Beard growth oil is one of the most sold beard growth products around, with thousands of dropper-bottles flying off the shelves on a daily basis.
Beard oils for growth are a mixture of carrier oils and essential oils that aim to deliver important nutrients to the facial hair follicles under your beard skin. The most commonly used oils for this purpose include jojoba oil, argan oil, peppermint essential oil, and grapeseed oil.
But does beard growth oil really work, and what makes it so different from regular beard oils?
I mean is there really a beard oil that can make your beard grow, or have you just been fed lies all this time?
This is what we are going to thoroughly explain today, and bust one of the biggest beard myths in the process.
You see, it’s time for the truth about beard growth oils to finally come out, and the companies selling these oils to be finally exposed as what they truly are; the modern-day snake oil salesmen.
Let’s get to the bottom of the dropper-bottle and find out the real facts. ↓
What is Beard Growth Oil?
Beard growth oil is a combination of carrier oils and essential oils that are claimed to make your beard grow faster and thicker and to stimulate new growth in areas where there was no hair before.
Taking a closer look, you may find that there’s really nothing much different between regular beard oil and beard growth oil. The latter just claims more beard hairs as a benefit, while the ingredients are virtually the same.
Different oils for beard growth have different claims behind them. The Beard Growther Oil, for example, claims a ludicrous 6x faster growth.
Most of them claim benefits which are simply unrealistic and flat out lies, which becomes apparent when you check their ingredient lists.
Does Beard Growth Oil Really Work?
Short answer:
No. There has never been any scientific evidence that would suggest that beard growth oil would work. There has also never been any credible growth oil before-after pictures, which would be available by now if it would of have worked for the people who buy it.
Furthermore, none of the active ingredients used in the popular “best beard growth oils” do anything to stimulate facial hair growth.
They are simply the same carrier oils and essential oils you see in regular beard oils.
Longer answer:
Everyone who has ever used regular beard oil knows that it does not increase your beard growth rate or help you in growing any new facial hair on the areas where it didn’t grow before.
Take a look at the ingredients list of any popular beard growth oil product, and actually look at what is inside the dropper bottle.
What are the active ingredients?
You can quickly see that the ingredients are almost exactly the same as what you can find in regular beard oil.
There are basic carrier oils like jojoba oil, almond oil, castor oil, etc. followed by the usual essential oils like tea tree oil, peppermint oil, cedarwood oil, and so on.
Have people grown massive beards thanks to normal beard oils with those ingredients? Nope.
Then why would specific beard growing oils with those exact same ingredients do it any better? The answer is that they wouldn’t because they don’t!
There is nothing in the dropper bottles that could possibly make your beard grow thicker, faster, or longer.
And by some magic there would be an ingredient that did work, you would know by now. So many beardless men have been duped into buying these products that by now, the internet would be filled with success stories.
But the thing is that no such evidence exists. And instead of raving reviews all over the place, you can only hear crickets, and the manufacturers themselves telling you how great their growth oils are.
These are the things you see about beard growth oils:
- Obvious fake reviews that praise them, things like “bought for my husband, he suddenly grew a full beard and loves it”
- Real reviews from people who say beard and mustache growth oils are a scam and do nothing. (duh).
- Fake before-afters of people who clearly had a full face of stubble before and then in the after picture they have just waited a few weeks for that beard to grow in.
This is the brutal truth. Oils for beard growth do not work. It would be amazing if they did, and it would certainly help me make a lot of money since I could promote them here…
But they just don’t work to stimulate growth.
Regular beard oil and even “beard and mustache growth oil” are great for moisturizing the beard, hydrating the facial hair and the skin underneath it, and for things like preventing beard dandruff.
As for enhancing facial hair growth, there’s simply no evidence that they do anything.
And don’t give me that “but it creates an optimal breeding-ground for facial hair to grow in stronger, faster, and thicker!” BS.
Everyone knows that if you can grow a beard, it will grow out even if your beard is as dry as a desert, and if you can’t grow a beard, then moisturizing it with anything and everything available is not going to magically make it sprout new hair. Be realistic.
Then What Does Help the Beard Grow?
Now a lot of you might be thinking:
I can’t grow a beard, and now you’re telling me that the oils for beard growth don’t work either? So am I doomed to walk this Earth as a clean-shaven man for the rest of my life?
No. There are still ways to improve your beards growth rate, thickness, and even sprout new hairs.
Using beard growth oils are just not one of those methods.
