CAN YOU SAFELY STRAIGHTEN YOUR BEARD?

Beards. They come in a wide array of different shapes, shades, styles and sizes. Some grow much faster than others whilst never two beards are really the same. Mine is big, wild, ginger and often tries to grow it's own arms and legs in a desperate attempt to escape my face to live it's own independent lifestyle. Or at least it seems that's the case from time to time anyway. But as wild as your beard may be, is it ever safe to take your partners (Or yours, you total diva!) hair straighteners in a desperate attempt to tame that wild beard-mane beast?

First and foremost it's real important to remember that your beard is made up of millions of individual hairs that are unlike the hair that grows on your head. So with that being said, hair straighteners will not react in the same way with your beard as they would in comparison to your heads hair. When I first began my bearding journey I started out with a 'chin strap' sort of beard. I had been growing this out for a little over a year and it had progressed along real nice measuring in at a solid 6-7ish inches (My beard, not my woody woodpecker! Keep it clean!) or so. My wife often used to sit around and play with it (Again, the beard!) and one day decided to ask if she could use her GHD's (Apparently a rather expensive brand of hair straightener!) on my ginger beard to see how long it would straighten out to. With little to no thought I agreed and my wife had endless fun messing about straightening out my beard. Once completed it did of course look a whole lot straighter, but I immediately noticed it had also made my facial hair appear to look much thinner than it was previously. Not only that but each individual hair felt much weaker than it once did. The only way I can describe this is upon feeling my now much straighter beard it almost felt like it had been stripped of it's natural oils and thickness, in other words it felt almost damaged.

I right away took to the shower in the hope to resume a little normality to my beard after giving it a jolly good wash, but sadly that didn't happen right away. In fact it took around a week before my beard looked anything like it did before hand. Now I can only speak from my own personal 'beardy' experiences, but I would never suggest using any kind of heat implemented tool, be it hair straighteners or a hair dryer. The reason being for this is because anything that adds a high volume of heat will only contribute to the drying out of your beard, and that can still happen even on the lowest heat setting too. If you are trying to achieve a straighter more manageable facial forest I suggest you attempt to train your beard to grow in the direction you'd like it to with a little added help from a good beard balm.

Now, I understand many of you may already choose to use either a hair dryer or hair straighteners on your facial forests, which is absolutely fine if that's what works for you. But I choose to gently towel dry my beard after jumping out of the shower whilst leaving it just a tad wet. The reason I choose to leave my beard slightly wet is I find when I apply any product this gives me a little more freedom and control to style it in comparison to a dry beard. From there I apply a generous amount of 'TBS' beard tonic/balm then begin to massage the product deep into my beard and skin beneath with either a comb or brush depending on your chosen preferences. I usually choose a comb as they are often much more manageable to clean when using beard oils and/or balms. Using the right product will also prove beneficial to controlling a wild beard. Oils are the most common but our tonics are specifically created to help give a little extra control in any troublesome areas of beard control.

You don't have to look far to see fellow bearded fellows offering tips and pointers when using a blow dryer and straighteners on your facial gruff. But speaking from personal experience I'd say you're much better off without. After all, it takes a whole lot of time and patience to grow out your glorious beard, but you can cause unnecessary damage a whole lot quicker!

Thanks for taking the time to read todays beard blog! As always let us have any comments or questions you might have below.