Harmful Beard Habits Pt. 4

Harmful Beard Habits: Bad neckline shaping

                Shaping your beard may seem like a straightforward task, but if you’ve been out in the world you’ve probably seen some people that have done it very wrong.  That being said, along with trimming, its something that if you don’t know how to do it, find somebody that does and have them do it (preferably a legitimate barber)… 

                To start off with, unless you’re going for a pretty wild custom look, you definitely want to keep it natural.  Use the two finger rule, if you don’t know what that is let me explain it to you.  You place two fingers on the top of your Adam’s apple and the top of your index finger is where your neckline should end.  Feel free to slightly adjust this up or down depending on your neck length or what looks more natural to you.  Anything below that gets shaved, you want chin beard, not neck bear Seriously shave that thing…

Harmful Beard Habits: Blow drying your beard the wrong way

                To kick this one off, I’m going to clarify that it’s totally ok to blow dry your beard.  If you’ve never tried it, I highly recommend that you do.  Personally, it reminds me of driving with my window down in the summer and letting the warm air blow on my face and through my beard.  So, like I said, go ahead and blow dry your beard, just make sure that you’re not over doing it.

                What you want to watch out for is how much heat you’re applying to your beard.  Yes, heat make it easier to style and manage your beard, but the line between that amount of heat and a damaging amount is pretty thin.  Once you reach that point of heat damage, you’ll start to lose the softness and strength of your beard hair and it will become brittle and maybe even discolored.  Obviously you don’t want weak, brittle beard hair.  That leads to breakage and losing hair, and that means that your beard will have holes in it, and it will thin out.  If you love your beard, don’t abuse it! Blow dry with care please.