Why Beard Wash and Conditioner? - Authored by Daniel Command
Beard Wash and Beard Conditioner
Using quality beard wash and beard conditioner can be a game changer for the health and appearance for your beard. Beard wash is essential to clean out your pores, the skin under your beard, and the beard hairs themselves. Beard conditioner can be amazing for detangling and softening your beard hairs. A major benefit of that is you are not pulling out hairs prematurely or breaking them because of snags and tangles. Some key information that we will cover in this blog will be when to use these products, how to use them, and why it is not a good idea to use head hair products on your beard.
Beard wash should be used in the shower, bath, or even over the sink. The number of times you will use beard wash will depend on your lifestyle and activity level. If you get sweaty, drooly, or anything else just dirty in general… wash your beard! Even if that means every single day. Most days you will want to use a daily and/or gentle beard wash. Enough to clean everything you need, but not enough to overly strip the hairs. Copper Johns offers two great washes that can be used daily. Either the daily conditioning wash or the gentle daily wash are great options. If you noticed we said most days for the gentle washing, and that is because stripping the beard can be very beneficial as well. You just do not want to strip the beard more than once a week or once every other week. This can be done with a quality bar soap, such as the soaps offered by Copper Johns. The stripping soap is great for really get in the pores and cleaning out all the hidden sodium and buildup. If you do this more than once a week, you risk stripping fibers off the hairs and damaging them.
Beard conditioner should be used following a beard wash. Some like the act of “co-washing” using a conditioner alone. We do not recommend that though. Conditioner is going to find the imperfections of the hairs and seal them. You do not want any sealing done on a dirty beard. Unlike beard wash, you do not want to condition your beard daily. If you are washing daily, try using a beard conditioner every other day. On the no beard conditioner days, you will simply wash your beard with a gentle/daily wash. If you use a stripping beard wash, we do recommend you follow with a conditioner. If you are not washing daily, go through trial and error to figure out how many days feel best for using conditioner. We recommend for most beards two to three times a week.
Beard wash should lather up on the beard and you should work the wash into the skin and throughout the hair. We want you to clean all aspects of the beard. After working the beard wash through the beard for a few minutes, you will want to rinse it out with warm water. Beard conditioner should be applied to a wet beard but not to the skin. Focus the conditioner on just the beard hairs themselves. If you have a shorter beard you will want to apply it with an open palm, so you are not massaging the conditioner in with your fingertips. Just like with the beard wash, you will want to rinse out the conditioner with warm water.
Using beard specific products is important for the health of your beard and because of that, you should avoid using products that were designed for head hair. The main reason would be that the two environments are very different. Your scalp has more hair follicles, more sebum oil, and different texture of hairs. Beard wash and beard conditioner is specifically designed with the proper pH level, ingredients, and properties needed for facial hair and the skin underneath it.
If you have any questions about our beard washes or beard conditioner, please do not hesitate to reach out!
