Growing a beard usually just happens for men. However, some can grow facial hair too slowly and there are even others who can’t grow them at all. Not everyone has the Viking gene and can grow themselves a full beard right off the bat.
Whether you’re new to this community of bearded men or not, a yeard would be a fun challenge for you. Growing out your facial hair for a whole year might seem nasty, but hey! A little attention and patience distinguishes clean beards or yeards from those nasty ones. You have those manly self-cleaning qualities, don’t you?
What is a Yeard?
A yeard is a beard grown out for a year without excessively trimming or shaving it short. A yeard is a challenge made by the bearded men community for them to have some fun with the challenges and to let other people know the fun of growing a beard. The challenge also catered to people who are new to growing a beard, so they could take the fun challenge and record their progress. Feel a sense of accomplishment all throughout the year.
With the uninterrupted one-year growth, your beard will look much fuller and longer, especially if you’ve never tried growing out a beard for this long. It isn’t easy to grow a yeard, as it takes patience, smart grooming practices, and commitment.
If you think the challenge is over after a year of less interruption growth, you’re dead wrong as there is also another challenge that men are enjoying doing. The tweard or two years of beard growth, it’s just like the yeard. It’s about growing your beard for two years without shaving much of your beard, you can take this challenge after achieving the yeard if you want some more challenge.
What Can You Expect?
If beards are new to you, then you might have heard rumors about growing a yeard. Some of the most pervasive ones are sacrificing cleanliness and looking like a homeless man. Don’t let the perpetuated stereotype dissuade you.
Keeping your beard clean and stylish should be part of your hygiene routine when you are growing a yeard.
You can definitely expect a lot from growing out a yeard, like learning to cope with the hair, potentially having it itchy, and so on.
Why Grow A Yeard
Why should you grow a yeard rather than a regular full beard? Well, to answer your question having a full beard only requires you a few months and during the process you’ll be trimming a lot of your facial hair to shape it to your wants
However, a yeard needs you to be patient and committed to growing your beard to a full year without much interference, that includes trimming your beard short.
A lot of individuals find that growing a yeard is actually relieving, especially for those that have always kept themselves cleanshaven.
Pros And Cons Of Growing A Yeard
Before you start growing a yeard, you need to know the pros and cons of having a beard, so you know what you’re doing and so you might not regret growing one. One huge example of this is the fact that not everybody can grow a beard, or at least it doesn’t look good on everyone.
Here are some of the important pros and cons that you should know before growing a yeard.
Pros
Knowing the pros and cons will help you decide if you want to have a yeard, as you’ll have an idea of what you would encounter during the days of growing your yeard.
- Growing out a yeard, especially one that grows to a long length, usually begets a lot of compliments from fellow men. Sometimes, even the ladies.
- Studies found that men who had beards looked more attractive to women compared to men who had no facial hair at all.
- Growing a beard can be fun especially for those who are new to beards as they can take pics of the progress of their beards growth.
- A pro of having a beard is that if you have scars or blemishes on your face, you can simply grow a beard to hide it.
- Beards are versatile so a lot of hairstyles pair well together with beards.
Cons
Of course, growing a beard also has its negatives. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows—this applies to beards too. Hair follicles and all.
- Unattended beards will become dirty and unhealthy which gives you skin problems — like rashes and itchiness.
- You might not look great with a beard. Everyone just doesn’t have the right gene to grow a full beard.
- Men with beards look more masculine than clean-shaven men which make them look older.
- Foods often get stuck on beards which is troubling and that’s why it’s recommended to wash your face often.
- With your long beard trapping the heat of your face it will make you feel hotter in the summer heat.
Grooming Your Beard During The Process
Grooming a beard can be especially hard for an impatient person, as the art of grooming one’s beard needs full attention and time. That being said, it’s an almost-euphoric experience to grow a yeard. It’s a great way to practice patience, be comfortable in something different, and see who really supports you even if you don’t look as clean-shaven as you used to.
Here’s a general rundown of what you can expect from grooming your beard routinely.
- Style your beard with a comb that’s specially made for facial hair
- Wash your beard several times per week
- Using special soaps and shampoos to keep your beard healthy
Using facial hair products will make your beard look smooth and clean, making you feel refreshed—more on that later.
Initial Growth Stage
On average, men’s facial hair will grow 1.25 centimeters per month. Although there are those whose facial hair grows slower than average. If you’re lacking the genetics, it’s either your beard grows slowly or doesn’t grow at all.
The best thing slow-beard growers can do is to have a healthy diet that has lots of vitamins and protein. Also keep in mind that not all products work on everyone, so ask some advice from the beard community before buying creams that supposedly promote beard growth.
You can also track your beard growth by writing a journal or even taking a picture of it using your camera every month. Not only will you be able to track your progress, but you’ll also have fun from taking pictures and sharing it with the facial hair community.
If you’ve made it this far, you probably felt a lot of problems by now. As the first three to five months of growing your yeard is where you’ll start facing common beard issues — such as skin itchiness, patches of hair occurring while you’re still adjusting to having a beard.
Middle Ground/Middle Stage
From six to nine months of growth, your beard length should have grown long and enough to reach your neckline and is tangible to the point that you can run your fingers through. And for those with curly beards, at this stage of growth your beards should be much thicker than straight beards as the whisker curls inward, adding more volume to your beard.
