5 benefits of having a beard.

How’s your face, bro?

Hopefully, you take good care of it. It’s not dry or itchy or irritated. As the seasons change to colder weather, it hopefully doesn’t leave your face feeling scratchy or ashy or any other kind of unpleasant.

On the off chance that your face isn’t so great, or if you’re maybe looking for a change, then it’s time we talked to you about something very near and dear to our hearts. Beards.

MANSCAPED™ has long been devoted to helping men with all aspects of grooming, but one thing has been noticeably absent for several years now: beard care. Sure, we talk about it, but we’ve been short on beard-dedicated products.

That’s all changing. We’ve finally perfected some beard goodies, and that is helping us to feel more confident in talking to you about your own beard.

You might not know this, but a good beard can be the secret to a healthy face and a happy man. Sure, not all guys prefer a beard, but if you’ve been toying with the idea, we have some information you’re going to want. It turns out that beards can be outright good for you, and we’re going to explain it all right now.

It will make you feel manly

Let’s have a little real talk for a minute, gents.

When it comes to manliness, everyone has their own idea of what that means. That’s normal, and it’s perfectly fine. We’re not here to define manliness for you or to try to dictate how you should feel about masculinity.

Instead, we want to acknowledge that a lot of guys out there like feeling manly. You might like feeling other things too, and that’s also normal and fine. But if we’re going to zero in on feeling manly, then we can reasonably talk about beards.

Beards are traditionally masculine, and most guys feel a bit manlier when they let the facial hair grow out a bit. How could you not? Beards tend to look and feel rugged. When you want to embrace your inner instincts and toughness and all of those things that make you feel manly, the beard can be an external reflection of it all.

This sense of ruggedness and manliness comes with its own benefits. It can help you channel a genuine sense of self-confidence, and that self-confidence can reflect through your daily life. It can help you socially, romantically, and professionally.

A sense of manliness can also help with testosterone production and other hormone regulations. 

Speaking quite seriously, feeling manly can be good for your health, and growing a beard can help you feel manly. 

It will change how you look

Ok. Obviously, a beard changes how your face looks, but let’s really dig into that for a moment.

It’s not something we all talk about, but a lot of guys aren’t in love with the look of their own face. It happens to many men, maybe even most men.

A beard gives you control over that. We are not saying that you need to change or hide your face, but if you want the feeling of empowerment that comes from being able to dictate how your face looks, a beard can be a tool for that.

When you really think about how you want to grow your beard, you have a lot of style options. You can color your beard, you can cut it a certain way, and you can style it with oils and other products.

If you want a full look that gives you a sense of presence, a big beard can do that. If you’re more into careful lines that highlight the parts of your face that look great, you can do that too.

The whole point is that you can style your beard in a thousand different ways, and at least one of those options is going to be something you like. Steer into that. It’s ok to enjoy looking into the mirror.

The best part of all of this is that it’s your own natural beard. This is all you, and the amount of time and money you need to invest into styling is pretty minimal — especially compared with a lot of the other things we all try to do to feel better about ourselves.

Enjoy your beard. That’s what it’s for.

Your beard can keep you warm

How do you stay warm in cold weather? You put on a jacket. Or warm clothes. Or a blanket.

All of these things work via the same principle. They trap air next to your body so that it can’t flow freely. When the air stays next to you for a long enough time, your body heats up that air. The warm air then becomes an insulating, warming barrier that protects you from the cold.

This, by the way, is why you want a good windbreaker in windy weather. If your clothes can’t block the wind, then it will pull the warm air layer off of your body, and the whole process fails.

That’s a fun little science lesson, right?

Well, this lesson can apply to your beard.

If you just keep a five o’clock shadow all the time, it’s not going to keep you warm. But, if you have a nice, thick, bushy beard (that’s still styled and tamed), it actually can trap warm air next to your face and keep you warm. It’s a natural face jacket.

On top of that, a thick enough beard can also prevent moisture from getting to your face if it’s a cold, damp kind of day. If you keep dry in those conditions, you’ll be even warmer. The beard is giving you a two-for-one benefit.

In the interest of safety and good planning, we do need to talk about the caveat to all of this. If your beard doesn’t successfully keep your face dry, then it’s not keeping you warm in the winter. If you go skiing, for example, and you end up with ice crystals in your beard that touch your face, the beard actually makes you colder.

It’s important to keep all of that in mind. But, if you’re not in wet conditions, the beard definitely has a warming effect, which can be pretty nice sometimes.

It can help your skin health

It’s easy to overlook, but if you take basic care of your beard, then it will be good for your face.

First off, the beard naturally does things that are good for your skin. It’s a great UV blocker, so your face won’t get sun damage even if you spend a lot of time outside. Keep in mind that the thickness of the beard matters here, and the beard won’t protect your entire face, so still use sunscreen. Still, natural UV protection is pretty nice.

On top of that, your beard produces oils, and those oils are great natural moisturizers for your skin. Even while your beard protects your face from UV damage, it helps avert dry skin and the many problems that come with it.

Most of all, beard care is skincare.

When you condition your beard to make it nice and soft, you’re also conditioning your face. That effectively works as a chemical exfoliant, and it helps keep your pores clear and your face fresh.

When you oil your beard, you’re moisturizing your face, and you’re doing it in a friendly way that won’t result in nasty breakouts or other problems. (If a specific beard oil does give you skin problems, stop using it and look for something that your face actually likes.)

As an added bonus, if you grow your beard out, you’re not going to cut yourself shaving. Sure, you still need to trim and style the beard, but it’s pretty easy to do that without bringing any blades into contact with your face. If there’s one thing we can say with confidence, it’s that your face loves taking a break from the razor.

If you think your face might need to shake things up a bit, maybe do a round of no-shave November. You can rejuvenate your face, enjoy your beard, and then reassess after a month.

Beards are convenient

There’s something else that you are overlooking. Beards are convenient.

Ok. Let’s pause for a minute and make sure everything is perfectly clear. We’re advocates of male grooming. That means we suggest that you regularly trim, groom, and style your beard. We’re not fans of the Peter Griffin bird’s nest.

That means that in our opinion, a beard does come with maintenance. You need to wash it, oil it, trim it, and style it on a regular basis.

Even considering all of that, a beard is convenient.

First off, in order to not have a beard, you have to shave on a regular basis. Shaving alone constitutes more work than full beard care. It’s already a done deal.

But, shaving can come with its own can of worms. Shaving can be hard on your skin, and if you’re going to take good care of your face, then shaving means you also need to regularly exfoliate, moisturize, and otherwise treat your face so that it doesn’t break out into bumps or worse after a shave.

Hopefully, this has convinced you that the beard is your friend. Enjoy the face jacket this fall.