Coming up with a dedicated beard routine is the number one way you can look after your beard and keep it looking lush and maintained. While I was growing my beard, I noticed that the beard length dictated the best routine for my beard. As your beard grows, you’ll notice that you need to apply different products at different frequencies.
The best beard routine involves washing with a dedicated beard shampoo and drying the beard fully, using nourishing products such as beard oil, beard balm, and beard butter. And using heat tools to style medium and long beards for a lasting style hold throughout the day.
There is a fair amount of trial and error for finding the best beard routine for your beard. Some beards are drier and require a more conditioning treatment, whilst others require much more intensive heat treatment to style.
As your beard grows and you get used to all of your beard’s quirks, you’ll be able to understand what is an important step to include in your beard routine and which ones you can leave out or do less regularly.
This article will go through the different sorts of routines, including short, medium, and long beard routines and look at the common steps that you can use to create your very own beard routine.
A beard routine includes daily, monthly, or weekly/fortnightly steps for keeping it looking awesome. We’ll break down each of these for the different beard lengths so you can start to create the best beard routine for your furry face friend.
Article Contents
Short beard routines
Having a short beard means that your daily and monthly routine requires fewer products, but you need to be diligent with trimming up your short beard and keeping the lines of the beard sharp.
There is no reason why your short beard can’t look great. During my beard growing journey, I often halted my beard for a couple of months at a short stage to get a feel for how it looked and enjoy that stage of the beard-growing process.
Here is my YouTube video where I talk about making your short beard look awesome in five simple and actionable tips.
Learning how your beard grows is a fantastic way of optimising your short beard.
If you want, you can create a simple beard-growing map of your face by drawing arrows (representing the direction of growth) on a picture of yourself.
Getting a picture of your growth will allow you to trim up your beard evenly every time. Going against the grain on every part of your face will get a much closer and even trim.
Moreover, learning the direction of your beard growth will help you decide whether or not growing out your beard if you extra millimetres or inches will cover up any low-density patches on your face.
Look after the skin underneath
Commonly, the skin can be seen through the beard with short beards. The fact that you can see it means that you need to look after it just as well as your beard.
Just because you have a beard on top of your skin doesn’t mean that your skin can be ignored. Ensuring that you’ve got well-nourished and conditioned skin under your beard means that a range of issues from itchiness to beard dandruff, can be avoided.
Looking after the skin can include using:
- a cleanser – using a cleanser removes the dirt and grime from your face and will prevent you from developing breakouts.
- Exfoliate – pick a gentle scrub to put into your routine to remove any dead skin cells accumulated at the roots of your short beard.
- Moisturise – choose a beard boil or a skin moisturiser readily absorbed into the skin. A good moisturiser will contain vitamins and nutrients to add shine to your skin and create a barrier to protect you from what the world has for you that day.
Use a beard oil
Using beard oil on your short beard means that both the hair and the skin underneath can benefit from the conditioning and nourishing ingredients in the formulation.
Good beard oil for short beards includes jojoba oil. Jojoba oil is readily absorbed by the skin and is a great substitute for the natural oils on your face.
Use a soft bristle brush
Using a soft bristle brush allows you to remove the dirt and grime built up in your short beard. It also helps distribute the products and oils across the entire surface of your beard.
A good soft bristle brush should be used at the beginning of every day, and the flexibility of the natural fibres means that you do not risk damaging your short beard hairs.
Trim up your lines and trim all over
Learning to trim up your beard hairs to create the perfect neckline and cheek line is important for keeping a short beard looking sharp.
A short beard is harder to maintain daily because there is a smaller difference between the beard and the skin. Trimming up the neck hairs and cheek line will provide maximum contrast between your skin and the beard. Cutting a beard back to its point of maximum density quickly creates the impression of a thicker and denser beard.
If you need to create a beard routine for a short beard, here are all the steps you should consider including in your beard routine.
| Fortnightly | Apply beard oil and leave in for 20 minutes. |
| Weekly | Trim up all of the beard to the desired length. Line up cheek and neckline with a single blade razor. Trim nose hair. |
| Daily | Wash your beard if you wash your hair. Towel dry your beard. Trim up any stray hairs with a single blade razor. Apply a skin and beard moisturiser. Apply two drops of beard oil. Brush into shape with a soft bristle brush. |
Medium beard routines
A medium-length beard is greater than 1 inch in length, and it is when you need to get a little bit more serious about your beard care routine.
Wash regularly with beard shampoo
Washing a medium beard requires you to use a dedicated beard shampoo. With a short beard, you can almost certainly get away with using a head shampoo for several months. Once your beard gets to a certain length, you need to wash it regularly with a formulation that is not as harsh and does not strip away all of the natural oils that are found on your face.
Washing your beard too often can result in a dry and damaged beard. If you want to know more about beard soaps and the two most popular on the market – beard brand and honest Amish check out my YouTube video below.
Use a product with a hold component
Once you get past a certain length, you may need to use a beard product with a hold component in the formulation.
Products that contain beeswax are beard wax and beard balm.
