How to take care of a beard – summer edition

I don’t know about you guys, but here in Sweden it feels like this is going to be one of our warmest summer in quite some time. My family and I have more or less moved in to our local beach. And we have quite a few like minded neighbours there as well. And this is only beginning of the summer…

Being a bearded guy, I’ve felt the need how I go about making my beard stay as fresh as possible. Since salt-water is more or less death for your beard, I thought of shedding some light onto the topics on how you can make your beard as fresh as possible.

1. Wash your beard!

As my mother used to say, clean hair is happy hair. Well, Ok she didn’t really tell me that but hey, you’ve heard the saying. The same goes for your beard!

As the summer tends to get pretty hot, you will probably sweat a lot more as well. Effectively more sweat in your beard, which is not ideal for keeping your beard happy.

I would recommend washing your beard thoroughly at least 3 times a week during the summer. Here you can use good beard shampoo, or a good hair shampoo (as long as it’s sulfate-free). But please, don’t forget to use beard oil or conditioner afterward to help your skin with dryness!

2. Moisturize!

Speaking of oils and conditioners, this needs its own topic. As your beard is coarser than the rest of your hair (at least I hope so…), you need to keep it hydrated. If you don’t, you will end up with beard dandruff and itchy skin. Which may even turn to “beardloss”. So, please moisturize your beard!

If you do not know what I’m talking about, take a look at this article. I go into depths on why you should use beard moisturizers. Often called beard oils or beard balm. I’ll leave my top 3 Beard Oils below!

3 Sunscreen

This is a weird one. Sunscreen for your beard! OK, hear me out here…

Sun is affecting our skin during the summertime. We lay there sunbathing and poof, we’re either red or turning more tanned. The same goes for your beard! If you do not protect it, you will probably end up with split ends, and just a nasty-looking beard. Also, have you noticed that during the summer your hair gets lighter in color? Yeah, the same goes for your beard, so use sunscreen! 🙂

4. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!

Did you know we humans are 60% water?

As you probably are already aware, you need to stay hydrated. Especially during the summer. If you keep yourself hydrated, you also keep your skin hydrated. Which means wonders for your beard. If you don’t you risk what’s knows as hair breakage. Meaning that the hairs will break and no one wants a patchy beard!

5, ugh trim the beard…

OK, there, I said it. Trim it.

Gosh, it’s almost like I don’t want to even suggest this. But it could very well be the case that you need to trim it.

If you’ve neglected all the steps above, and you’re left with a patchy, red-skinned, brittle beard. You might as well start over. Trim it so you have at least 3-5cm left, so pretty much a shorter beard. It looks clean, and you have plenty of time to grow it back out to the winter (and do it right next summer…).

So there you have it! My list for keeping your beard awesome during this heat. I will now kick back and enjoy a cold one in my backyard.

Take care now.
/Rick