Below is a quick list of proven beard growth oil alternatives that actually work. ↓
Minoxidil (Rogaine)
Currently, the only beard growth serum or whatever you want to call it, with actual scientific evidence backing up its use for facial hair enhancement, is the hair-loss drug minoxidil.
(our full article about using it for beard growth purposes can be found here).
It’s not entirely side-effect free, but it has been well-shown to stimulate the follicles to sprout more hair on the top of the head, in your beard area, even in the chest area, and on the eyebrows.
Here’s what it did to 48 men’s beard growth during a 16-week trial:
You might also have seen many of the facial hair growth oil sellers publicly state that minoxidil would not work, or if it does it’s not permanent, etc.
But there’s an active group of over 50,000+ people on FaceBook who use it for beard enhancement, and many who have grown full beards with it have been off for years with no real loss of gains.
It’s funny if you take a deeper look you can see that practically all of the people who say negative stuff against it are the people who have always had beards and never used it or the people who try to peddle these growth oils and sprays as a “better alternative”.
Derma Roller
Another better alternative to beard growing oils and sprays would be the Derma Roller, also known as the Beard Roller.
It’s often used alongside with minoxidil, and there’s science backing up the hair follicle stimulating effects of it.
Sure, it’s not as good of evidence as with the minoxidil above, since the study focused on using it for scalp-hair regrowth and not directly on the facial hair area.
Yet, the results are so impressive that they’re likely to occur on the beard area too, and thousands of anecdotal reports support this claim.
The mechanism of action is simple; Using the derma roller on your face punctures tiny microscopic holes into your skin, which prompts the body to repair this damage with extra circulation, collagen synthesis, keratin production, and nutrient delivery.
The scientist who found that it was super effective for hair regrowth, also notes that it enhanced stem-cell related growth factors.
NOTE: For best results, it’s recommended to use a Derma Roller alongside with minoxidil, and to use a 0.5mm to 0.75mm needle-length so that you can reach the epidermis of the skin for best facial hair follicle stimulating results.
The best part? It will cost you less than a bottle of beard growth oil, and it will actually work and you’re able to use it for months, even over a year if it’s good quality.
Vitamins for Beard Growth
There are several vitamins that can help marginally to improve your beard’s growth rate, way more effectively than any facial hair growth oil would ever be able to.
This is because a deficiency in almost any key micronutrient (vitamin or mineral) is going to reduce the levels of your beard growing hormones (testosterone and DHT) and naturally reduce your body’s ability to produce keratin, collagen, natural sebum oils, and the hair fiber itself.
Almost all vitamins play a role, but the most important for beard growth would be vitamin D3 (increases beard follicle maturation and testosterone levels), vitamin E (increases testosterone), zinc (increases testosterone, deficiency causes weak hair growth all over the body), magnesium, boron, and of course, biotin which most people know is important for beard growth.
Now should you go out and buy expensive beard growth vitamins like Beardilizer or Vitabeard?
Nope.
Those offer nothing special and are almost on part with the fake claims of facial hair growth oils. Your best bet would be to just get a basic multivitamin of high-quality, it does not need to say “beard” in the bottle to be effective.
Beard Supplements
There are few supplements that can help grow your beard, some which have scientific proof backing them up.
I wrote about them in our beard supplements article, and please do note that I’m not talking about the popular beard growth supplements with big flashy beard logos on the bottle and ridiculous price tag.
Instead, I’m talking about things like the herb Ashwagandha (which raises beard growth hormones) or carnitine (which boosts androgen receptors and feeds fatty acids to the hair follicles directly) and other things like that.
They offer a marginal benefit, but still much better results than any beard growing oil ever could.
Good Beard Nutrition Habits
You are what you eat, and vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates, and fatty acids all contribute in a way or another to healthy beard growth.
How much, and what you eat also impacts the beard growth hormones directly, which means that you can enhance or suppress your natural facial hair growth potential with just everyday simple food choices.
While I don’t want to beef up this post too much, do note that I have written a comprehensive list of the best beard growth foods here before.
Overall Healthy Lifestyle
Little things like sleep, exercise, not binge drinking, your quality of life, and so forth, can all contribute to your overall hormone levels and the ability to grow facial hair.
The effect is not huge – and doesn’t really overcome your genetic potential in most cases – but it’s still much better than beard growth oil could ever be.
Here’s a graph that shows what poor sleep does to testosterone levels (the most important beard-growing hormone):
Conclusion
So to recap the above…
Does beard growth oil work?
No. Never did, likely never will.
Does regular beard oil help with facial hair growth?
No. It moisturizes and hydrates the beard skin, but that’s about it.
