Beard split ends happen due to damaged and dry hair follicles. There are many causes and remedies for brittle beard hair, including a lack of beard care or overexposure to the sun.
What’s causing your beard split ends? Research shows that once split ends occur, you can’t repair your hair. Instead, you’ll have to trim away these split ends, but you may be able to prevent split ends using the following information.
What are Beard Split Ends?
Beard split ends result from dry or damaged facial hair. The hair strands split at the end of the follicle, leaving the beard scraggly or frizzy. Typically, split ends arise from poor grooming or too much heat exposure like the sun, beard straightener, hair dryer, etc.
These beards also tend to have dull, coarse hair or wavy, frizzy hair that sticks out around the edges.
If you find it difficult to style your beard or you just don’t like the look of your beard, you may need to hydrate your skin and hair follicles with different beard care products to change the texture of your beard hair.
There are a number of ways to fix beard split ends at home, as well as some common grooming mistakes to avoid if you’re frequently seeing brittle or bad beard hair.
1. Recognize Causes for Beard Split Ends
For men with coarse facial hair that suffers from split ends, there are various reasons that your hair is suffering. Here are some of the common causes of split ends in facial hair.
Long Beard Hair
Long beard styles may not receive enough lubrication from oils in your sebaceous glands. Since these glands are located within your hair follicle, it’s harder and harder for the oil to access the full length of your beard hair.
As such, longer beards often will have split ends as they dry out. This is why trimming with scissors can eliminate these split ends quickly.
Lack of Beard Care
From beard oil and balms to beard butter, there are a variety of beard products that can help you grow lustrous, glowing beard hair and stop split ends in their tracks.
Maintaining your beard also means getting into a better routine to take care of and condition your beard hair. For example, using beard oil morning and night after you clean your beard with a moisturizing beard wash can change the texture of your hair to be softer and easier to style.
Dull Razors or trimming with Electric Razors
If you aren’t maintaining your razors and beard trimmers, then you’ll likely create damaged split ends. Barbers frequently oil and sharpen their razors so that they get the sharpest cuts. However, if your blades are dull or if you haven’t replaced the blades in a while, then you’ll likely create frayed beard hairs or split ends.
2. Treatment for Beard Split Ends
The first step for anyone with beard split ends is to trim your beard with sharp scissors, especially if you have a long beard.
This leaves behind the healthy beard hair, allowing it to grow without brittle, broken ends. This also stops the split end from becoming worse and growing towards the shaft or root of the hair.
Next, you’ll want to wash your hair thoroughly and use a good beard conditioner. Once you’ve dried your beard, apply a beard oil (natural oils and essential oils are best).
Brush through with a boar bristle brush or comb. If you spot split ends, use a pair of scissors to nip away at damaged hairs.
Beard combs work well when made of wood, but don’t try plastic combs with narrow teeth as this will only cause more issues.
Other products that also work to treat split ends include:
Finally, experts also recommend that you start a healthy diet with Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin A, vitamin D, and B vitamins. Diets high in fish, leafy greens, eggs, and walnuts can help you change your body’s chemistry for higher skin and hair health.
3. Get Rid of Beard Split Ends Forever
To get rid of beard split ends, you’ll need to pay attention to each stage of beard growth and your beard care routine, particularly the condition of your razor blades and scissors.
The razor blades should be freshly replaced or newly sharpened. You never want to shave or trim away hair with a dull blade or scissors as this causes ingrown hairs, razor burn, and split ends.
After brushing out your beard hair, you should be able to inspect the ends and trim off the split end strands with just a pair of barber shears. If you notice multiple sections of your hair with split ends, you may simply want to buzz down your beard with an electric razor.
This isn’t a good idea unless you have professional beard trimmers that have been oiled and sharpened for use, just like you would at a barber.
You should never leave split ends to linger, as it will further split down your hair and cause more wiry, rough bushy beard hair.
