A Guide to Controlling Your Beard Smell
By Jack Shaw (Guest Post) | Last updated 19th February 2024A man’s smell is part of his identity. Whether you realise it or not, your mates associate you with particular aromas, so you want your body to smell good naturally and leave a good impression.
While smelling good is a priority, your beard may work against you if you aren’t careful. Your facial hair can trap odours underneath and lead to unwanted scents. While these odours may only be smellable to you, they can worsen and spread to other noses if they linger too long.
A sensational-smelling beard is essential for your body and your confidence. The last thing you want is a reputation for bad hygiene because your friends may secretly wish you shaved your beard. We want you to keep that beautiful mane on your chin.
If you think your beard smells terrible, don’t worry — it happens to the best of us. Going through a foul facial hair phase is practically a right of passage, so we’re here to help.
Here’s a guide on controlling your beard smell and understanding where the odours come from.
How Can You Control Your Beard Smell?
If you need better bodily fragrances, here are five ways to control your beard smell and do a massive favour for everyone around you.
Using High-Quality Beard Shampoo
While at the store, you may feel tempted to pick the cheapest products available because of the low price point.
However, these products don’t do you any favours because of their low quality. Some companies use preservatives and other detrimental ingredients to your beard’s health and smell.
Instead, use high-quality beard shampoos to ensure you get an attractive smell without compromising quality. For instance, our cocoa beard shampoo gives your beard a sweet orange, cedarwood and cardamom smell for an excellent trio of scents.
Plus, natural ingredients like cocoa powder, coconut oil and shea butter combine for unmatched quality.
Drying Your Beard
Washing your beard is an excellent habit, but you don’t want the water to work against you. After thoroughly cleaning, dry your beard and prevent the moisture from creating bad smells.
Bacteria is one of the most common causes of beard smells, so drying your beard prevents the leftover water from creating bacteria breeding grounds.
Applying Beard Oil
A dry beard is less likely to smell bad than facial hair with moisture seeping in.
However, there’s a fine line of dryness you don’t want to cross — you want to keep your beard moisturised. The solution here is to apply beard oil — one of the essentials for grooming.
Pick a beard oil with a smell complementing your shampoo to avoid clashing fragrances. For example, the cocoa beard shampoo pairs well with The Chevron Fella Beard Oil because it shares the same three scents.
This product gets the job done in controlling your beard’s smell, and you get a few more benefits! For example, beard oil strengthens your beard and prevents skin irritation.
Trimming Your Beard
You can put great emphasis on beard care, but accidents happen occasionally. Imagine eating at a restaurant, and steak sauce drips onto your beard. There’s not much you can do about that, huh?
One worthy piece of advice is trimming your beard and reducing the chance of food mishaps. While it might not make a considerable difference, trimming your facial hair could be the answer to controlling your beard smell.
Consulting a Dermatologist
If nothing else works, there may be underlying issues with your skin due to health problems or other issues you’re unaware of.
Seek advice from a dermatologist because their experience will guide you to a healthier beard. They may prescribe medication or give actionable advice for improving your beard’s aroma.
What Causes Your Beard to Smell?
First, let’s dig into the root causes of your beard’s smells to understand what you can do to fix them. Here are the top six reasons your facial hair has started to turn off those around you.
Dropped Food
Let’s start with food, considering it’s one of the most common reasons for beard smells. You eat food daily, so you can’t do much to avoid the occasional mess.
You can try eating your food with a fork and knife, but small bits will still fall into your beard. Beard brothers must be extra aware of sauces, as their thin nature makes them easily slip into your facial hair.
Crumbs and food particles may be too small to see with the naked eye, so you forget about them after eating. After eating, the food sits there and begins to rot — thus sparking the nasty smells after just a few hours.
Some items may smell bad immediately, such as durian or cabbage. An afternoon snack may turn disgusting if you don’t watch for dropped food.
You don’t have to wear a bib or go to great lengths to protect your beard, but you should be mindful of how you eat and the food droppings. Also, watch what you eat as it affects your beard’s growth. Experts recommend protein and carbohydrates to ensure your facial hair grows how you want.
Sweat
We should embrace sweat because it’s our body’s way of cooling us down when temperatures get too high. It’s also a good sign you’re working hard in the gym, the pitch or wherever you’re exercising.
However, sweat does have pitfalls when considering our beard’s smells. Sweat brings similar problems as leftover water from beard baths because of the moisture.
Sweat leads to bacteria in your beard, but the smell worsens because of the humid environment under your chin. Bacteria thrive in this climate and practically throw a party when producing foul odours.
