How to Stimulate Beard Growth in 8 Steps | Dapper Mane (2023)

Are you wondering how to stimulate beard growth for a thicker, fuller beard? Here is a step-by-step guide to a strong, healthy beard.

How to Stimulate Beard Growth: A Summary

You don’t have to have patchy cheeks and slow-growing facial hair. While it’s true that genetics play a role in how your beard grows, there are steps you can take to get better coverage and healthier facial hair.

1. Take Care of Your Overall Health
2. Eat Foods to Boost Helpful Hormones
3. Take Supplements
4. Improve Circulation in Your Beard Area
5. Try Essential Oils
6. Develop a Beard Care Routine
7. Don’t Do Things That Hinder Beard Growth
8. Try a Proven Hair Growth Activator

How to Stimulate Beard Growth in 8 Steps

These eight practices will have you well on your way to healthy, happy facial hair. Let’s take a closer look at each step and why they made our list.

1. Take Care of Your Overall Health

The beginning of any routine to help improve one aspect of your health is to check in with your whole body. You can’t expect your body to expend energy and nutrients on your beard when your overall health is waning.Three areas where most of us can improve our routine are rest, diet, and movement.

Get Enough Sleep

According to the CDC,one in threeAmerican adults doesn’t get enough sleep. At least seven hours of sleep each night promotes optimal health. Regularly getting less sleep puts you at risk for chronic illnesses such as high blood pressure and heart disease.

Eat a Healthy Diet

We’ll explore nutrition a little deeper later in this article. But, for now, we’ll say that a healthy diet that includes more fresh foods and fewer fast food stops is the first step to eating for healthy beard growth.

Get Some Exercise

You don’t have to dedicate hours of your week to the gym to make a positive change in your exercise routine. According to researchers at theMayo Clinic, men should get at least 75-150 minutes of aerobic activity each week.

That comes to about 20 minutes of moderate exercise each day. Taking your dog for a brisk walk will comfortably meet that goal.

2. Eat Foods to Boost Helpful Hormones

Let’s take this opportunity to talk about what makes your beard grow in the first place. Your beard and mustache are androgenic hair.Hormones, specifically testosterone and DHT, make your facial hair grow.

That’s why it doesn’t begin until puberty, when those hormones are present in sufficient levels in your body.Testosterone primes the hair follicles, and DHT promotes actual linear hair growth.

We established earlier that you should eat an overall healthy diet for your body and beard. You can also add these specific foods that may help boost your testosterone and DHT levels:

• Alfalfa sprouts
• Olive oil
• Sorghum
• Coffee

Astudy in Japantested the effect of alfalfa sprouts on DHT and testosterone. They found a 21% increase in DHT and a 14% increase of free-testosterone in test subjects.

AMoroccan studymeasured the impact of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) on androgenic hormones by having their test subject switch their primary source of fat to olive oil for two weeks. As a result, they saw a testosterone hike of over 17%.

Sorghum is a grain that contains the enzyme responsible for DHT production in the body. Therefore, consuming sorghum flour could help stimulate beard growth.

Onestudyshowed that coffee boosted DHT levels in rats. It seems that the caffeine in coffee is responsible for the hormone increase. Some of the benefits could translate to human coffee consumption.

Studies are not entirely conclusive on how consuming these foods will affect your hormone levels. But there’s enough evidence to make it worth a try.

3. Take Supplements

Adding some vitamins and herb-based supplements to your health routine is a valuable step for your overall health and facial hair.

You can stimulate beard growth with over-the-counter supplements that are widely available and relatively inexpensive.

• Multivitamins
• Biotin
• Carnitine
• Mucuna Pruriens

You can skip the bottles explicitly marketed as “beard supplements.” Instead, a daily multivitamin will give you the same ingredients as B-vitamins and Zinc to support your overall health and beard growth.

Biotin is a B-vitamin best known to help hair, skin, and nails. You can take a separate biotin supplement as well.Carnitine can reactivate dormant hair follicles, as shown by this study.

You can purchase carnitine as a powder supplement and mix it with water.Mucuna Pruriens is a herb containing a protein called L-Dopa. It is anandrogen receptor co-activator.

Therefore, it helps the hormone receptors in your hair follicles absorb DHT for stronger beard strands. You can get Mucuna Pruriens as a powder supplement as well.

Read Next: The Best Vitamins for Beard Growth?

4. Improve Circulation in Your Beard Area

We mentioned earlier that your levels of testosterone and DHT are vital to beard thickness and growth speed. The way those hormones get to your hair follicles is through your blood.

Because your blood is carrying the hormones and nutrients your beard follicles need, increasing circulation to your beard area increases the flow of those compounds.

Three things can help increase your circulation in your beard area.

• Face massages
• Beard exfoliation
• Derma rolling

Massage your face for about five minutes a day, concentrating on the areas where you have patches. These areas are usually the cheeks, where blood flow is lowest.

You should brush your beard daily with a quality boar bristle brush and use an exfoliating scrub a couple of times a month. Exfoliating removes dead skin cells that clog pores and slow your beard growth.

Aderma rolleris a device with tiny needles that make minuscule puncture holes in the skin. Your body reacts to repair the holes bringing blood, hormones, and nutrients to your beard area.

