If you suffer from acne, then you know how miserable it can be. It is the opposite of fun and can be a great detriment to your self-image and confidence. Thankfully, there are a ton of products available to help you, from cleansers to oils and creams.
Treating acne is easier today than it ever was before; but since acne is directly related to your skin and your skin happens to be the very thing your beard sprouts out of, you are right to be a little bit nervous about whether or not acne products affect your facial hair growth. Don’t worry, I’ve got some great news for you.
Acne products do not affect facial hair growth. Acne products may work in a variety of ways depending on the active ingredients. Some acne products kill the bacteria that is responsible for inflammation. Other acne products help to speed up the growth of new skin cells while also removing dead cells and excess oils. None of these interact with or have anything to do with your beard or its growth, so acne products will be no problem for you or your beard.
If you suffer from acne, you might enjoy hearing that a beard can actually help you to deal with the problem. However, there are also what is known as beard pimples. To learn more about how a beard can help with your acne, stick around. Just make sure you stay long enough to learn how to avoid those annoying beard pimples, as they’d only make the whole acne problem worse otherwise.
How Beards and Acne Mix
To begin with, let’s just take a quick moment to understand what acne even is. Acne is a type of skin disease caused by dead skin cells and oil from the dermal layer clogging up and blocking the pores your hair follicles emerge from. So, while acne is a skin issue, it is a skin issue that is directly related to your hair. This can be beard hair, eyebrows, forehead, or anywhere else that even microscopic hairs emerge from.
As mentioned above, acne products work in several ways, but they are mostly concerned with cleaning away the excess oil and dead skin cells. Since it’s these cells that cause the acne, it is easy to see how these products work to treat the problem. What is interesting to take note of is the fact that acne is primarily caused by the blockage of hair follicles.
Since acne products break down and remove the substances trapping the hair follicles in your face, it is actually more accurate to say that using acne products will help you to form a beard rather than slow down or negatively affect your growth. So, rather than avoiding acne products, you should be reaching for them to treat your acne if you are looking to grow a beard.
Another cool thing to realize here is that growing a beard can help to treat your acne. That’s right, a beard can be used as part of an acne treatment plan. Because acne is often caused by issues with the hair follicles, growing out the hair follicles will keep them from blocking up. Basically, every beard hair you have sticking out is a beard hair that isn’t stopped up and causing acne.
On top of that, beard hairs can be grown to a length that obscures the skin of your face. Acne blemishes can be hidden entirely by the beard. So, even though the acne is still present, your beard can hide it from the public and keep it your secret.
If you do have acne under your beard, you should still use acne products on it. Sprays will be harder to get through to the surface, but creams and oils can easily be worked through the beard. Use the same technique for working creams through your beard that you do when applying sunscreen.
If you find that you struggle with your confidence because of acne, try growing a beard. Use it in combination with your acne products. This lets you hide your acne from the world at large without having to give up and accept your fate. You can treat it and get rid of it while keeping the battle hidden from prying eyes.
In this way, a beard can actually be a weapon in the war against acne.
I Didn’t Have Any Pimples Until I Grew a Beard. What Gives? Can I Get Rid of Them Without Losing the Beard?
This is twofold.
Fold the first: You can get more pimples when you grow a beard.
Fold the second: Ingrown hairs are also common when someone switches from a clean-shaven look to a beard. These present the same as pimples.
Both of these arise from the same reason. If you’ve made it here, then you must be new to Beard Guidance, because cleanliness is something that is stressed to the nth degree.
The reason that guys get pimples when they start growing a beard is because they typically don’t take care of their beards properly. Use beard oil, exfoliate, and get a facial.
If you take care of your beard, you won’t have to worry about beard-related pimples.
Does Waxing or Oiling Affect Facial Hair Growth?
Nope. Waxing and oil don’t affect facial hair growth. Most things don’t, as it turns out—except for a healthy diet and exercise, which works like a charm. People think that waxing a beard makes the facial hair grow faster, but that just isn’t true.
Beard wax can be used to style your beard, and a styled beard will often look much fuller than an unstyled beard does. However, this has the same effect as a combover. The hair isn’t growing faster or thicker, you are just relocating it in such a manner as to give it that appearance.
If you get your beard waxed as a removal method, then you’re going to slow growth down for months. So, try not to make that mistake.
Does Shaving Affect Facial Hair Growth?
Nope. Again, not much really does, although there is a persistent idea out there that shaving makes your facial hair come in thicker. Photos and the evidence of your own eyes definitely makes it seem true, so how can it not be?
Shaving merely cuts the hair. As your facial hair grows, it starts from a thick root and gets smaller as it reaches the top. So, think about it like a tree. The stump is thickest at the bottom, but it would seem thin if you were looking at it from the top down. This is because the bottom is hidden but the top is the thinnest point.
This is a description of your beard. You see the thinnest part of the hair which, together with the rest of the hair in your beard, blocks out your view of the thickest part. It was already that thick around the root, but you can only see it after a shave. People have tricked themselves into thinking the shave made the hair thicker instead of just revealing what was there, but this just isn’t true.
Do Acne or Acne Products Affect Shaving?
Acne products will not affect your shaving routine, although it is always a good idea not to shave before you apply any products to your face. Chemical peels, facials, spray tans, acne products, and even certain beard oils are all items you should wait a day after shaving before applying. But acne products don’t cause any real issues with shaving.
Acne itself, on the other hand, creates many problems. If you have acne-prone skin, then you are going to want to shave very carefully. Being rough or quick is pretty much a recipe for a bloody face and a sore afternoon. Shave slow, shave carefully, and know where any trouble spots are before the razor gets there. To see this in action, check out this video on how to shave with acne-prone skin:
Conclusion
Having acne sucks, but keep your head up. Know that there are enough treatments available that one of them will help you. Acne is a war. Nobody fixes theirs with a single treatment of anything. Still, just because you find yourself battling acne doesn’t mean you need to give up your dreams of having a beard.
Growing a beard is a great tool for dealing with your acne. It helps to reduce the overall occurrence of acne and it can hide those bumps you’re currently dealing with. Just remember that if you don’t take care of your beard properly, it can come back and bite you because an uncleanly beard will lead to pimples.
The secret for dealing with acne is the same secret for dealing with beards. Maintaining your skin care and your beard are part of the same battle, and they work together. Keep ‘em clean and keep ‘em healthy, and they’ll keep you looking great.