Naked Armor

Published by Naked Armor

The winter months can be harsh on your skin. Ice cold temperatures and the lack of humidity can sap your facial skin of moisture, leaving it dry and flaky. In extreme cases, it can give rise to beard dandruff which causes beard itching and white flakes to appear on your beard. Not a good look for you, especially when you’re greeting spring time.

To prevent this, you need to exfoliate. Exfoliating simply means scrubbing the skin beneath your beard to get rid of the dead skin cells and skin bacteria that has accumulated over the winter season. It also unclogs skin pores so that it will release natural skin oils that moisturize the skin.

Here’s our trick to exfoliating: exfoliate first before even cleaning it or getting in a shower. It makes more sense to scrub the dead layer of skin first so that when you start cleaning your beard, the water will easily rinse the flakes and dead skin away. Our best bet for exfoliating is a bamboo beard brush. Bamboo has therapeutic qualities which make it ideal for a beard brush; it has less static so it doesn’t tug the facial hairs, and it distributes the natural oils more efficiently than the average plastic brush. Check out our Naked Armor Bamboo Brush and Comb that comes in our Grizzly Bear’d Grooming Kit.

Spring time brings out the sun and when that happens, expect temperatures to go up. While that sounds wonderful, especially after months of being cooped up by the cold, the warm temperature also causes your skin to increase its sebum production. An increase in the production of natural skin oils can lead to your skin becoming more oily than usual. Oily skin attracts skin bacteria that can cause acne as well as funky odors on your beard. It’s definitely not something you would want to have come spring time.

That’s why you need to cut back on using beard oil. During winter, the beard oil was your best friend because it helped maintain the natural moisture of the skin beneath your beard. But now that winter is over, you need to use less beard oil when maintaining your beard. One or two drops a day is enough.

Here’s an easy trick to prevent oily skin. If you need to tame your beard, instead of using beard oil, use a beard balm, like the Bomb Balm Butter. Beard balms and oils generally have similar uses; they keep the hair soft and nourished because of the natural essential oils that are found in them. The only difference is that beard balm contains wax, which allows you to shape and tame your beard more efficiently than oil.

Another trick is to take less hot showers. Frequent hot showers dehydrate the skin. Hot water strips the skin oils from your skin, and without these, the moisture in your skin will easily dry out. When you take a cold shower you can be assured that your skin will not dry out as easily as it would with hot water.

Yup, we know how much you love your beard. So much so that the thought of shaving makes it seem like a blasphemous act against your person.

By now you know that there are many advantages to wearing a beard. It defines your personality; makes you more mature and presentable. It’s also protection against ultraviolet rays which can easily target the delicate facial skin. It’s also a chick magnet; ladies dig beards.

But dude, all of this is true only if the beard is groomed and clean. If you’ve got an unkempt beard you’ll drive away the ladies. Unruly beards are also ripe habitats for skin bacteria; with that thick hair growth, no sunlight will be able to reach the bottom of your beard and kill off the skin bacteria.

That’s why you gotta trim your beard. A beard is only as good as its trim. If it’s not groomed and managed well, it won’t do you any good.

One trick is to groom it into a stubble instead of a full beard. A full beard may be too warm for spring and, most definitely, summer. But a stubble, or a slightly longer 5 o'clock beard, would just be the perfect style to catch the ladies’ eye. It has all the sexiness and maturity, without the tough machismo of a full beard. The stubble’s thickness is also enough for giving the skin underneath the facial hair the much needed sun exposure to get rid of some nasty skin germs.

When trimming the lines of your stubble, always use a straight razor or a shavette. Both are easy to use and gives a clean close shave just like a professional barber shave.

After trimming your facial hair with a straight razor, some of the newly-exposed areas may feel a bit dry than usual. That’s normal, since they’ve been under the beard for so long that they are often undernourished for nutrients and moisture. Soothe these spots with an aftershave as a post-shave treatment.

Aftershaves are great at lowering the risk for irritation after shaving. They also have antiseptic properties which are great for dealing with the last remnants of acne-causing skin bacteria.

Our trick for this tip? Pick an aftershave with lots of essential oils that will nourish the skin. Or better yet, make one of your own using this simple recipe.

It’s springtime so you gotta discard that musky scent you were using over the holidays in favor of something new and refreshing. Scents have a major impact on our moods, so changing your usual scent in favor for something that evokes the happy springtime mood will do wonders for your mental health.

It also helps to note that our sense of smell is affected by the seasons. During winter, our sense of smell is muted that is why we prefer musky thick colognes. But as spring arrives, our sense of smell returns in full force so it helps to switch to lighter scents that don’t assault our noses.

Our trick to choosing scent: pick something citrusy for your aftershave or cologne, or even beard oils. Citrus makes you feel alive and light. It’s a booster for your emotions and can help you start your day right.