There’s not much you can do about sweat because it’s a natural function — you can’t simply tell your body to stop making sweat! If you stopped sweating, you’d risk overheating, heatstroke or even death. The best fix is a shower after exercise and quality time spent with your beard shampoo.
Smoke
Smoking or being around someone who smokes can ruin the smell of your beard. Even the occasional cigar can negatively affect your beard’s smell more than you think.
Think of your beard like a sponge. Your facial hair absorbs the smell of everything around you, so smoke easily influences your smell. Smoke from tobacco products, campfires and other blazes is intense due to the chemicals and can linger for a long time if there’s poor ventilation.
Work
Working hard for your money sometimes means getting down and dirty. People often take the smells of work home with them, whether good or bad. Your beard may have lingering odours if your job site has a lot of strong smells.
For example, food service can significantly influence your beard’s smell, whether you work in a small cafe or a five-star restaurant. Food can infiltrate your facial hair and linger for hours while on the clock, thus creating unwanted smells.
Construction is another work environment where your beard’s aroma could take a hit. Imagine all the sawdust and dirt flying around the job site, making your beard smell bad!
Local Environment
Even if you work in an office, you could still face unpleasant beard smells because of the city you live in. For example, polluted cities like London, Mumbai, Mexico City and other large metropolitan areas face pollution for various reasons.
While these cities are exciting places to be with fun people to see, they could be the reason your beard smells terrible. Using beard care products makes you stand out with a superior aroma.
Skin Conditions
Skin conditions could be the root of your bad beard BO, so don’t rule them out when determining what has caused your unfortunate odours. For example, consider seborrhoeic dermatitis.
This infection impacts your scalp by causing inflammation, dandruff and unwanted patches. It’s also a nuisance for you and your beard because it smells foul.
Seborrhoeic dermatitis derives from your scalp overproducing yeast on your scalp. The sight is unpleasant in your hair and can lead to unfavourable smells with yellow patches appearing on your head.
What Are the Benefits of a Good Beard Smell?
The main benefit of a beard with good scents is the control you gain over your body’s smells. However, these five other advantages come with lovely-smelling facial hair.
Confidence
Knowing your body smells good from head to toe gives you an extra pep in your step. You have the confidence to approach others publicly and not worry about your aroma.
When someone says confidence is key, this phrase may sound like a cliche. However, it has truth because your body language tells a story.
First Impressions
The first minute you meet someone new is critical because they’ll remember this interaction for the rest of their lives. Fortunately, a good-smelling beard can elevate their perception of you.
Imagine using Imperial Master Beard Oil with peppermint, lemongrass and frankincense. You’ll leave a lasting first impression and increase the odds of getting a second date based on your smell alone.
Attraction
We humans are attracted to particular scents. When someone finds you attractive, your smell is typically one of the reasons they like you.
Your body’s olfactory senses are strong, and one whiff can positively influence your entire relationship with someone else. On the other hand, a bad beard smell can be why they don’t call you back.
Personal Identity
Attractive smells aren’t only vital for you and your partner. Your pets will also appreciate a good smell!
Research shows humans have about 2 million nose receptors, which is no match for the 250 million receptors inside a dog’s nose. Therefore, having a familiar scent is critical for your relationship with your pets. The longer you have a pup, the more they associate a particular smell with you. Your pet’s familiarity with your scent can actually be critical if you lose track of them.
Smell is linked to memory more than any other sense. Much like with pets, friends and loved ones will come to recognize by the way you smell, sometimes without even realizing it. Use your beard care to build a positive association with those around you and establish a personal scent.
Reduced Stress
Reduced stress is one of the underrated benefits of a good-smelling beard. Humans associate some smells with relaxation and use the odourant to mitigate negative stress. Plus, having pleasant smells in your facial hair will make you worry less about your appearance and body odours.
Let’s look at a 2021 Molecules study to see the relationship to see the relationship between smell and stress response. The researchers examined familiar aromas to see how they affected the test subjects’ stress. The study finds chamomile, grapefruit, lavender and other popular fragrances effectively reduce stress at various levels.
Bettering Your Beard and Body Odour
We can’t underestimate how powerful smell is to humans. Your smell impacts others and their perception of you, whether you realise it. Therefore, you should do yourself a favour and care for your beard’s hygiene.
While daily showers may be customary, some guys forget to wash their beards. You never know what food and bacteria can seep into your facial hair, so use this guide to control your beard smell.
Author Bio
Jack Shaw is a writer, editor and grooming enthusiast. His explorations of men’s health, fitness and fashion can all be found on Modded, a men’s lifestyle publication on which he serves as the senior writer.