Beard Hair Growth Strategies Part 1

Take any and all health advice found herein with a grain of salt and talk to your doctor before engaging in any health-related practices you find on the internet. By continuing to read, you accept all responsibility for anything you do, and waive all rights to sue me for anything related.

To start off this series of articles, I think it’s best to be all encompassing at the start and then try to get specific with individual pieces of information. You’re here because you either want to grow a better beard, or any beard at all. Let’s see what options there are for the different levels.

For general growth of beard there are numerous topical products such as oils, gels, and other rub-ins. There are supplements that you can take. There are dietary plans. There are massage, heat, and laser treatments. There are transplants and stem-cells. There are hormones and other drug therapies. There are even wigs and high-quality fake beards and mustaches, the wigs of the facial world.

1. Oils

There are many anecdotal stories of oils applied topically to help stimulate beard growth. There’s little to no actual science to back this up except for suppositions and extrapolations. Castor oil for example applied topically might help inhibit PGD2, a prostaglandin that involves inflammation and doing so might help protect your hairs and has supposedly helped with preserving eyelashes and eyebrows.

If you experiment with castor oil, or any oils, make sure you’re not allergic to them first. Castor oil can irritate the skin and rashes, the eyes, and if you eat it in can have you throwing up like crazy. Be careful.

You can combine castor oil with other oils such as almond or coconut oils to help it keep moisture in your skin and on your beard. Castor oil can also help with keeping bacteria and fungi off your clean face so if you have any such issues with microbes messing with your facial hair growth it might help there too.

2. Gels and Other Rub-Ins

These are chemicals like minoxidil (aka Rogaine) that you must put on your hair and follicular patches for hours on end in order to see any benefits from them working. They’re oftentimes drugs, that might have side effects, or herbal concoctions and the like that don’t accomplish much. They’re not something I can personally swear to the efficacy of, and not really anything I’d be too enthused to try on my beard.

3. Supplements

I have a love/hate relationship with supplements. I love the idea that you can get nutrients and medicines that you might be lacking from our favorite or only affordable diets, for prices that are arguable pretty decent and affordable in most cases. I hate the face that you’d HAVE to get supplements because clean, good, whole foods are either unavailable to too expensive, or are just nasty for your personal pallet so far. Since testosterone is the major factor impacting beard growth, the simplest way seemingly to get more beard growth would be more testosterone. A supplement rich in protein, preferably from bioavailable sources in certain kinds of protein isolates and amino acid formulas for workout recovery can help you get the protein and amino acids you need for optimal testosterone. Iron and zinc also play especially important parts. Iron deficiencies for example can lead to thinning hair or outright hair-loss. This is something you should get tested by your doctor before you start supplementing iron pills. Zinc deficiency also has hair-loss as a common symptom which could be what is impacting your ability to grow a beard. It also helps in protein synthesis for hair growth and repair and helps regulate follicular oils.

End of part 1.