Did you grow a scraggly beard and need to tame down these wiry hairs? Scraggly hairs lead to a messy-looking beard style, sending a bad first impression. These tips can soften your facial hair so that it’s easy to style and fill in bare spots.
Scraggly beard has wiry, coarse facial hair that grows in all directions that typically looks unkept and uneven. When coupled with bare spots, the patchy beard accentuates the thin and unbalanced look. This beard can look even worse if allowed to grow down the neck.
Even if you like the rougher beard look, scraggly beard hair often gets a bad reputation for being an unclean, dirty beard. Grooming these hairs a certain way and using specific beard care products can change your beard’s condition for the better.
Why is my beard Scraggly?
Contemplating cutting off your beard because of ugly facial hair? Hold that thought.
The first step is to treat the underlying cause for your hair growth. Unfortunately, your genetics dictate beard growth as well, so understanding how to groom and straighten these hairs is the best plan of action.
- Has it taken years to grow out your beard, but it just grows slowly?
- Is it that you have a patchy beard in many areas or possibly a beard itch that’s preventing balanced growth?
- Does your beard hair look brittle, damaged with split ends?
How to clean up, Tame & Prevent
Fixing your scraggly beard hair starts with understanding the issue. There are multiple skin and hair issues that could be the root cause of unhealthy or dry facial hair.
1. Start a Beard Grooming Routine
Do you just rinse out or wash your beard with regular hair shampoo? Your beard hair may just be brittle and dry, unable to grow in thick patches because of breakage due to lack of moisture.
In these cases, you should look for a high-quality beard wash or moisturizing facial wash that will hydrate your skin and beard hair.
Additionally, applying a beard oil or beard balm in the morning and brushing through with a boar bristle brush may soften and make your hair look healthier, enhancing your natural oils.
One other thing that can help is to exfoliate underneath your beard to remove dry skin, especially if you have beard itch problems.
2. Trim Your Beard Hair Evenly
You’ll need to trim your beard regularly, especially if you’re growing it out along the jawline and chin. Longer beard hair tends to dry out faster as your skin doesn’t produce enough sebum to moisturize these wiry, long hairs.
Worried about bald spots and patches? There are also various patchy beard styles that enhance the look of your beard, even if you have uneven growth.
Additionally, if you have split ends, breakage, or dry, wiry hairs, you can trim these back and shape your beard with a balm.
3. Invest in a Good Beard Brush or Comb
Beard hair needs to be brushed just like your regular hair. In fact, brushing your beard with a stiff boar bristle brush can stimulate the hair follicles underneath and even train your beard to grow in a certain direction.
Beard combs also work to pluck out and fluff up beard hair if it’s very curly or wavy.
Beard trimmers work great for all-over buzzing and fading your beard. However, scissors are helpful for light trimming and shaping your beard hair along the jawline.
4. Avoid the Neck beard
One way to guarantee people think you have a scraggly beard is with unruly neck hair especially when you grow a neck beard! You should have a defined neckline with hair that doesn’t grow beyond your Adam’s apple.
I wrote a full guide on Trimming Your Neckline for a professional, clean-cut look.
5. Try a Beard Utility Balm or Beard Wax
If your beard still won’t soften after applying beard oil or balm, then you may need to upgrade to a stronger wax beard product like a beard utility balm or a pure beard wax.
For tighter beard styling and stronger hold, beard wax with a high concentration of beeswax is going to be the best. You can smooth messy beard hair and tame wiry hairs just by applying a bit of wax to your beard.
6. Soften Your Beard Hair
There are a variety of beard softeners that will smooth out wiry, wavy beard hair. If you’re constantly fighting with your beard or simply don’t think it looks healthy, your scraggly beard will completely change after using a beard softener.
You only need to apply beard softener a few times per week to see a different, but most men apply a softening balm two times a day until the condition of their beard hair changes. This is especially true if you’re dealing with a long beard.
7. Straighten Your Beard
Beard straighteners use heat to straighten and tame coarse beard hair. The heat softens and straightens facial hair with small, ceramic or titanium plates that press your beard hair and soften the hair so it’s easier to style.
Look at some straightened beard styles for inspiration.
8. Seek a Professional’s Opinion
Both barbers and dermatologists can offer recommendations on what to do with a scraggly beard if none of these tips help.
Dermatologists can help you with chronic skin and hair problems that make your facial hair too coarse or brittle, such as constant dry skin, dandruff, beard split ends, ingrown hairs, and other problems affecting your beard health, such as not eating a balanced diet.
Most barbers charge less than $10 for a quick beard trim, and just talking to them about the condition of your beard could give you more insight and personalization into what would be best for your beard.
