Harmful Beard Habits Pt. 1
This Blog is going to be a small series about habits that are actually harmful to your beard. Each blog will contain two to three harmful habits and potential ways to identify and avoid doing these things.
#1 Pulling on your beard
I know it seems pretty straightforward that pulling on your beard is bad for it, but it’s actually pretty common for everyone with a beard to pull on it from time to time. Most of the time I find myself pulling on it subconsciously while I’m reading or watching tv or a movie. The main issue with pulling your beard is of course, hair loss. It may not seem like a big deal losing one or two beard hairs when you tug on your face rug but those single hairs add up quickly, especially since you naturally lose hairs daily. Pulling or tugging on your beard also weakens the hairs, causing them to break or fall out prematurely. To much of this and all the sudden you have small bald spots or holes in your beard! Depending on where the hole or bald spot it, you may have to trim your beard in order to prevent a weird shape. Worst case scenario, you may even have to shave your beard and let it all grow back to regain your desired beard shape!
Take a step back or ask your friends and see if this is something that you’re doing, and if it is then try to nail down the times you do it. Is it when you’re watching tv or reading, when you’re nervous or concentrating? if it is then here are a few possible solutions to this problem. Find something to occupy your hands in those situations like a stress ball or a grip strength tool. You could start carrying a beard comb or brush with you, if you’re going to mess with your beard you might as well be doing something good for it right? If all else fails, make a deal with somebody that you’re around every day to either slap you or pay them a dollar every time they see you pull on it.
#2 Plucking beard hairs
Another fairly self-explanatory bad habit, plucking hairs is not great for your beard. Besides the obvious reasons plucking hairs would be bad for you like bald spots and gaps in your beard, plucking also opens you up to a couple other problems that are really inconvenient to you. Plucking beard hairs puts you on the fast track for irritated skin, infections, and the worst part, ingrown hairs! Irritated skin and infections will lead to pulling and scratching your beard and as previously stated pulling your beard is not great for it. Scratching will just lead to more irritation and scratching to hard can lead to more infections. But the worst byproduct of plucking are those annoying, itchy, painful ingrown hairs. Ingrown hairs are generally large, zit-like bumps in the body of your beard or in highly touched areas of your skin that are super sensitive and are generally fairly painful. The easiest way to get rid of ingrown hairs is to pluck them and now you’ve come full circle to the thing that sent us down this path to start with.
So the next time you see a grey hair in your beard, don’t pluck it, embrace it! Let the grey come in and show off your wisdom with your distinguished grey beard! If that isn’t quite your speed then dye it. Whatever you do, just keep yourself from plucking those hairs and avoid the vicious circle of irritation and ingrown hairs!
