5 Bold Ways To Groom & Maintain Your Beard During The Warmer Months
Grooming your Beard during the Warmer Months
For centuries, beards have been part of male fashion, the symbol of masculinity. But with the warmer summer days, men with beards are faced by a dilemma associated with the high temperatures. Many are at a loss in terms of what to do about their beard as they can become quite uncomfortable.
Humidity and heat during the summer months can mix with dirt, sweat, or dead skin cells to irritate the skin underneath your beard or even cause unpleasant breakouts. Additionally, this can make your beard look unkempt, dirty or have an odd smell.
In the summertime, many people prefer to completely shave off their beard believing it's the only option available. But according to research, during the warmer season, your beard actually serves as a skin guard protecting you against the hazardous UV rays from the Sun.
This only goes to give you more reasons why should not rush to shave off that beard in the summer and learn how to groom your beard during warmer months.
Some Great Beard Styles for Summer Months
Nobody is saying you have to completely shave off that beautiful beard you have nurtured for months just because the weather just got warmer. With the arrival of summer, many men choose to switch their beard styles to suit the challenges of the warm weather.
In fact, there are many great beard styles that will not only look great during the warm season but also remain healthy and clean. Trying new types and styles is not just about getting a new aesthetic look. Some also offer your face protection from the summer heat.
On the other hand, if you want to grow a new look altogether, by all means, bring out the razor or visit the barber. Or you may want to try any of the following summer looks.
The Full Beard
Contrary to what most people assume, facial hair is actually not very good when it comes to retaining heat. Therefore, keeping your beard during the summer months may not be as counter-intuitive as many people think. Although the summer temperatures may be approaching triple digits, don’t be forced by the heat to ditch your beard.
In fact, full beards are not only versatile, but they look awesome and great with long, medium or short hair. For that cool-looking hipster touch, you can even consider combining a full beard with a handlebar mustache.
Low Cut Beard
This design is a great compromise that allows you to continue wearing your usual beard style, but now devoid of that sticky and grizzly feel. The low-intensity beard helps you groom your beard during warmer months and retain your fashionable winter style, but with a lower hair density that makes you feel more aired and breezy. It’s also a good casual style yet sharp looking, great if you are an outdoors person.
Summer Stubble
Sometimes the best style for the warmer summer days is a beard that is barely noticeable. After all, when you free up the chin from its normal hair it gives you a chance to grow a new style and even out your summer tan. If you still want to flaunt some evidence of masculine fuzz without necessarily getting bogged down by sweat and oil, try the flashy ‘summer stubble’. The sculpted edges and clear line work together brilliantly when you have a summer tan!
The Challenges during Warmer Months
Having and maintaining a beard during the warmer season is a whole different thing and requires that you adopt a different mindset than you had over the winter period. That, however, doesn’t mean you need to go totally bare. All you need is to be aware of what you can expect as the weather gets progressively warmer.
Let’s look at several realities and challenges of growing a beard in the summertime and what you can do to cope.
Breakages and Patchiness
If you find yourself constantly scratching, it could be an indication that you are probably not keeping good skin and beard health. This can trigger lots of split ends and breakages in your beard. In addition, it can trigger patchiness.
Your beard has probably stiffened thanks to the hot and dry air associated with the warmer season. This tells you that the beard need be kept really clean. Besides daily washing, lather it up nicely 2-3 times per week with a quality shampoo.
Sweat and Irritation
With more sweating during warm days comes skin irritation leading to beard itching and scratching. The sweat-related scratching will further irritate your skin beneath the beard, causing the endless sweat-scratch cycle once again. The outcome is beard shedding.
To maintain a healthy beard over summer, wash it often because humidity and heat do weird things to your beard and skin.
Tangles
Increased sweating during hot days blocks your pores. Your hair/beard is unable to breathe leading to increased tangling. Make sure that you maintain it by combing and brushing every day.
After giving it a nice scrub, rub in some beard balm or coconut oil as it helps in softening the beard and improving its growth.
Brush it Out
Keeping your beard well-groomed at all times helps. Keeping the hairs detangled and apart promotes airflow during the summer and warmer months. To prevent the development of tangles and awkward beard puff, remember to brush your beard daily, especially by grooming your beard during the warmer months.
Exfoliate Underneath
Every time you sweat, the skin surface gets covered with lots of microscopic salt deposits as well as other minerals that are excreted through the body pores. A shower washes off these deposits, but without a determined and thorough scrubbing, the deposits may linger just beneath your facial hair and cause itching.
Hydrate Well
It’s not just our bodies that need to be kept well-hydrated during warmer seasons but skin and hair too. The summer heat can damage not just your skin but beard too, which makes it important to use a suitable beard oil or conditioner alongside your facial moisturizer to help keep both healthy.
A soft beard is a healthy beard and there are lots of great beard oils and balms on the market to help you keep the beard soft. These will also help you in combating the dryness you typically get as a result of washing more often during the summer months — a potential cause of beard itch.
Conclusion
A good looking beard doesn’t come with an expiration date. At one point in history, beards were seen as a seasonal affair. Woolly, big mitts in winter paved the way for crisply shaven beard chops with the arrival of warmer months. These were the accepted social rules, and a real gentleman would never violate them.
Today, beards are, for all purposes, season-less: they make a statement about the gentleman, not the current weather. Like human beings, beards come in all styles and shapes, and what you choose is likely to be informed by many other factors other than simply looking cool. Groom your beard during warmer months and feel proud of your look.
Just because one style beard looks awful on someone else this summer is no reason why it cannot look awesome on you. A beard can be a great way of adding some flair to your looks this summer and still exude that sense of masculinity.