Does beard oil help hair growth? Yes, but these are better.

Is beard oil the next hair growth elixir?

While I was massaging the beard oil into my beard to help enhance it’s growth I asked myself, “I wonder if beard oil can promote hair growth as well?”

Looking for any way that can help us grow thicker fuller hair, we often reach for some least likely, but logically sounding products that may even give us a hint at hair growth. One of these is beard oil. Surprisingly, beard oil does help hair growth as well, simply because it helps stop breakage, thereby reducing unnecessary hair loss. But there are much better alternatives for hair growth besides using beard oil, so let’s look into them and find which hair growth and thickening treatment is best for you.

Can beard oil damage my hair?

If I use a high quality beard oil, then no, beard oil won’t damage your hair. However, oil regardless of quality, is still oil.

Although beard oil does have some benefits for your hair like fortifying it with vitamins, nutrients and other hair growth aids, sometimes applying it to your hair can do more harm than good. 

 

The reason being is that beard oil can build up and clog your hair follicles. This will result in ingrown hairs and other scalp acne issues, which do inhibit the growth of healthy hair.

Clogged hair follicles can inhibit the growth of normal hair, resulting in hair that is fine and weaker than normal healthy hair. 

So it’s important that you use beard oil sparingly on your hair and make sure that you thoroughly clean your scalp on a regular basis to avoid beard oil build-up.

Because even the best oils are still oils afterall. So it’s very important that you keep your scalp as clean as possible and use beard oil sparingly, if you’re going to use it on your hair.

One more drawback to using beard oil on your hair is that it will weigh it down. It will make your hair look flatter and thinner than it should be.

Not only that, but if you use too much beard oil it will clump your hair strands together exposing more of your scalp than you would probably like. 

So actually beard oil when used on your hair in my opinion does more harm than good.

However, as I’ve said in the opening paragraph, there are much better alternatives which I will go through below

What are the best beard oils for growing thick and healthy beards?

Here is my list of the ultimate beard oils for growing thick and healthy beards.

1. Jack Black Beard Oil
2. Elemis
3. Proraso
4. Baxter of California
5. ZIRH

How can beard oil help my own hair growth?

As I said above, beard oil does contain a lot of natural and healthy ingredients like vitamins and minerals as well as biotin and other nutrients that are great for the hair, especially beard hair. 

However, if you’re going to use beard oil on your hair, it’s important that you use the beard oil sparingly and not overdo it.

Overdoing the use of beard oil on your scalp can result in built-up residue. Built up oil and residue causes clogged pores which actually do inhibit hair growth. 

Use must use the beard oil sparingly, just coating your strands of hair. This will help protect them from split ends and breakage. When your hair breaks of course, you lose it. 

Not only that, but split ends are thinner, which makes your hair look flat and not as thick as it could be. So simply coating your longer strands of hair with beard oil, while even leaving it in overnight could give you better results. 

However, don’t forget to thoroughly wash the beard oil out as well as giving your scalp a thorough cleansing to prevent oil build-up and you should be fine.

But leave the beard oil for your beard and try these below instead.

Here are better alternatives for hair thickening and hair growth than beard oil.

Hair Thickening Shampoos, Conditioners and Serums.

Let’s start with hair thickening shampoos, conditioners and serums. These not only help prevent hair breakage, but they also have most, if not all of the same vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that beard oils contain as well.

In addition, like beard oil you need to rinse out, of course the shampoo and conditioner after using them. 

However, in regards to hair thickening serum, you put that on after you have washed and conditioned your hair.

The hair thickening serum adds an extra coating of protection.

So, you don’t need to or shouldn’t wash out the hair thickening serum afterwards.

The two main ingredients that most hair thickening shampoos, conditioners as well serums are keratin and panthenol.

These two ingredients that only help coat and protect the hair, but helps prevent split ends too.

The keratin and panthenol also thickens your hair shafts as well. 

This will make your hair look and feel thicker and protect it as well.

Most high-quality hair thickening shampoos, conditioners and serums also contain ingredients that can help nourish the scalp giving it an extra boost by providing it with the nutrients it needs to grow healthy, fuller and stronger hair.

Minoxidil.

