How to: Give Your Beard (OR MAN) a Hot Oil Treatment WITH DIY Oil!

Nothing dries out your hair and skin like the dreary months of fall and winter. Wind, cold, and indoor forced-air heating all do a number on skin. Dandruff acts up, your face gets flaky, and, oh, your poor beard! Never fear, because there are a number of great beard oils out there that will keep your whiskers looking fresh and moisturized all year long.

 Giving your beard a hot oil treatment is easy!  Hot oil treatments are excellent for softening course hair, repairing split ends, and conditioning dry, brittle hair.  Keeping your facial hair conditioned is necessary to prevent breakage.   Below we’ll walk you through a few simple steps to give yourself a hot oil treatment at home using your own homemade oil!

•                Begin by pouring a dime sized amount of beard oil into your palm.  Rub the oil into your beard, making sure to coat your beard thoroughly from roots to tips.

•                Wet a hand towel with the hottest water that you can safely tolerate and wring it out.

•                Lay back in your chair and wrap the hot towel around your beard.

•                When your towel cools run it under hot water again, wring it out, and re-wrap your beard with the towel.

•                Repeat this process for about 20 minutes.

•                Use the towel to wipe away any excess oil when you’re finished.

•                Give your beard a final rinse with cold water so the hair follicles contract.  This adds shine and helps seal in moisture.

Give yourself a hot oil treatment when you notice your beard is looking a little dry or wiry, but you usually won’t need to do this more than once a week, and less in warmer months.

DIY BEARD OIL

Ingredients

•   1oz bottles

•   Mini measuring cup or shot glass

•   Small funnel

•   Carrier oils (more on that below)

•   Essential oils

Be warned, making your own beard oil isn’t cheap.  BUT they’ll last a really long time. The essential oils are usually $10-$15 each and carrier oils are about $10-20 each. So while startup costs are higher, your per-bottle cost ends up being just $2-$3 using the recipes below. (Keep this in mind when thinking about Christmas presents for your bearded friends and relatives!)

On Carrier and Essential Oils

Carrier oils will make up the bulk of your beard oil recipes. They’re a base oil that carries the more potent essential oils and dilutes them to make them more palatable for your skin. When not diluted, essential oils can actually cause irritation and burning. There are a variety of carrier oils out there that provide different benefits, and most have just a faint scent (unlike the potent essential oils).
Some common choices for carrier oils are jojoba, sweet almond, and coconut — mostly chosen on availability, they’re also the ones that are most common in beard oil recipes. The carrier oil you choose will depend on what specific qualities you are looking for. We are primarily focused on the beard itself but it is important not to forget the skin underneath. There are several excellent oils that help nourish both skin and hair. You can choose one or a mix of several.

A few carrier oils and their benefits:

•   Jojoba – is similar to your natural human oils and is easily absorbed by your skin

•   Argan – makes skin softer and protects against signs of aging like wrinkles

•   Sweet almond – keeps inflammation at bay, which particularly helps prevent in-grown hairs

•   Coconut – one of the best natural moisturizing and hydrating products on the planet, great for dry environments

•   Hazelnut – helps prevent acne and eczema

Hemp seed – another moisturizing oil, helps prevent facial hair from becoming brittle
Castor oil is excellent oil for hair growth.

Essential oils, 

are natural compounds found in seeds, stems, flowers — and almost every other part of a plant.

When you squeeze an orange peel or lemon peel, for instance, the fragrant residue left behind contains essential oil. Essential oils are extremely potent to the nostrils and provide scent and additional health benefits to your beard oil. They have been used for thousands of years for their medicinal and therapeutic benefits, a few of which are listed below:

Cedarwood – helps prevent acne

Eucalyptus – aids again skin irritation

Lemongrass – invigorates, like a good aftershave

Peppermint – invigorates and refreshes the skin

Amla – repairs damaged hair

Rosemary– which eases puffiness, itching, and swelling.

Ylang Ylang- stimulates the scalp for increased hair growth and does an excellent job balancing oils in skin.

Other essential oils are used primarily for their scent: sandalwood, clove, sage, rosewood, tea tree, lime, bay rum, vanilla, etc. There are around 100 essential oils available to consumers.

How to Make Beard Oil

It’s really quite simple to make your own beard oil with these ingredients. All you do is mix the various oils and you’re good to go. The key is to simply experiment with various combos and find what you like best based on scent and desired skin and hair benefits.
Follow these basic steps below, then create your own recipes! The options are endless.

1. Start With Carrier Oils

The first ingredients in your recipe are your carrier oils. Basically, mix and match your oils to get about 1oz’s worth. (Or more if you have a bigger bottle, but for recipe’s sake we are using a 1oz. bottle.)

Measure half an ounce with carrier oil. Mix and match or use all of one carrier oil. It’s about scent and the health benefits you want, as well as what feels best on your skin. Experiment with various combinations of carrier oils to find what you like best. Use the funnel to pour the oil into the bottle. Easy peasy!

2. Add Essential Oils

After you’ve added your base carrier oils you’ll add drops of essential oils for scent. Your essential oils will come in a bottle with a built-in dripper; remember that they’re potent, so you don’t want to add more than 5-10 or so drops to each 1oz mixture. For the more powerful scents, 2-4 drops is all you need. You can mix and match essential oils to find the scent that you like best.

3. Mix and Enjoy

Making your own beard oil is that easy! After you’ve added your essential oils, put the cap on, shake it up, and enjoy. To use, simply put a small dab on your fingers (a few drops is all that’s necessary) and rub into your beard. The best time to use is after a shower when you’ve washed your beard and your skin is fresh.
After some experimenting, you’ll quickly find your favorite combos!

A Note on Using Coconut Oil

Coconut oil, being an excellent moisturizing agent, is often used in beard oils. The coconut oil that you buy in the store is most often in solid form, as it has a high melting point of about 76 degrees F. This can obviously make it difficult to work with. To use coconut oil as a base carrier of your beard oil, you’ll have to first melt it so you can mix with your essential oils. I put a large tablespoon of the solid oil into a dish, then set that dish into another that had hot water. The oil liquified in no time and I was able to mix in a few drops of an essential oil. It will then re-solidify, and you end up with more of a beard balm. You simply rub a little on your fingers, and your body heat will melt it, thereby turning it into oil again, ready to use on your facial hair.