.
Why? Especially men with not so dense beard growth can make their beard look fuller by having longer hair, because the bald spots are covered up a bit this way. The same goes for men with lighter hair - if it's too short, the beard is hardly visible. You can get around this by trimming it to a slightly longer length. After all, you want your 3-day beard to look like a beard, not a shadow.
Mistake 2: You trim your beard when it's wet
In itself, there is nothing wrong with getting your beard wet before trimming - but only to wash it, preferably with beard shampoo. This removes dirt that could damage your trimmer. However, it is crucial that you dry your beard before trimming it. Either with a towel (don't rub too hard, your hair doesn't like that), with a hairdryer or in the air.
Having a dry beard is important because beard trimmers are designed to cut dry hair. Wet hair cannot be picked up as well by the trimmer. They are cut more irregularly and you have to go over the same spot several times, which your skin doesn't like. At the same time, your 3-day beard will look more unkempt because of the difference in the hair lengths. Therefore: Only trim when dry!
Mistake 3: You don't trim your hair regularly
Hair grows at different rates. Especially if your normal beard hair is joined by one or two grey hairs. After a few days, your beard hairs will be of different lengths - and you don't want that! Different lengths of beard hair make your beard look unkempt. It's immediately obvious that you haven't taken care of it for a few days. Therefore, there is no way around trimming it regularly. The more regularly you do this, the less chance you give your hair to grow to different lengths. As a rule of thumb, you should trim your 3-day beard every 2-3 days.
Mistake 4: You do not trace your contours
Hair does not only grow where we would like it to. But that's not a bad thing, because we can simply shave it off. This boundary between the area where we want the hair to grow in the form of a beard and the area where there is nothing but clean skin is called a contour. With the 3-day beard, this boundary is fortunately not quite so strict, but you still want to remove the hairs that are far away from this boundary.
You probably do this especially when you trim your 3-day beard. But that is not enough. You should trim the contour every day. It's best to use a wet razor for this. If it has a precision blade, all the better! Don't do without shaving gel either, as it can cause skin irritation. To see the contour clearly, it's best to use the transparent Shaving Gel from King C. Gillette. For the neck area, we also recommend the King C. Gillette neck razor.
Mistake 5: You don't look after your 3-day beard properly
Let's get this straight: The 3-day beard is not only your beard but also the skin underneath! In fact, you can even neglect the care of your beard a bit with the 3-day beard. Basically, you trim the newly grown parts of your beard hair every few days anyway, so your focus should be on the skin underneath! If you use a face cleanser, don't just use it on the skin above your beard, but all over your face, including your beard. The same goes for creams and especially sunscreen. Or use beard oil! It not only makes your hair shine but also helps the skin underneath, especially if it's dry. Beard oil moisturises the skin and replaces the natural oils that the skin can no longer produce.
The 3-day beard is one of the most uncomplicated beard styles. You can't make many mistakes and the few that do exist are quite easy to avoid. Now that you know the tricks, there's nothing standing in the way of your perfect 3-day beard!