Medium length beards are long enough to warrant using products that hold the beard in place throughout the day. As your beard gets longer, gravity takes over, and you’ll be less reliant on beard products for keeping the hairs in place.
Invest in a good comb
I always recommend using a natural bristle brush for styling and maintaining the beard with short beards. This recommendation is because short beards are very easy to damage as they do not have the flexibility of much longer beard hairs.
As soon as your beard starts to get into the medium-length, I recommend getting a different sort of comb.
Investing in a good quality beard comb such as a Kent beard comb means that you can be a little bit more assertive with your beard brushing and heating without risking damaging the beard hair.
In the morning, I use my beard comb and my beard brush for different purposes.
My beard comb I used to get out all of the knots and separate the hairs.
My beard brush is used to distribute the products I have put into my beard and also helps me touch the hairs that are sticking out from the lines of my beard back into the beard.
Having both types of brush and comb at this point is invaluable for your daily beard routine.
Use oil butter and balm
Having a medium length beard means that you will start using butter and balm much more than oil. Oil is fantastic for skin and beard hair but can easily be removed by brushing.
Having beard butter means that the product is in contact with your beard hairs for much longer, which allows the beneficial nutrients and components to absorb fully into your beard hair.
Trialling different products allows you to work out the most effective combination of oil, butter, and balm for your growth. If you want to continue growing your beard past the medium length stage, you will also have to optimise when you find the length you want to stop your beard.
Here is a suggested monthly, fortnightly, and daily routine that you can use to structure your beard routine for medium beards.
| Monthly | Deep condition with a beard butter or balm. |
| Fortnightly | Trim up lines of the beard with a trimmer or scissors. Shave neckline and cheek line. |
| Daily | Wash beard every 2 to 3 days. Towel dry your beard and use warm heat to finish. Apply beard oil or beard balm. Brush with a beard comb or soft bristle brush. Use heat to straighten the beard. Use scissors to remove any stray hairs (do cautiously) |
Long beard routines
Once your beard is past 3 inches in length, you have a long beard.
There aren’t too many differences between a medium and long beard other than you have to be very diligent with the products you use, and your beard is much more likely to dry out.
Your beard is much more likely to dry out because the natural oils produced on the surface of your skin take a while to reach the ends of your beard. In many cases, your face cannot create enough oils to condition your hair fully, and you need products to fill in the gap.
Wash regularly
You should wash your beard hair every 2 to 3 days.
Ensure that the washing is deep enough to affect the skin and remove the sebum and dead skin cells from the very depths and bottom of your beard.
Make sure that you use a dedicated beard conditioner and shampoo that has been specifically formulated for beards.
Use butter
Because long beards can become dry very quickly, I recommend using beard butter as a deep hydration treatment at least once a month.
The beard balm you are using often contains beeswax to hold the beard into a shape. Longbeards are much more affected by gravity and do not need beeswax as much.
Wax for moustache
With a long beard comes the important decision of what you will do with your moustache.
If you want a long fancy moustache, you are likely to use moustache wax to keep it out of your mouth.
I like to keep my moustache relatively short so it does not flow into my mouth while eating or speaking.
Heat tools
Heat tools are an important part of owning a long beard.
I need to use a hairdryer every day to keep my beard looking sharp and as straight as possible.
Heating disrupts the bonding within the hair and, once cool, the beard holds the shape that it has been teased into.
My preference is to use a hairdryer for heating my beard and forming it into the style I wish to create. I have used heated beard brushes and beard straighteners in the past but find them too intense for my beard and not as effective at creating the style I want.
Learn to trim up your beard
Learn how to trim up your beard yourself.
Even if you sometimes go to a hairdresser, the fortnightly trim ups for your beard will be much easier and less expensive if you learn to do it yourself.
Here are how I trim up my long beard at home and all the important steps to find my beard looking awesome.
If you have a long beard, here is my suggested monthly, fortnightly, and daily routine that you should use for maximum beard health and style.
| Monthly | Deep condition with beard butter. |
| Fortnightly | Trim up the lines of the beard with a trimmer or scissors. Blend in sideburns to the hairstyle. Shave neckline and cheek line. |
| Daily | Wash beard every 2 to 3 days. Towel dry your beard and use warm heat to finish. Apply beard balm or beard butter. Apply a moustache wax to keep your moustache out of your mouth. Brush with a beard comb or soft bristle brush. Use heat to straighten the beard. Use scissors to remove any stray hairs (do cautiously). In the middle of the day, brush your beard back into shape. |
Summary
This article has been through everything you need to know about creating a perfect beard routine, no matter if your beard is short, medium or long.
Learning which tools and products are at your disposal for keeping your beard healthy is an important stage in developing your beard routine.
I have provided you with all of the suggested steps for each stage of beard growth, and it is up to you now to experiment with products and steps so that your beard looks its best.
If your beard is slightly drier, you may need a more intense hydration treatment, and if your beard is much lighter and not as curly, you can remove some of the heat tool stages.
Importantly, enjoy the process and continue experimenting with products, tools and stages until you find a beard routine that works perfectly for you.
Taking inspiration from others is important, but the unique quality of your beard means you have to experiment and find the perfect routine for you.
