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Ask Your Barber • Beard Washing

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How often should I wash my beard?

We’re so, so sorry. We needed a header image, and Shopkeep Joey was around. Making that face.

This is one of the most common questions we get on beard care, and as with most of the answers to other beard-related questions, the answer is a rousing, “it depends.”

Like the hair on your head, your skin and the oils it produces are designed by your body to be the main method of both cleansing and conditioning your follicles. Beard hair tend to be heftier than the hair on your head, and as such it usually needs more moisture and less washing than head hair. But how often heavily depends on your specific situation.

Read on.

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It’s Terminal (Beard Length) – Let’s Talk

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While we believe beards of all shapes and sizes are awesome, length is the end all be all goal for a lot of dudes. When it comes to potential beard length, there are two schools of belief:

Terminal Beard Length Gallery

  1. Your beard just keeps growing, and with enough time and patience, any man who can fill in a decent beard can get competition-big.
  2. Beards at some point will reach a terminal length and stop growing.

So which is it? Not to burst any bubbles, but it’s not the first one. And the second one comes with a slew of caveats. Let’s talk terminal. And science.

Keep reading for our barberly secret to a bigger beard…

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Ask Your Barber / Are Pro Products Worth the Price?

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Ask Your Barber is a monthly feature on the Beardsgaard Barbers blog where we answer your questions about hair, beards, grooming, the business of being a barber, blogging, and more. Have a question? Ask it in the comments or by email HERE.

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Why would anyone buy expensive salon products? The stuff at the drugstore works just fine, and if I want the professional stuff, I can buy it cheaper at CVS or on Amazon, right?”

This is a tough question, and one we answer near every day in the shop.

It is tough both because this is a huge industry gray area, and because we are sure that many folks think we are just after a sale, and would say anything to keep them from getting a deal elsewhere.

Yes, we do receive a commission on sales, but it is the smallest part of our pay. We can’t speak for all hair people, but for us, you using good, authentic product that works for your hair is far more important than you buying it from us. It makes our work easier and look better when you’re away from our shop!

So if you have a friend or relative in the biz that gets the good stuff for you cheap, or you shop the sales at Ulta, then great, you keep on doing that. If you are getting it anywhere else, you have literally no idea what you’re getting. At best, the product is simply old, at worst…horrors.

You might just want to keep reading.

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Ask Your Barber • Hair People

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Ask Your Barber is an occasional feature on the Beardsgaard Barbers blog where we answer your questions about whatever the hell. Got one? Ask it in the comments or by email HERE.

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Do I call you a barber, stylist, hairdresser? I also heard of something called a cosmetologist. What’s the difference?

We get this question all the time, especially Natalie, who regularly has folks trying to convince her that she is a stylist (or cosmetologist or hairdresser, they all mean the same thing), because she is female.

Barbers and stylists are not defined by their gender, or even the gender of hair they cut (although stylists usually do more women’s hair, and plenty of barbers exclusively work on men) but by their license and schooling.

Two different schools, two different licenses, and while there are sometimes differences in practice (short hair vs. long, clippers vs. shears, etc.), those are wide generalizations more than rules. Here is what it really boils down to.

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The Anatomy of a Haircut

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The Anatomy of a Haircut

A haircut is a simple thing. You sit down, get a quick consultation, snip snip, a little conversation, and you’re done.

Every so often, though, you’ll get a little glimpse into our minds when a fellow barber asks a technical question or we’re training a new person at the shop.

And then you will start to understand what goes on during that quick consultation. Because it’s way more than you think. It’s during that time that we figure out what is going on with your head, and what we are going to do with it.

Even when you already have a specific haircut in mind, the specifics of your hair may say no, or even if it is possible, achieving that look may be far more work than you are willing to do on a daily basis.

It is your barber’s job to determine the differences, if any, between what you want and what is possible with what you have going on on your head. When your barber’s doing it right, here’s what they are looking for and what they are going to do about it.

*This post could easily turn into a 10,000 word monstrosity, so we are going to keep these explanations brief here. If any of the points listed below are your problem areas, tell us about your hair issues in the comments at the end of the post, and we may write an article that goes into solutions for that particular problem in more detail.

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