One of the various different suggestions that people come up with to grow their beards is using onions. It’s believed that when you rub raw onion against your beard, it will grow faster. So, let’s ask the question and find out.
Do onions help grow facial hair?
Onions can help your facial grow faster as they’re rich in sulfur, which aids in making hair stronger. They also increase testosterone and improve blood circulation. However, these benefits are acquired when you ingest onions. Rubbing them against your skin isn’t as beneficial.
Onions should be used correctly to get the full benefit while keeping in mind that there are a few negative effects that could happen.
Let’s begin by mentioning the benefits of onions in detail.
Benefits of Onions for Hair Growth
Onions are helpful for hair growth in general, not just beard growth. Here’s how onions can help with beard growth:
Rich in Sulfur Content
Everything inside the human body requires a mixture of minerals to grow, and that’s how sulfur comes into action as far as hair growth.
The hair strand contains fiber bundles, and these bundles require sulfur to grow healthier and faster. Additionally, sulfur directly contributes to the general health of your skin and DNA.
Onions, particularly yellow onions, have a high sulfur content; usually higher than red or brown onions, but all of them still have sulfur.
Increase Testosterone Levels
A study in 2019 found out that testosterone levels in rats have increased significantly after a month of consuming onion juice.
Similar studies are yet to be performed on humans, but since onions are ingredients that go in our food, there’s nothing to fear if you want to do it at home.
The only downfall is that onion juice is extremely distasteful.
Testosterone is one of the hormones that contribute directly towards hair growth, and onions help increase its amount in the body.
Improve Blood Circulation
Onions contain high amounts of anti-oxidants that widen the lumen of the blood vessels.
This makes it easier for the blood to travel through the body, which eventually improves blood circulation.
The better your blood circulation is, the more nutrients that will reach your organs, and the healthier you get.
That, in turn, improves the health of the skin around the hair follicles, aiding in better hair growth.
So, with all those benefits on the table, it makes sense to rub your beard with onions right? Well, not exactly. Read on for more.
Rubbing Beard With Onions: Good or Bad?
Onions have many benefits that are proven scientifically, but keep in mind that you get those benefits when you consume onions, not when you just rub them against your skin.
Many people reported that their beards have improved after a few months of rubbing them with onion. It does happen and we don’t deny it.
However, it is yet to be proven scientifically. The reason why many people notice differences is the likelihood of onion being absorbed by the skin in the rubbing site, which in turn gives you some of its benefits.
Rubbing your beard with onions has its advantages and disadvantages. Depending on how you see it, you may find it a good or bad idea to rub your skin with onion.
Advantages
Let’s take a look at the advantages of rubbing your beard with onions.
- It Simply Works
Most people who kept rubbing onions against their beards consistently have reported good results after a couple of months.
So it’s safe to say that it helps, even if it’s not proven scientifically yet.
- Risk-Free
Onions are completely natural, and so there’s no fear of side effects or adverse reactions that you might expect from chemical products.
You might occasionally have some redness, but it goes away once you take some rest.
- Affordable
Unlike medicine which is usually expensive, almost anyone can consistently get their hands on at least one onion every day.
So you won’t have to worry about saving or adding onions to your financial plan.
Disadvantages
Now, let’s take a look at the disadvantages of rubbing your beard with onions.
- The Smell
It’s safe to say that nobody likes the smell of raw onions. Walking around while having an onion-smelling beard could be very irritating to people.
It’s also very irritating for you. The nose might get used to the smell, but it can get bothersome when your pillow, your sheets, phone, and everything that touches your beard smells like onion.
Try to avoid a smelly beard as much as you can. It will make your life difficult.
- Allergic Reactions
Some people don’t even have the option to rub onions against their skin because of how badly their body reacts to them.
They’ll start experiencing rash or hives shortly after touching the onion. If you’re one of those people, onion rubbing is certainly not for you.
- Redness and Swelling
Even if you have no allergy to onions, constant rubbing on the same site will cause itchiness and skin redness.
If that happens, you should take a break for a few days from doing this. And if it repeatedly happens, then stop rubbing onions on your beard altogether.
With everything we’ve learned so far, it gets even more difficult to decide whether you should do this or not. We’ll help, stay with us.
How to Get the Best of Both Worlds
The easiest way to get all of those onion benefits while avoiding the negative effects is to simply increase your onion food consumption.
It’s hard to drink raw onion juice, but it’s certainly possible to add portions of it to any liquid diet you intake to make it more manageable.
Additionally, you can still get many of the onion benefits by getting your hands on some onion oils. They’re manufactured in a way that reduces the annoying reactions of raw onion rubbing.
The smell will still be there, but it will be much less than if you rub the onion raw on your beard.
It’s best to pair onion consumption with onion oils and vitamins intake to get optimum results.
However, some expectations must be set correctly first.
Onions and any hair growth enhancing methods only help the existing hair follicles to grow healthier and faster. They won’t create hair follicles on their own; no product does.
That being said, if you’re one of the unlucky people who genetically don’t have that many hair follicles, then onions won’t create new ones for you.
They’ll just solve any problems existing with your current follicles.
Onions are Fantastic
Without a doubt, onions will help you without harming you as most chemicals do.
They’ll improve your circulation, increase your testosterone, and their sulfur content will ensure that your hair follicles grow strong and healthy.
If you’d like to avoid the bad effects like the smell, allergy, or skin irritation, you should focus more on consuming onions as food. You might add onion oil on top of that if you like.
At the end of the line, we can safely say that the benefits outweigh the negatives this time.
If you want to learn about other things you can apply on your beard, check out this article.