Most of you will probably notice that your facial hair is no longer growing, or that it isn’t growing as much. That’s most likely just a visual effect on your mind, since the contrast of seeing your skin slowly get turned to beard is gone after the first six months.
Rest assured, as your beard definitely hasn’t stopped growing.
Get the most out of your beard growth length by following the grooming tips we have given you. You can see the result of a year of uninterrupted growth while keeping yourself looking fresh.
Yeard Lead-up/Last Stage
In the last few months of the yeard process, things will become largely uneventful. You should notice that at this stage your beard is growing so slow that it has only grown a centimeter or two in the last few months.
What makes this part uneventful is due to the fact that you’re already used to having a beard. Remember those contemplations about cutting off your itchy facial hair? Well, by this time, that should all be gone.
That would probably be replaced with either the desire to style your beard or to see your clean shaven face again.
It’s at this point that you should think what you should do next after achieving the yeard. You can continue the challenge to achieve the tweard, or you can think of what beard styles you can pick. There are a wide range of styles you can choose from, from long full beards to medium stylish beards.
Grooming Tips After Achieving The Yeard
Did you make it till the end? Congratulations on achieving the yeard! Now, let’s about what you should do after achieving the yeard and how to take care of it. Just because you’ve done the challenge, doesn’t mean you can just ignore managing your beard. Here’s some staple grooming tips you can use for taking care of your yeard.
- Shape your hair by cutting stray hairs away using either a trimmer or scissors—whichever tool you prefer.
- Apply and adjust your use of beard oil and balm as your beard gets longer as time passes.
- Style your mustache by trimming or curling it, so it doesn’t grow over your lips, which is generally unsanitary when eating.
Now that you’ve finally achieved the yeard. Congratulations! You’re now a full-fledged bearded man! And now that you’ve entered a new stage of life, you should decide what to do with your long-awaited yeard. Either, you cut it nice and low, or you can leave it as it is and style it to your heart’s content. Whatever your choice is, it’s definitely up to you.
Either way, it will surely be a significant experience for you, it’s now time for some old-fashion beard shaping!
Final Shaping
You’ve passed the challenge, and now you’re ready to start shaping your beard! Here are some tips for shaping your yeard.
First of all, you need to pick out which style you’ll want for your beard, and it’s tough choosing a style that’s perfect for you. Before you decide which style to pick you have to consider these few factors — does this style look good on my face? Does this style affect my work environment and my everyday life?
If you’ve already chosen a style, then let’s get right into shaping your beard.
- If you’ve a slimmer face, then you can choose a refined style and if your face is rounder, then you shouldn’t trim much of your beard to make it fuller.
- Trim the overly long whiskers according to your chosen beard shape that looked best on your face.
- Shape your sideburns and remove any hair that appears on your cheek above the beard line.
- Define your neckline with a razor or extremely close-cutting beard trimmer.
- Make sure no hair touches the lips, and follow that with precision trimming of your nostrils, too.
Maintaining And Taking Care Of Your Skin And Beard
You might wonder “now that I’m a full-fledged bearded man, how should I take care of my facial hair?” Well, the key to keeping your facial hair in peak condition is to take care of it daily by washing, combing and applying facial hair products that keeps your beard healthy and manageable.
Taking care of your face has the same importance to caring for your beard. It’s because if you don’t take care of your skin underneath your beard, bacteria will live and grow that will eventually cause you rashes that could destroy your skin.
A beard is like an extension of yourself, it’s a man’s dignity as they say, so you’ll want to keep your beard clean by trimming it regularly. Keep unwanted hair from ruining the beard’s majestic look. Use your beard brushes and comb to keep your beard neat and in shape, and you can use trimming scissors to cut the unwanted hair that’s sticking out like a sore thumb to keep your beard neat.
Beard Oil
If your facial hair needs a bit of a touch up, then applying beard oil will make your beard look nice and soft. It can also help in repairing damaged hair. Most beard oil brands are natural and while others are not, they both have their pros and cons.
Keep in mind that just because a lot of people are well suited on that brand doesn’t mean that it’s suited for you. So keep trying different brands of beard oil to find the right product for you, and some brands have better scents than others, so choose wisely.
Beard Cream
You might be wondering, “why should I buy a beard cream if there’s already beard oil?” Well, they might have the same function, but some people prefer beard balm as it’s easy to apply and is not oily. Beard creams can also hydrate your skin to prevent skin problems like rashes and itchiness, among others. Some brands provide extra protection against severe temperatures too.
Just like the beard oils, brands offer different scents for every product, so consult a bearded man before anything.
Beard Balm
Being a man with a beard you’ll always find that there would be rogue hairs that inevitably go out of shape that can ruin your overall look. To prevent cases like this, it’s always good to have a product that can fix this kind of problem.
Having a beard balm every day will make sure that no hair goes frizzy and out of shape, perfect for formal events. The benefits of a beard balm is that it moisturizes and holds your beard’s shape to maintain the style of your facial hair.
A Final Word From The Trending Man
Growing a yeard may be a tough challenge especially for a beginner but once you get into it you’ll be surprised to see what you looked like before and after a year.
Not only is growing a yeard fun but it can also help you improve necessary attitudes like — patience, time management and commitment to doing something productive. You might even improve your hygiene.