5. Try Essential Oils

The use of essential oils for hundreds of health purposes has increased in popularity over the last few decades. Tens of thousands of men have benefited from beard care products containing essential oils.

One study found that peppermint essential oil was more effective in boosting linear hair growth than minoxidil (the active ingredient in Rogaine).You can buy ready-made products such as beard oils and balms. You can also make your own.

6. Develop a Beard Care Routine

Taking care of yourself includes all aspects of cleanliness and grooming. Giving your beard some attention in your routine will help it grow healthy and strong.

• Cleanse
• Brush
• Oils and balms

7. Don’t Do Things That Hinder Beard Growth

This list of how to stimulate beard growth will put you well on your way to full, healthy facial hair. But you don’t want to work against your own best efforts inadvertently. So here are six things to avoid that could hinder healthy beard growth.

Washing Too Often

Washing your beard with an appropriate product such as pine tar soap is an excellent practice. However, washing too often can dry out your skin or cause product build-up. Both of those situations work against healthy beard growth.

As we mentioned before, the hair in your beard and mustache is androgenic hair, and it tends to be more coarse than the hair on your head.

Androgenic hair, in particular, benefits from the natural sebaceous oils that your hair follicle secrete. Over-washing eliminates the oils that naturally condition your beard hair.

The Wrong Essential Oils

Peppermint essential oil is excellent for beard growth. But not all essential oils have the same effects on your body and hair. Three to avoid are eucalyptus, tea tree, and lavender. These oils can block DHT, leading to slower beard growth.

We recommend that you purchase a guidebook or consult an essential oils expert before making beard products at home. Knowing which oils are helpful, which oils are harmful, and the correct dilution are the primary goals of using essential oils.

Heat Damage

Blow drying or using a beard straightener on a long beard can help you look well-groomed. Over-use of heat tools causes damage, though. You don’t have to avoid heat tools altogether but use them sparingly.

Relaxing Creams

Chemical relaxers are not a new invention in hair care. However, they are beginning to gain popularity in beard care. Relaxing creams break down the keratin bonds in your strands straighten them. Unfortunately, repeated use over time causes damage and hair loss.

Stress

Stress harms your general health, not just your beard. But in extreme cases, stress can lead to hair loss. So implement a healthy routine of sleep, diet, and exercise to minimize general stress in your life.

Find a relaxing activity or hobby to take good care of yourself. So whether you play an instrument, go for a regular massage, or join a casual sports league, find something that helps you release the cares of your workweek.

Picking

After reading your steps to stimulate beard growth, you are likely excited to get working on the thick, full beard of your dreams. But beware that you can get carried away with your care routine to the point of fussing with your beard.

Picking at, trimming, and combing your beard is counterproductive to your efforts. Instead, washing a few days each week, using some high-quality beard products, and brushing with a quality bristle brush is enough to keep you looking sharp and encourage growth.

Combs, even those designed for beards, pull out hairs and thin your beard.

Trimming too much can lead to disaster too. Lots of us have been there. You’re trying to even things out, but before your know it, you’ve cut away weeks or months of growth!

8. Try a Proven Hair Growth Activator

The only clinically proven hair growth activator is minoxidil, which is the active ingredient in Rogaine and Kirkland. Successfully stimulating hair growth on the head led researchers to try improving facial hair. They were pleased to find similar results in stimulating beard growth.

Minoxidilworks well for thousands of users. You can visit groups on Reddit and Facebook to see before and after pictures of people who have had success.

A 5% active ingredient cream applied once or twice a day for 3-12 months is standard for best results.Minoxidil is the almost magic bullet of hair growth. But it does have its share ofside effects.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the most common questions others ask about how to stimulate beard growth.

Does it matter which brand of Minoxidil I get?

Not really. Just make sure that you use a product with a 5% active ingredient. Rogaine is the original maker of minoxidil products, but there are others. Availability and price will affect your choice more than brand quality.

How can I stimulate my beard naturally?

Many people are looking for a natural route to cure what ails them. You probably noticed that our list contains both natural and medicinal solutions to stimulate beard growth.

You can stick with the steps involving natural solutions to beard growth and still see fantastic results. It starts with a healthy diet and beard care routine.

Does beard oil help?

There’s no definitive, scientific proof that beard oil helps your beard grow. However, many oils include ingredients and essential oils from our list above that help you grow a thicker, fuller beard.

How can I grow beard on my cheeks?

The most common area where men have a patchy or nonexistent beard is on their cheeks. The above list will help you fill in or stimulate growth on your cheeks for better coverage. Facial massage, minoxidil, and essential oils are great starting points for stimulating beard growth on your cheeks.

How can I grow my beard faster?

All of the steps above will encourage faster and fuller growth. Your beard growth rate typically tops out at ½ an inch per month.

So, How Do You Stimulate Beard Growth?

Your body can’t spare nutrients for a magnificent beard when you are sleep deprived, living on junk food, sedentary, and stressed.

Try some products and supplements to help stimulate your hair follicles to produce stronger, sleeker strands. Lastly, avoid doing things or using damaging products that impede your progress toward an awesome beard.