Beard jewelry is a trend that used to be performed in ancient times by nations like the Vikings. They used various beard accessories to make themselves look ferocious and different.
Nowadays, beard jewelry is used solely to make your beard more distinctive. Using such jewelry is a straightforward but not easy task. Your beard needs to have certain requirements first, and the jewelry you add should be in harmony with each other.
That being said, let’s go ahead and ask the question, how to use beard jewelry tastefully?
Using beard jewelry tastefully requires the correct handling of beard beads, charms, and hooked accessories to make your beard look more attractive. Beard jewelry should add some taste to your beard without applying any sort of stress to it.
In this quick guide, we’ll learn how to do just that but first, we should know what your beard should look like before considering beard jewelry.
Beard Requirements for Jewelry
First and foremost, you need to have a relatively long beard. Coarse and thick beards are great-looking and all, but they won’t hold jewelry if they lack the required length.
Your beard should be at least four inches long before you could think of adding jewelry to it.
That length shouldn’t be all-around your beard. If you managed to gain four inches of beard hair in the chin area alone, you could still use some jewelry there without issues.
Additionally, your beard should be healthy. Beards suffering from patchy areas, irritated skin, and beardruff are bad candidates for beard jewelry. You’ll need to treat the underlying conditions first then think about adding jewelry.
Beard Beads
Let’s get to know what beard beads are and how you could use them.
What Are Beard Beads?
Beard beads (also known as beard rings) are the bread and butter of beard jewelry. They go back to ancient times. Dwarves and Vikings used to add large numbers of scary-looking beads to terrify their enemies.
Today, you won’t use them as excessively as the Vikings used to. You’ll be using them just enough to make your beard stand out in the crowd.
How to Apply Beard Beads Tastefully
To apply beard beads, you’ll need three things: a beading tool, some hair elastics, and a pack of beads.
Grab a tuft of your beard without applying too much tension, then place the hair elastic around it. The location of your hair elastic is the future location of your bead, so keep that in mind.
You’d then want to grab the beading tool and thread a bead through it all the way to the end.
Use the beading tool to place the bead over the hair elastic to hide it. At this point, you’d have the bead in the desired place but your beading tool will still be tucked under it. Hold the bead in place with one hand, then gently grab the beading tool with the other.
Once the beading tool is out, check that the bead itself is secured in place and that it’s covering the hair elastic entirely.
Tips and Tricks
Your hair elastics need to be of good quality. Settling for rubber bands or similar products will pull your beard hair and apply a lot of pressure on the beard skin.
The bead will still fit in place but your hair strands will be in constant tension. This will damage your beard and the underlying skin over time.
If your beard is thick and can hold the bead on its own, then the hair elastics are optional for you. These elastics are mainly for soft beards that tend to drop the beads occasionally.
The amount of hair you grab in that hair tuft is very important. Grabbing too little hair will cause the bead to slide off the tuft.
On the other hand, too much hair will be too thick for the bead to go through. In that case, the bead shouldn’t be forced to go around the hair tuft. If you force it enough, you will still succeed in placing the bead but you’d be applying a huge tension on your hair.
Ideally, the bead should go in effortlessly. Grabbing the beading tool out shouldn’t feel like a tough grind as well.
The first bead you place is often the most important one. The amount of hair you grab in your initial tuft should be the same amount you grab for other tufts. So that starting tuft needs to look and feel good.
Getting Stylish
Once you get used to the procedure, you may place more than one bead in one go using your beading tool. This is when things get interesting.
Instead of having one bead per hair tuft, you could have multiple beads in a row. Depending on how long your beard is, you could experiment in front of a mirror to see how many beads per tuft you can place while still looking good.
If you have a thick full beard, you could have numerous beads and still look great. On the other hand, If your beard is long under the chin area only, you should settle for fewer beads or it would look excessive.
Now that we understand the basic stylizing of using beads, it’s time to kick things up a notch.
Beard Charms (Anchors)
Here’s what you should know about beard charms.
What Are Beard Charms?
Beard charms are pieces of jewelry designed specifically to be placed on beards. They’re unique and they never fail to make you stand out in the crowd.
These pieces can’t be used in anything else other than being placed or “submerged” in coarse hair. Inside their box, they look like a ring but without the circle that goes around your finger. Instead, they have patterns of repeated triangles.
Those patterns allow them to tug or latch into your beard when they are placed correctly.
How to Use Beard Charms Tastefully
To use this elegant piece, grab the charm and place the triangular pattern to face your beard. Submerge that triangular pattern in your beard hair, then rotate it a few times until it feels secure in place.
If you intend to do some activities where you’d run, jump, or excessively move, the charms should be taken off your beard beforehand. They may hold themselves in place but they won’t stay there with excessive shaking.
Tips and Tricks
Beard charms aren’t for heavy-duty usage. They’re decorative, made of expensive materials like gold and diamond, and should be checked every once in a while to make sure that they’re still in place.
Your beard needs to be at least four inches long for these pieces to tuck in securely. The nature of your beard hair has some control over the situation as well. If your beard hair is thin and too smooth, these pieces might fall quite often.
Getting Stylish
Since beard charms are expensive, we recommend using one piece at a time. If money is no problem for you, you can use more but you shouldn’t just haphazardly place them.
Two pieces on top of each other or three pieces on the same horizontal line seem to be the most stylish patterns we could find.
Hooked Snakes
Hooked snakes are unique pieces of jewelry that you won’t often see around.
