Grooming a Beard

To avoid cutting the beard too short, make sure it is completely dry before beginning to trim it.

To groom a beard, you must clean, shape and trim it. A beard is shaped by trimming the hair down the cheeks toward the jaw, and by trimming the hair up the throat toward the jaw. Some beard styles are extreme in their shaping – for example, an “urban beard” is exceptionally low on the cheek. Beard hair is coarser than the hair on the head, so if the beard wearer wants a smoother look to his beard, he should choose a style that allows the beard to be trimmed close. Though conditioning beard hair does soften it, the hair will always be relatively coarse and added length results in added “bushiness.”

Things You'll Need

• Shampoo
• Towel
• Comb
• Beard trimmer
• Broad-toothed comb
• Narrow-toothed comb

Instructions

1. Shampoo your beard, and rinse it thoroughly. Pat it dry with a towel. Comb the beard and mustache downward.

2. Look up to the ceiling. Lay your middle finger at the middle of your Adam’s apple, and lay your index finger beside it. Cut your beard up your neck, using a beard trimmer, until it reaches the side of your index finger closest to your face.

3. Cut a line into the hair grown on your neck, using a beard trimmer. Cut the line so it follows the curve of your jaw line -- the line should be a smooth arc along your throat, with the arc’s highest point at the place where your index finger lay. Cut the hair on your throat up to that line using the beard trimmer.

4. Lay your thumb on the side of your face, against your jawbone. Shave the beard down your cheek – don’t go lower than where your thumb lies, but go low enough to get rid of any patchy hair on the upper parts of your cheek. Repeat for the second cheek.

5. Run the broad-toothed comb horizontally, up from the bottom of the beard. Hold the comb so the beard hair springs up between the teeth of the comb. Cut along the length of the teeth of the comb with the beard trimmer, to trim off the hair springing up past the comb’s teeth. Continue until all the hair in the beard is trimmed to the same length.

6. Run the narrow-toothed comb down through the mustache so the mustache hair springs up through the comb teeth. Run the clippers up and down the teeth of the comb to trim the mustache hair.

References

• Beardcoach: Beard Grooming 101 – Neck Line and Cheek Line
• Dona Gillis: How to Trim a Beard – 2 Most Popular Beard Styles
• All About Beards: Beard Grooming