Do black men need a special beard routine?

It’s true that the tightly coiled nature of African-American hair — and the curlier nature of hair from men of many other ethnicities — can have its own unique challenges when it comes to shaving and beard grooming.

But there’s no need for any “special” products or chemicals for black men to achieve a polished, masculine look. All you need is a simple routine and some tricks of the trade to keep your beard and face happy and healthy.

Beard Care, Just for You

We get more questions about this than anything else at The Mod Cabin, so we thought we’d create a series to give our old and new Mod Cabin Men everything they need to know to grow a full, thick beard without running into common beard traps like patchiness, itchiness, and ingrown hairs.

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Looking for beard care basics? Read our most popular blog post, Beard Care for Black Men

We’re kicking off our series with a classic question…

Why is my beard dry and frizzy?

A wiry, frizzy beard usually means one of two things….

1) You’ve aggravated your kinks and curls with warm water and too much tousling.

Warm water opens your pores, which is great for cleaning them out and giving your face a good scrub-down but not great for your hair follicles, which give beard hairs a frizzy appearance when warmed up.
To cut down on the frizz, after washing your face, give a final rinse with cold water. This will help close up your pores and reduce the appearance of unwieldy whiskers.

2) You’ve dried out your beard with bad soap.

Are you using cheap body soap on your beard? Stop the madness and invest in a high-quality natural soap — it won’t strip your face of its own natural oils, which can aggravate oily skin and acne, and if you keep your beard soap dry-ish and out from underneath any dripping water, it can last months. Conventional soap is stripped of its best ingredient — glycerin — which is key to keeping your skin moisturized after a wash or shave. It can also contain synthetic chemicals and fragrances, which can irritate your pores and skin. and preservatives. If you tend to have skin problems or flakiness, try our customer favorite: birch tar soap. It smells like a campfire but leaves your face clean and cool.
Here’s a tip from Mod Cabin customer Jae Georgia about how he keeps his beard smooth and tame:

As a black man with a beard, I have found our washing routine is so important. I used to think because of my wavy textured beard hair I’d never have a soft beard. So untrue. Mod Cabin is the best product I have used for my beard. I wash only on Sundays — the rest of the time I just do a cold water rinse at night. No matter how many times I've tried, hot and warm water makes my beard wiry and frizzy. After I rinse my beard with cold water at night I apply Mod Cabin’s Sweetheart Beard Oil. When I wake up to go to work I use the Backwoods Beard Balm. Wow. Beard is amazing all day.

Do you have a story about how you learned to make your beard look its best? Let us know in the comments.