Why Your Beard Isn’t Soft Already

Chances are if your beard is particularly wiry or tough, something is going wrong: while there’s nothing inherently wrong with less-than-supple facial hair, it is very often a bad signal.

While your beard hair is naturally disposed to be coarser than the hair on your head, it shouldn’t be unmanageable or harsh on the skin beneath it.

Hair has to grow healthily and be maintained properly to stay soft, so numerous elements go into making your beard hair – from nutrition and care to your temperature and moisture levels.

However, in our experience, there are three extremely common problems which are likely to be the cause of the majority of your beard’s brittleness:

Poor Beard Care

Whether it’s not using proper products, not having a proper routine, or just not really understanding what it is you need to do to maintain your beard’s health, the number one thing making your beard too rough is not keeping it clean and healthy.

Think about it: you touch your beard all the time, and it’s probably getting hit with dust and food and all sorts throughout the day.

If you’re not washing it properly, all of that stuff is going to make it dirty, greasy, and ultimately unhealthy.

Dehydration

It seems obvious, but when your facial hair lacks moisture, it becomes dry, rough, and more prone to breakage.

Now, your skin does produce natural oils to keep your face moisturized and your beard clean.

But many men are stripping their beards of that moisture by using soaps or hair shampoos to ‘clean’ them.

The result is your beard doesn’t have the moisture it needs to survive and therefore, ultimately gets tired out, loses health, and hardens.

This is why stubble is often tough and unwieldy: it’s the remnants of hair that has been left to get unhealthy and hard.

Split ends

When hair first grows, it tends to be quite soft – it hasn’t had time to be exposed to harsh weather, poor care, or have its moisture robbed.

However, once it has grown out, many men experience split ends in their facial hair – often without even realizing it!

Split ends occur when the protective layer of a cuticle at the end of your hair is destroyed – it makes the hair look ragged and tired, and it causes the layers underneath to suffer too.

The causes of split ends are manifold: it may be that you’re not getting the right nutrition; your beard trimmer might just not be sharp enough.

The overarching point is that facial hairs need to be maintained and kept fresh; soft beards are healthy beards, and if you really want to make your beard softer you need to focus on growing and maintaining healthier hair in general.

So wow that we understand what’s behind your wiry beard, let’s look at how exactly you can make it softer.

danger of it getting dried out – either by the hard water or the tough towel.

Try applying beard oil or conditioner twice a day: it penetrates the hairs and softens them with all sorts of vitamins and nutrients.

This, in turn helps the hair relax, look healthier, and become easier to style.

The hair will also be less rough against your (and your partners!) skin.

Ultimately, it’s up to you whether you’d rather apply beard oil or a conditioning cream or lotion.

Both can have great effects, and there are great versions of both on the market.

Whichever you choose, it’s important to massage it into your beard gently but also make sure to rub it into the skin beneath your beard.

Pro tip: never use beard oil on wet hair – it won’t be absorbed properly, and it won’t spread properly across your face.

3. Use Beard Balm

Beard balm is generally used as a styling tool – it helps give you more control over your beard’s shape.

But they’re also loaded with nourishing ingredients that soften the hair and skin, as well as providing protection from the elements.

The key is to use a small amount and apply it with gentle upward motions that get at the very roots of your hair.

Many men see balm and oil/conditioner as an either/or, but the truth is – as long as you don’t cake it on – you can use them in conjunction beautifully, and will likely get better results if you do!

Pro tip: There are plenty of great beard balms on the market, but you might need a good quality round-up review to find the very best for your needs.

4.Comb and Brush it Properly

As simple as it seems, regularly brushing your beard helps keep your hair vibrant and provides a good spot check for any stiff or stray hairs which might need to be gotten rid of.

Once you get into the habit of keeping your mane in check this way, it will start to grow more healthily.

Plus, the actual act of brushing will help distribute the natural oil across your beard, therefore helping make it softer.

Pro tip: Make sure you don’t brush it too rough or dry it out – that will leave it dehydrated and cause it to harden.

5. Keep It Trimmed

As we’ve discussed, unhealthy, tired out hairs are always going to rear their heads.

The important thing is to get rid of them as quickly as possible.

And that means making sure your beard is constantly well maintained and carefully trimming it regularly.

While this won’t in itself make the hair softer, it will contribute to overall beard health and avoid the softer hairs being crowded out by harsh ones.

It will also help avoid split ends and generally make your beard more attractive.

Pro tip: Having good quality scissors will help make cutting easier, quicker, and more pleasurable.

6. Try Home Remedies

There are many home remedies, and to be honest, their success rates massively vary.

However, one that really does seem to work is applying olive oil to your beard:

Not too much – just a couple of teaspoons gently massaged into the beard works like magic.

It makes sense: olive oil has fantastic moisturizing properties and promotes healthier growth, too.

You can even leave it on overnight if you like.

Pro tip: just make sure to wash it off carefully with lukewarm water so as to avoid harshness.

7. Improve Your Diet and Exercise

As should be clear by now, the key to a soft beard really is keeping it healthy. And there’s no way to improve the health of your hair like changing your lifestyle.

Having the right nutrients – in particular, Biotin (sometimes known as Vitamin H, because it’s so vital for hair growth!) – will help your hair grow fuller, stronger, faster, and, most importantly, healthier.

You can get it by improving your diet – increasing your consumption of eggs, nuts, red meat, and seeds – or you could simply take a daily biotin vitamin to give yourself a little boost.

Not only do you need to have the right nutrients – you also need to have a healthy body. So as strange as it sounds, exercise can actually help you grow better, softer facial hair!

Pro tip: Set yourself clear, manageable goals – it will help turn health into a habit.

Conclusion

So there you have it: 7 simple and effective methods to improve your beard’s health and make it softer.

It’s important to remember that these are not mutually exclusive methods: you should try at least a few of them simultaneously and figure out what works best for you.

We hope you’ve found the guide helpful, and we’d love to hear how you get on with them:

Which methods helped the most? How quickly did you start to see progress? How many of these methods had you used before?