The SECRETS for a softer beard | What is the best beard softener?

I have got an absolute treat for you today

I am going to look at the best beard softners, but not products

The sorts of ingredients that should be in beard softeners so that your beard stays nice and

supple and lovely. And we're actually looking at the science. I'm actually utilizing some of my PhD knowledge to share this with you

So there are five different types of molecules that can act like a conditioner or a softener

I've got them here. The first one is polymers. They're like plastics. They sit on the outside

of their hair. They help lock in the cuticle, keep those sort of cells laying flat, and they also help

neutralize negative charges so that your hair lays nice and flat and it's not frizzy. Oils, nice oils

they do a similar thing. They lay on the outside of the hair. Depending on the size of the molecule

they can penetrate deeply if they're small molecules, if they're large molecules, they'll sit on the

outside of their hair. We've also got amino acids, cationic molecules, and we've got waxes

Waxes are familiar to a lot of people because we use them in beard bums

we find them in mustache waxes, but they can actually help lock out or lock in moisture

which is something that I was concerned about initially, but I read about why it's important to lock in or out moisture

We'll talk about that when we talk about oils. It is fascinating. So ultimately, all of these molecules do two things

First of all, they neutralize the next. negative charges that exist on your hair, on the protein molecules, the keratin, that keeps it nice and sort of non-frizy

That stops the charges from repelling each other and they also make the hair more

Hydrophobic which means that it is not liking water which means that the water will run off your hair

Which is kind of counterintuitive to what you think you want when you're hydrating or condition your beard

But we'll talk about why you actually want to lock in the moisture and lock it out from, you know, stop it from going in and out of your beard a lot when we talk about

oils. And like I said, depending on the size of the molecule in the beard product or the ingredient

it can go really, really deep into the, into the beard hair, which, you know, penetrates right

to the cortex or it can sit outside on the cuticle and fill in the gaps between the overlapping

cuticle cells to stop your beard from drying out or absorbing too much water and becoming stressed

Alright, let's get into it. This is exciting. I've got all these products here ready to show you

If you like this video, please remember to give it a thumbs up. And also go check out

beardgrowingpro.com. That's my website where I am on a mission to answer every single beard

question you have about beards Go check it out because I guarantee you it will be valuable After this video of course watch this video It is awful of value all of it okay so the first thing I want to talk about are the power of oils for

softening your hair now when we're talking about softening the hair you know we want it to be

hydrated we don't want it to be frizzy we don't want it to feel rough to the touch we want it to be

nice and smooth we want to condition it in other words now oils are fantastic oils um some of my favorites

are haoba oil, we've got vitamin E oil and coconut oil. And we'll talk about those in a minute

But importantly, what oils do is they sit on the outside of their hair, they close off the

cuticles. They can fill the gaps, in fact, between the cuticles. And what it does, it stops their

hair absorbing water and releasing water. Now, this is something I learned about, which is incredible

It's called hydral fatigue. Now, your hair can become fatigued when it swells up with water

and it sort of like shrinks again after releasing that water. And this constant swelling and what's the opposite of swelling

Unswelling can cause their hair to become stressed and the constant swelling and unswelling can cause it to break

And once it breaks, it loses its internal moisture. It becomes sort of shorter

It becomes brittle. It becomes rough to the touch. So make sure that you're using plenty of beard oils to stop that hydral fatigue

All right, it fills the cuticle gaps. We know about that. And importantly, we've got a range of options and these ingredients can be found in certain beard products

or what I like to do is just put them on as individual ingredients

There's no harm in doing that. It's a lot cheaper. So, hajoba oil

Now, I first started with individual hajoba oil on my beard, but it is not readily absorbed by the beard hair

sits on the outside of the beard hair. It's really readily absorbed by the skin

so great if you've got shorter beards, but do not use this, do not make my mistake

Do not use hajoba oil on its own, on your beard. People will tell you your beard looks wet, I guarantee you

Okay, pure vitamin oil is fantastic. You find this actually in a variety of different beard products

because it's an antioxidant. It's an antioxidant, which means that it fights free radicals

It keeps the shelf life of the products higher just by using vitamin E oil, and you can

can put it directly on your bead and once again it absorbs well into the hair unlike

hajoba oil and it locks the cuticles together so that you don't get that high grow fatigue

of the swelling and unswelling now this is the silver bullet of oils for hair it is coconut oil

virgin coconut oil is fantastic now i found a range of studies i've looked at the science and

essentially when you put hair in coconut oil or vice versa you put oil on hair what happens is is there penetration into the actual hair They did it with like looking at the molecules by using radioisotopes

