How do you feel when you get comments like “you don’t look your age” or “you got such a baby face” and so on?
I have seen teenagers and people in their twenties, thirties or even forties feeling humiliated for not being able to grow facial hair.
There’s a whopping 50% of men unable to grow their beards according to studies. The male hormone responsible for the beard growth called Testosterone is something that you might have heard of before.
What you might not have heard before is that it is also largely responsible for higher sexual drive, ability to work long hours without feeling tired and being able to build that dream physique with moderate workout.
The million dollar question is- can a beard be grown on an absolutely clean face without showing any signs of hair growth? The answer is yes and I will explain how in this post.
Keep reading to know more.
Fortunately, while writing this post I’m 34 and have finally found the secret to growing and nurturing a healthy moustache and beard.
I have experimented a lot over the last 10 years to grow my beard- from desi treatments like rubbing oil to english medicines like rubbing minoxidil, I must say nothing worked wonders for me until I discovered the real secrets.
Various blogs, videos and write-ups wanted me to believe that it was hereditary but it wasn’t the case at all.
Until 2 years ago when I still had very little, patchy and literally countable hair on my face, I visited a skin specialist and asked him for the remedy.
The doctor’s opinion after observing me was to go for a beard hair transplant as with my growing age, my testosterone levels were dipping rapidly. But as you know hair transplants are painful and expensive to say the least.
Only when I felt helpless, something life changing happened. Covid-19 outbreak led us all to a lockdown. I had to be at home all day and work on my projects which changed everything. Here are my learnings from the journey of literally no beard to growing a good looking beard and improving it every day over the last 3 years now.
Starting the journey
Covid lockdown came as a golden opportunity for me as from April to June 2020, I tried my best to let my facial hair grow for at least a week before I trimmed them with a 0.5 mm trimmer. I was trimming as I looked funny with such low hair count on my face.
So I was letting it grow from Monday through Saturday and then trimming on Sundays to start the cycle again. While being in office in pre covid times, I had been shaving my facial hair every alternate day or so but during the first 3 months of covid lockdown, I changed that cycle to a week to start with.
Throughout April to June 2020, I followed a balanced diet and light exercise routine without any equipment while working from the comfort of my home. What I did in the later months accelerated the growth of my beard multifold. Please keep reading to find that out.
To my joy, this gave my moustache and beard growth a subtle push that was clearly visible but I still had a long way to go before I could say I was happy.
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All of this made me conclude a few points which are the basis of my beard journey so far. I’m sure there are millions of other boys and men who are in their teens, 20s, 30s and 40s struggling to grow facial hair.
My objective of sharing this journey is to simply connect with them and make them believe if I could grow my beard in my 30s, it’s not too late for them either.
By the way, my beard growth journey will continue till my last breath- that’s the kind of love and respect I have developed for my beard.
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Important points from my beard growth journey:
Let me mention again- everything you are reading on this blog is my own personal journey and I’m no doctor to give you any advice. If you are interested to know how I grew my beard, please continue reading.
Here are the most important pillars of growing my healthy beard and moustache:
- Visualise your beard: First of all it is the most important thing to believe that you will have a great beard one day and you are ready to give your 100% to it.
Whenever you feel disappointed looking at your patchy beard, just remember why you want to have a beard and what happiness it will give you when you have it.
While I’m on my journey, I visualise a full grown thick beard face. I’m damn sure I will have it one day. You can put a picture of your favourite celebrity as a target.
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- Let it grow: In my beard growth journey, the most effective step has been “letting it grow”. First of all there is no shortcut to grow a sexy beard- you have to be patient enough and enjoy the journey.
I must say that being in a full time client facing job, I have always had a fear that people would judge me for having a patchy beard if I had let it grow. This fear only increased when I grew up from my late 20s to early 30s.
As I mentioned earlier, the lockdown gave me the opportunity to grow my facial hair in a weekly cycle format from April to June 2020. After seeing encouraging results, I decided to let my hair grow for 2 weeks before I would trim them and let them grow again i.e. following a 2 weeks growth cycle.
