How Beard Hair Grows During No Shave November & Quarantine

“A beard is the ultimate proof of patience.”

I have faced all the troubles with a beard that an ordinary guy normally tends to have — like patches, dryness, itchiness, and foremost tangles. I never even tried to believe that I could grow a full beard one day. I thought it’s something of a privilege, that these elite people get to possess. I also had a legit reason to believe that — I tried like a million times to grow a good beard from my early teen days and as you might have guessed, I failed terribly every single time. If one thing went right the other thing would go wrong and at last, my beard would be nothing more than just a mess.

In short, I blamed my destiny without even giving my beard the right amount of time to grow. Then, the pandemic occurred and I had a lot of time to do experiments with myself. I have consolidated everything I have learned about growing a badass beard into seven rules, which I like to call “ A mister’s whiskers guide”. I know, it sounds a bit masculine but it’s fine — beards have developed over the years to be a masculine symbol anyway.

1. Your last shave matters

It’s always good to shave everything off before you start this long eternal journey — because you can’t afford chaos and blunders after a few months of growth. I highly recommend that your last shave is in the downwards direction because that’s where you would want your beard to grow. Also, your hair growth will be from a point zero — just trimming your beard won’t give you that precision cut.

2. Don’t even dare to touch

"DO NOT TOUCH YOUR BEARD UNNECESSARILY!!!"

I cannot emphasize more on this, the worst thing you can do to your beard is touching and fiddling it incessantly — you shouldn’t be touching your beard at all for at least the very first month of your beard growth. It might get itchy and sometimes agitating too but it’s not worth it — the reason behind you shouldn’t be doing this is that when you play with your beard hair, you may actually end up plucking it or guiding it in the wrong direction. Trust me, you don’t want this to happen.

3. Patience is everything

This might be the most vital card that can step up your beard game — I know it’s very hard to wait, especially during those first 4–6 weeks where all you have is a short stubble and uncouth pair of hair. You have to understand that it’s only a hard phase and it will eventually pass — you ought to have patience because it is for a good cause. So, let it grow without trimming for at least 6–8 weeks.

4. Time to shape it

After you achieve enough length (about 6–8 weeks) you can give your beard a little scissor trim, the reason I have said scissor trim is because when you use an actual trimmer to shape your beard — you may end up trimming it too much, which may lead to uneven shaping of your beard — but when you use a scissor you just cut out the oddly bristled hair and give it a crisp and athletic look. Before you shape your beard, you should have a clear picture of what you are about to do, which means you should know what kind of a look you are aiming for and what may be the best for your face structure.

For me, It was keeping the sides a little short than my chin. I would just cut the odd hair out while keeping the length of my beard. One of the most important things you have to keep in your mind is maintaining your chin and cheek line. For the chin line, you just have to clean the hair below your adam’s apple, don’t go too high because it looks really bad when your chin line is really high. For the cheek line, you just have to keep up with your sideburns and clean everything that is not aligned. It’s best if you shape your beard on your own because barbershops just do the general maintaining of your beard and sometimes just cut out too much longer.

"You are the master of your beard, so maintain it yourself"

5. Choose your products wisely

When you have 8–10 weeks of beard growth, it’s necessary that you use some vital products because otherwise, the beard will look patchy, tangled, and very very uncouth. It doesn’t mean that you buy all kinds of beard products that are out there on the market, I use only three components — A beard brush, beard oil, and a beard wash. You can also use beard clay occasionally but daily use can lead to hair damage — after all our aim is to nourish the beard not to cherish it!

Let’s start with the beard brush, It’s not actually necessary to buy a beard brush because you can always use a regular comb but the brush helps in untangling your hair and covering your patches. It also helps in distributing your beard oil to each strain of hair. Don’t worry if you don’t have a beard brush, you can just use the regular comb with a curling comb to get the best results.

Next in line is our beard oil, the ultimate companion of a beardo! I highly recommend you buy your beard oil after competent research because beard oil is a crucial factor that breaks or makes your beard. Beard oil helps in nourishing your beard along with giving it a shiny and smoother look. It also helps in detangling your beard and boosts your beard growth rate. It is also important to understand that beard oil never helps in growing new hair in bald areas — because it is impossible for any product to grow hair in your skin where there is no hair follicle. So, never trust such claims by any brand, no matter how big it is. You can also make your beard oil at home by adding many essential oils like argan oil, coconut oil, and almond oil.

A beard wash must have good detangling and nourishing properties, also you should check the ingredients and their ph levels because you don’t want to bleach your beard, which in turn makes it grey — there should not be any hair fall either.

6. Grooming makes you badass

After a while, you will get furious because there are going to be many bad beard days and your only hope is a good grooming session. You might wake up like a caveman but don’t give up and shave your beard off — scissor trim it whenever it is required, get a shower then blow dry it while keeping a good distance because too much heat results in hair damage. Apply your beard oil and comb it with your brush towards the downwards direction — then you are good to go.

7. Breaking everything down

"There are certain rules that makes the beard look more elegant"

Always be conscious about what your strengths and weaknesses are. Emphasize your strengths while embracing your weaknesses, you should be never disappointed about these small things and envy other beards — you can have role models but don’t try to emulate them because you end up eradicating your gifts. We all have different beards and different problems and trust me nobody is satisfied with what they have got. We always tend to get more and we all have problems like split ends, bald patches, and tangled hair.

The basic rules that make your beard look more poised are: connecting your mustache with your goatee, keeping your mustache and chin hair thick, keeping a good cheek and chin line, and waiting for the slow-growing hair to match with other hairs. If you keep track of these golden rules then trust me nothing in this universe can stop you from growing a badass beard.