What Are Hooked Snakes?
Hooked snakes, serpents, or loops are custom-made pieces of beard jewelry. They’re generally not as expensive as beard anchors because they’re made of copper or aluminum.
However, we guarantee you that they will turn some heads around. They tug to your hair as if your beard is wearing a necklace.
How to Use Hooked Snakes Tastefully
By now, we know that beard beads require a simple hair tuft to be placed, while beard charms require nothing but a minimum beard length.
Hooked snakes, on the other hand, need a beard braid before you can put them on.
1. Forming a Beard Braid
To make a beard braid, you’ll need three tufts of beard hair. Grab each tuft and keep twisting it until it becomes thin and firm but without straining your hair roots.
Do you remember those hair elastics that you used in beard beads? Bring those over and place them at the end of the tufts to keep them twisted.
Ideally, you should end up with three twisted beard tufts, each held stable at the end using a hair elastic.
At this point, you’ll need to wrap these tufts around each other to form a beard braid. This beard braid should be held at the end using a beard bead or an elastic.
Watching a braid making tutorial will help you visualize those steps better.
2. Adding the Hooked Snake
Now that your beard braid is ready, it’s time to add the main piece.
The hooked snake could come with one of two designs. If there is no space at all throughout the snake rotation, then you should just place it normally over your beard as if you’re placing a bead.
If you’re using a snake that has multiple spaces in it, you’ll need to continuously rotate the snake around your beard braid until it fits.
This is one of the rare occasions when we say it’s easier done than said, so how about we just show you?
Tips and Tricks
Using beard oil or beard butter can go a long way in facilitating the insertion of hooked snakes. A lot of friction can occur as you place that hooked snake. This may tense, tear, and generally harm your beard.
Using oils, balms, or butter will give your beard a much softer consistency. It will be easier for you to make the braids, hold them with elastics, and add the hooked snake.
Getting Stylish
We found out that it’s best to use only one hooked beard snake under your chin. It looks stylish, unique, and won’t apply any tension to your beard.
You can use more if you like but we don’t recommend adding more than two of these snakes at a time. One on each side should be more than enough.
Using more than two will cause a lot of tension on your beard and it will look excessive.
Beard Styling With Jewelry
Now that we know the basic beard jewelry, we need a demonstration. Let’s have a look at the Dwarven beard style as an example.
Making a Dwarven beard could be a little tricky. You might need someone to help you the first few times you apply it.
1. Preparation
You’re going to need a beard straightener to soften your beard. You can control your beard, braid it, and style it much easier if you use a straightener before you start.
To make things even easier for yourself, you might want to use some beard balm after straightening for good measure.
2. Start With Two Beads
Once your beard is ready, you’ll need to apply two beads on both sides of your beard.
Grab a hair tuft on either side and twist it as much as you can without straining your beard hair. You’d then use a beading tool to apply one bead on that tuft.
Do the same for the other side of your beard while leaving sufficient hair under your chin for later stylizing.
3. Braid Your Chin Beard
Now it’s time to style the hair under your chin. This is when you might need some help at first because braiding could be a little difficult. You’ll eventually get used to it, though.
Remember the braiding tutorial we showed you? You should apply it here to the beard hair under your chin. Once you make that braid, place a bead or an elastic at its end to keep it from being undone.
4. Braid Your Two Tufts
At this point, you’d have two hair tufts on each side and one braid under your chin. You will need to braid both of those tufts to end up with three braids.
If you have someone to help you, they can hold the first braid after you make it while you braid the other tuft. If you are on your own, you could place a hair elastic at the end of the braid after you make it to keep it secure.
5. Join the Braids Together
You’ll need to join the three braided tufts together at their ends and hold them using a hair elastic or a large bead. That’s pretty much it, you now have a Dwarven beard style with some braids.
You might also throw in a hooked snake in the middle braid if your beard is long enough. It suits the taste of some people.
Now that you’ve read it, how about you also watch it to see for yourself?
FAQS
Are beard beads cool?
Beard beads are optional accessories that can look fantastic if styled correctly. The trick is using just enough to give your beard a fancy appearance. Using too many will be more messy than good-looking.
How long does a beard need to be before applying beads?
Your beard needs to be at least four inches long to comfortably place a good-looking bead. These four inches are especially helpful if you intend to braid your beard.
Does braiding your beard damage it?
As long as your beard handling is strain-free, braiding your beard is perfectly fine. It won’t damage your beard in any way. If you find it difficult to handle your beard without straining it, just use a beard balm to soften it and make it easier to handle.
How do beard beads stay on?
Beard beads stay locked in place by the means of friction. The amount of hair you gather in the tuft should be slightly more than the bead’s diameter. Using a hair elastic also helps in holding that bead in place, especially for thin hairs.
What size beard bead do I need?
The general bead size is five millimeters. This size should fit most beards when used correctly. If your beard hair is too thin, you could use smaller sizes like three millimeters. Just make sure that the bead is not gripping your hair too much to avoid damaging it.
Final Conclusion
So, how to use beard jewelry tastefully? It’s simple. Have a beard that’s at least four inches long, add your desired pieces of jewelry using the methods we explained, and voila!
Make sure to take off your jewelry whenever you need to wash your beard. The jewelry itself won’t be harmed by water, but your beard will need that occasional grooming you provide it with.
If you weren’t lucky enough to have a beard and are thinking of transplants, check out this article to know the cost of beard transplants.