Next, of course is Minoxidil. Most of you already know about Minoxidil; it is one of the only two FDA-approved treatments that have proven to grow or regrow hair. Minoxidil comes as a 5% active ingredient topical solution. 

Originally Minoxidil was sold under the brand of Rogaine when Johnson and Johnson got FDA approval for the product.

Rogaine also came out as a 2% active Minoxidil ingredient solution and even needed a doctor’s prescription to buy it.

However, nowadays it comes in a 5% active Minoxidil ingredient solution, but a prescription is no longer necessary.

In fact, you can even buy it online. Minoxidil is also sold under other various brands besides Rogaine. 

Minoxidil helps increase the blood circulation to the hair follicles. Minoxidil works best for younger patients and those who have only just started balding.

Therefore, it’s best to get on Minoxidil as soon as you think your hair is starting to thin. 

Minoxidil can help or at the very least, slow down your hair loss as well as regrow some lost hair.

For exactly how long Minoxidil will slow down your hair loss depends on your own individual circumstances. Minoxidil is 100 times better for hair growth than beard oil. In fact, the FDA even says so.

DHT Blockers.

Next we have DHT blockers. Let’s go over some natural DHT blockers first. These usually come in the form of supplements.

DHT blockers can also be found in many hair loss shampoos and conditioners as well. DHT is at the root of male pattern baldness. You see, your testosterone is converted into DHT via the 5-alpha reductase enzyme.

After the testosterone is converted into DHT it then attaches itself to your hair follicles. The DHT causes your hair follicles to shrink over time as they slowly produce less and less hair until they become dormant and stop producing hair all together. 

By preventing the conversion of testosterone into DHT you can help mitigate DHT’s effects. The results vary by individual, but the good news is you can buy these online so you can give them a try for yourself. 

However, DHT blockers can be so potent that many major sports prohibit their use since they leave more testosterone in your bloodstream.

If you have any questions or doubts, you should see a dermatologist before trying them.

Propecia.

The next DHT blocker is Propecia or Finasteride. Propecia is the brand name. Propecia is the second of the only two FDA-approved treatments for hair loss. 

However, it does require a prescription. It’s quite a potent DHT blocker and if you’ve had some luck with natural DHT blockers, then you’ll want to move to Propecia.

Dermarollers and Microneedling.

Women have been using derma rollers on their skin for years. It helps make their skin more vibrant and youthful looking as well as help reduce the effects of wrinkling. It does so by promoting collagen production. 

Collagen is one of the key nutrients that helps promote healthy skin and nails. Collagen also helps promote healthy hair growth.

In addition to increasing and promoting the production of collagen, dermarollers also help with the blood flow and circulation in the scalp.

In fact, the process of microneedling itself creates tiny punctures in the skin. These tiny little punctures trigger the skin’s own healing response.

This is how the increased collagen production is created. But it also helps circulate other nutrients by the increased blood flow in the scalp which helps feed your hair follicles as well. 

Many men have had quite surprising success using a Dermaroller in combination with Minoxidil. This is a post I have and the subject.”Derma Rollers for Balding. Does a derma roller really work for hair loss?” 

However, to make it long story short, since Minoxidil should be applied twice a day for maximum effect your derma roller sessions need to be spaced apart no less than 24-hours to be exact.

This is because Minoxidil is supposed to penetrate just deep enough to the hair follicles to help promote direct blood circulation to the hair follicles.

However, the tiny puncturing the dermaroller creates could go deeper and if you use the Minoxidil before or after within 24-hours, the Minoxidil can penetrate deeper than the hair follicles and go directly into your bloodstream. This can create other adverse effects. 

In fact, by penetrating deeper, the Minoxidil may actually skip the hair follicle level altogether.

Therefore, the ideal combination is maybe two or three dermaroller sessions a week and spacing the Minoxidil treatment to be more than 24-hours apart from those dermaroller and microneedling sessions.

That’s basically it guys as far as hair growth alternatives that you have at the moment which have been proven to be effective.

You may want to use one or two, even a combination of all of these methods depending on your level of hair loss and your goals. 

Of course there are other options like hair transplants as well as more cosmetic options like hair systems and hair fillers.

I have posted on all those here. “What can I do for balding hair?“. Needless to say you could do much better to promote hair growth than beard oil so try those instead.