Two weeks turned to two months and the full year and two more years. I get occasional trimming of my facial hair to maintain the hygiene but I haven’t shaved my beard since April 2020.
I encourage you too, my friend who is reading this journey right now, to take an oath to not shave your moustache and beard for at least a month to start with. If you get good results, you will be convinced to continue your journey.
- Do weight training:
Weight training is a known effective method for boosting testosterone levels. I made it a point through my beard journey to follow my workout journey consistently. I have not only seen good beard growth- thanks to improved testosterone levels, but also experienced being in my best ever shape.
Being in a busy job, I always found it hard to find time for working out. But during covid lockdown, working out became my channel for venting out stress, frustration and all the negativity.
As I started spending time on my exercising, my hunger to follow a longer and more organised workout routine shot up. The home workouts turned into the gym sessions that I follow 6 times a week. No matter how busy I am, I keep my workout routine intact even while travelling, no exceptions.
Your consistency is the biggest reason why you will start seeing good results.
- Follow a protein rich diet plan
With a bit of research on the subject, I included some foods in my diet for promoting hair growth. Below are a few that I recommend including in your diet if you are serious about facial hair growth.
- Eggs
- Chicken
- Paneer
- Soya chunks
- Peanut butter
- Broccoli
- Try derma rolling
You might have heard it before that derma roller is an effective tool for opening the pores of your skin, further accelerating facial hair growth.
The hundreds of tiny and sharp needles on a derma roller effectively puncture the skin pores and stimulate them for growing tiny little follicles which lead you to growing a fuller beard.
This also improves the blood circulation to the area where you derma roll which is an important factor for hair growth in the areas where you have never successfully grown even a single hair.
I have tried many derma rollers in the past but my favourite one is the man company’s derma roller which comes with 540 micro needles of 0.5 mm each. It’s beautifully packaged and extremely easy to use.
You can buy it with this link with discounts and for supporting this blog.
In another post, we have mentioned the tips for using a derma roller safely and hygienically for the best results.
- Take proper sleep
Besides many other benefits of sleeping properly mentioned in our other post, sleep has a great impact on your skin and hair growth. There are proven studies that conclude that lack of sleep leads you to reduced collagen levels. Collagen is a protein produced by our body, responsible for the vital functions of skin, hair and bones.
When you sleep properly, your collagen levels increase which not only is effective for anti-aging but also for good hair and skin texture.
- Balance your Cortisol levels
Cortisol is a hormone produced by our body and circulated by our blood stream. Its levels vary throughout the day and with the situations that we face.
In layman’s language, too much cortisol is bad for our health and may lead us to rapid weight gain, high blood pressure, mood swings, lack of sex drive, anxiety or depression.
While there are many factors for balancing our cortisol levels, you should consider taking less stress as an important one under your control.
The lower stress you take, the more balanced your cortisol levels are and better skin and hair functions performed by your body.
- Use Beard Oil
Beard oils are a proven way to accelerate your beard journey. There are plenty of them available out there and catching traction from the users because of great results they provide.
When it comes to beard oils, you can’t ignore their role in helping you nourish your beard with the essential nutrients like vitamin B6, zinc, and vegetable protein.
A good beard oil helps you build a fuller and better beard by helping your weak follicles become strong and existing grown hair become stronger. It helps you with the hair density in your beard.
After trying many beard oils, I started to love Ustraa beard oil that contains DHT boosters. DHT means Dihydrotestosterone which is a male hormone responsible for sex drive, ability to grow facial hair and longevity of scalp hair.
An important thing to remember while using the beard oils is that you should use it just on your beard not on the scalp as it may otherwise lead you to scalp hair loss.
You should gently massage the skin with the beard oil which also helps increase the blood circulation, hence accelerating the growth.
All in all, it may seem overwhelming in the first place to do so much to be able to grow a beard but one must remember that patience is the key.
You should commit to making regular efforts to make it happen.
What has been your beard growth journey? Please mention in the comments below.
