Trimming and maintaining a beard is an essential grooming skill men learn to master. But unlike shaving, it blends technique and aesthetics. While everyone’s facial hair grows in differently, there are some general rules to follow when trying to achieve certain beard types. We asked the founder of the Grooming Lounge, Mike Gilman, to share his advice for taming your follicles.
How to Trim a Short Beard
Step #1: Use an Electric Clipper
“To keep the beard the desired length, trimming with an electric clipper and a guard is definitely the way to go. As with any beard trimming, it’s best to start with a longer guard and move toward a shorter guard — you can’t put hair back on if too much is removed. We’d recommend starting with a #1 guard and moving down to a .5 guard if the hair isn’t trimmed enough the first go around.”
Step #2: Clean Up the Edges
“Once completed with the trimming of the length, the bearded one can remove the guards and use the point of the bare clipper to outline and carve out spots around the neck, cheeks and mustache.”
Step #3: Maintain Your Whiskers
“Ideal products to use with this length of beard include a targeted face wash to keep the whiskers and the skin below the whiskers clean. A light beard lotion or moisturizer should then be applied to hydrate both beard and skin, soften whiskers and point them in the right direction. This will also help with itching, which is the main reason beard missions are aborted early on.”
How to Trim a Normal-Length Beard
Step #1: Start with Clippers
“Like with the shorter beard above, start with clippers and use a higher setting, like a #3 and move down to a 2.5 or 2, as desired. Similarly use the clipper with no attachment to do detail and line work on the neck, cheeks and ‘stache.
“When trimming a beard of this type, it’s usually best to have the trimmer follow the grain of hair growth — which is usually downward to a degree. Going against the grain and pushing too hard can leave bald patches.”
