How To Prevent Beard Split Ends: Causes and How To Fix

Split ends are often the nail in the coffin for beard hair strands. It’s devastating but true. It happens to people with coarse and fine hair alike, and there’s no way to heal a split end. They’re one of the worst natural enemies for a beard and are difficult to deal with because your only option, once they occur, is to snip them off.

While split ends seemingly come out of nowhere, there are specific causes that lead to the splitting. With causes typically come preventative measures. While we can’t heal your split ends, we can help you put some preventative fixes in place to save you trouble in the future.

Many occurrences — from the loss of hydration to the lack of nutrients to the use of harsh products to heat exposure to old growth — can bring about this unfortunate circumstance. Some of these causes can all be prevented.

Taking preventative measures such as hydrating, supplementing nutrients, combing and trimming, using proper products, and eliminating heat damage can drastically reduce the amount of split ends you get. If you follow our guide, you’ll hopefully have a healthier beard in no time! 

Whether you’re new to beard life, have never heard of split ends before, or are a veteran of the issue, there’s something here to learn for everyone. Let’s tackle that dry, damaged hair head-on and get your beard back to its former glory. 

Five Causes of Split Ends

While there are many factors for the causation of split ends, the following five are the main culprits. These can damage your beard to the point of no return, so it’s essential to identify which patterns you notice in your life and follow through with some of the tricks and tips in the next part of this article.

1. Loss of Hydration

While the hair beneath your skin is alive, once it pokes out through your pore, it is dead. Therefore, you must keep your beard moisturized. Dead skin cells cannot produce their own hydration. RIP.

When beard hair grows more and more dehydrated, the beard shaft starts to break down. This eventually leads to a split end. While your skin has natural oils that help protect the hair shafts, it’s not foolproof, especially if you tend to have dry skin.

2. Lack of Nutrients

The building blocks of hair, such as keratin, require a lot of nutrients to grow properly and strongly. A lack of nutrients can lead to weak hair strands that easily break apart. No one wants frail beard hairs.

3. Use of Harsh Products

Using the wrong product can be devastating for a beard. There’s a reason why companies like The Beard Club exist! We do all the research to find out what ingredients are essential for our products and combine them in the right amounts for the best experience.

Using a hair shampoo for your beard can dry it out and strip away moisture, which we already learned can break down your beard’s integrity. Products with harsh ingredients are dangerous too.

While we promote the use of beard and face cleansers and moisturizers, there are some bad products out there: Anything with alcohol, sulfates, or other harsh chemicals could strip away moisture and damage your beard.

Even good products can be overused, so make sure you follow a solid beard-washing routine.

4. Exposure to Heat

The use of blow dryers, straighteners, or curling irons on a beard can spell disaster for your beard’s integrity. Not only will it likely create dry, brittle hair strands, but it could also start an entirely new problem: beardruff. 

Beard dandruff occurs when the skin beneath your beard dries out, and the dead skin cells start to shed. This can be exasperated by harmful cleansers, friction, and exposure to heat. Beard dandruff is typically a sign that your skin and beard are at an unhealthy level of dryness.

It’s an urban myth that heat only hurts finer beards. Even men with thick beards can damage their beard with heat, so do yourself a favor and cut it out and cool it down. 

5. Long, Old Beards

At some point, time catches up to you. We’re not even talking about your old age specifically. What we’re talking about is the age of your beard. A beard that has grown for a year or so is at a length where your skin’s natural oils can’t keep up with nourishing the entirety of the beard.

The sebaceous glands at the base of every hair follicle release a certain amount of natural oil into your beard each day, so at some point, it’s just not enough. This is why long, old beards are prone to breakage and split ends.

Preventative Fixes for Split Ends

Those are the five major causes of split ends. Below we’ve listed out five major corresponding preventative fixes.

These should help keep your beard healthy and strong. While there is no way to heal a split end, you can prevent it from ever happening in the first place. Let us show you how.

1. Hydrate or Die-drate

As we discussed above, hydration is essential for healthy beard hair. As we often like to say here at The Beard Club: hydrate or die-drate. A lack of moisture may lead to breakage, so help yourself out and use beard oil and beard balm.

Beard oil leaves your facial hair lush, soft, and moisturized. The ingredients within our oils are perfectly balanced to mimic the type of oil you naturally produce to keep your beard healthy (ours smells better, though). It’s important to comb and brush the oil throughout your beard evenly so that no spots go ungreased. 

When beard oil isn’t enough, it’s time to whip out the beard balm. Beard balm is typically used for gentle styling and training your beard growth, but it also takes moisturizing and softening to a whole other level. Brush in the beard balm after some beard oil for maximum effect.

2. Supplement Nutrients

Hair needs to eat too. While “hair” and “eat” should never appear in the same sentence, this is one of the few exceptions. It takes the proper nutrients to grow a healthy beard, and you’re not doing yourself any favors if you’re skipping your multivitamin. A deficiency of a vitamin such as biotin could lead to hair loss and breakage. 

Eating foods like eggs, nuts, yogurt, edamame, quinoa, fish, and chicken is essential to a healthy beard diet. Just to specify, eat these foods as normal… Please don’t try rubbing them on your beard.

While a healthy, proper, balanced diet is the key, we realize not everyone can manage that sort of lifestyle. It can take time to develop. 

3. Proper Products

Body wash is NOT for your beard.

While they are cleansers in their own right, they are not meant for your face or facial hair. Use of these is what leads to beard dandruff, especially if you’re prone to sensitive skin. Beard washes come in many shapes and sizes, so it’s important to know what to use.

The first tip is once again to avoid anything with alcohol or sulfates in it. While these products can feel nice at first, they inevitably dry out your beard and skin. Look for water-based cleansers because they wash out easily and are better for your beard.

4. Prevent Heat and Friction Damage

Brittleness and beard dandruff are completely avoidable. The ideal way to dry your beard is by gently patting it dry with a towel. (A hair dryer on a low, cool setting is acceptable too.) If you go the hair dryer route, then make sure you apply beard oil and beard balm first.

As for curling your beard: Use curlers, not a heating tool. This takes some planning ahead of time since it’s best to leave them in overnight, but if you’re desperate for that curly look, this is your best option. 

When straightening your beard, do not use a straightener. The best way to train your beard to be straight is by combing it in the shower and then brushing it a couple of times a day with oil, balm, and even beard & mustache wax.

Finally, avoid using tight hair bands when your hair is wet. Tying these to wet hair will pull on it viciously and likely cause breakage. As your hair naturally dries, it shortens. As a result, the band will tighten and damage your hair.

5. Combing and Trimming

Catching split ends early on can be a lifesaver. If the split is still at the tip, save yourself a barber trip with one quick little snip. Yes, this is one of those times where it is manly to rhyme.

Comb out your beard regularly to find damaged hair. As we mentioned above, this also helps spread natural oils and artificial oils alike throughout your facial hair. Once you find a split end, simply take your trusty pair of beard-trimming scissors and snip a little bit underneath the bottom of the split.

Summary

Hydration, nutrition, and the proper use of products and tools can save your beard from certain doom. If your beard is too far gone, however, you may have to change to a shorter beard style in the meantime while you implement these new tactics.

Growing that magnificent beard can take time, and you don’t want your journey to come to an end because of a split end. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone’s hair eventually falls prey to this condition, but knowing how to prevent it ahead of time can save you some heartache.

Sources:

How to Prevent Split Ends and Hair Breakage: 7 Tips and Techniques | Healthline

Dermatology: Hair | Yale Medicine

Sebaceous Glands: Function, Location & Secretion | Cleveland Clinic

Biotin – Vitamin B7 | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health