So looking at radioactive versions of coconut oil, and they found that it penetrates deep into the hair, unlike other oils

So if you want to have the benefit of the reducing hygril fatigue, that swelling and unswelling of your hair

and you want to make sure that it penetrates deeply, it doesn't just sit on the surface and block up the cuticle cell

use coconut oil, it will definitely soften your beard. Fats are another very important individual ingredient that I look for when I look for a product

that has got the potential to soften my beard. Now individually, the sort of products I look for include sheer butter, which I've got here

one of my favorites, and you may not know this, but avocados

I found a 2015 study that had a look at the minimum

minerals and the healthy fats in avocados. And what actually happened is not only did they help the

cuticles lay flat, which meant that your beard hair will end up looking shinier, more lustrous

without the use of waxes or butteres or anything like that. So not only does it do that

but it does exactly the same thing as oils. So it's got potassium and magnesium, I think

in it, which can actually help the condition their hair. So overall

avocado masks if you're gonna you do like a leaving conditioner and shear butter are my go-to

things for um for conditioning and softening my beard hair so fats is something i absolutely look for

and the fat and oil combination is a winner which is why you'll find them in a load of beard

products let's talk about my favorites now okay when you are looking for beard softeners oils and

fats. You can use individual ingredients like we've just talked about, but you can find products that

contain oils and fats. And one of my, one of my favorites is the Viking Revolution beard balm. This is

the sandalwood one. Now, this isn't a sponsored post. They're not saying they should use this. But check out

these ingredients. Argon oil, tick, well absorbed by hair. Hohobah oil. Okay, not so great for hair

but perfect for shorter hair. And you want to absorb by the skin. But it's not the main oil. So we'll let

them off. Eucalyptus, so that's a little bit of essential oil. Bees wax, perfect. There's your little bit of

hold for the day. The wax component isn't necessary for softening the beard, but it does help

the beard lay flat because it sort of creates a small hydrophobic coating on the outside of

each hair, which is what beard conditioners and softeners try to do anyway. And so bees wax is

perfect for doing that Vitamin E there your vitamin E addition in here which increases the shelf but also provides a bunch of other sort of benefits to your beard hair by acting as an antioxidant And sandalwood seed oil and that what essentially makes it smell like sandalwood

And the essential oils aren't too, you know, important as long as they're not there in high quantities, they're going to damage your beard, but they can make a nice smell

So yes, I have been using this for a while, you can see that I'm almost out

Oh no, so I'm going to have to buy some more. but I do absolutely love it. It's just simple. It's ingredients. It's got the fats. It's got the oils. It's got the bees wax and yeah, I think it's a fantastic kind of

addition to your daily product use. We've also got the beard balm from honest Amish. I've not used this completely yet, but I think it's got all of the important ingredients in there. Waxes. It's got fats and oils. So check the ingredient list of your

your beard balm and let me know to see if it's got the right ingredients. Beard balm

should contain oil and fats and waxes. There we are. I got there. Now

I don't trust everyone, obviously. I'm a scientist. I'm skeptical. So I make my own beard balm

So in here, in my beard balm, it's a little bit harder because I'm in Australia. So I do put a fair amount of

beeswax from my friend's bees, but oh, it still smells like peppermint a little bit. So in here

I have got sheer butter, I have got beeswax, I've got hajoba oil, and I've also got essential oils

I think I use tea tree and pepperm, but go check out my other video where I talk about making my DIY beard bum

If you want it a bit softer, you can put in more oils, you can put in more butters. But making sure that I actually put in sheer butter and I put in an oil, and next time I'll be putting in argon oil to my mix

I think that is the only way you can guarantee you're getting exactly what you want for your

beard. So that is the best beard softening ingredients. I've tried them all. I think they're all great

Any beard product you buy, just check that it's got a good combination of oils and

butters. It normally does, so you don't have to worry about it. But those were my two

picks and I really like the Viking Revolution one. It's certainly working wonders for my beard

And let me know in the comments which products you like. So there we have it. There are

are the best single ingredient products for softening your beard and the ones you need to make sure

are in your products if you want to achieve softening and conditioning

Let me know in the comments what products you use and if you've used any other single ingredients

I'd love to know, go check out beardgrowingpro.com where every single beard question you've got

will be answered on there and I'll see you in the next video