John BenosTable of Contents
And I get it. It seems such a long way to go and you don’t have the necessary patience.
All men have thought about it at least once in their life. Not to mention when the first facial hair made their first appearance during teenagehood.
I perfectly remember that period. I felt like such a man when the first signs of moustache appeared. I was only 13 and already imagining myself with a thick manly beard!
At a later stage though, growing a beard becomes a brave decision that a man takes.
It takes a lot of courage to put the razor down and even more patience to actually continue growing a beard until you reach your growth goals.
But just like any man who takes the decision to let the beard go wild, there’s always this dark question above your head regarding the time it takes to grow it. This question is followed by what it takes to get there?
You might expect a straightforward answer to this. But as there are no simple answers to complicated questions, I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you.
Yet, to compensate for my inability to provide straight to the chase answers, I’ll give you the chance to understand heck of a lot of other things.
First of all, it heavily depends on several factors among which, your age, genes, lifestyle, health and nutrition.
In this article, you’re going to find all the necessary info so that you can make the calculations and assessments yourself.
For that, we’re going to analyse each of the above mentioned factors separately.
Once the analysis is completed, we’ll determine what affects our beard growth and finally, what we can and can’t do to expedite it.
First things first, let’s see what our hair is all about and how it actually grows.
Understanding the difference between head and facial hair
Beard is the type of hair that is heavily influenced by the level of androgens a man is blessed with – more specifically, testosterone. This is also why facial hair is called androgenic.
In case you’re wondering, andro is the Greek word for male. Hence, facial hair is called more like male hair.
Men with higher testosterone are expected to have thicker and usually darker hair.
Besides facial hair, increased testosterone might result in more hair across the entire body such as chest, arms, legs, armpits, back and genital area.
Why would you want to know all these?
There’s a notable difference between the hair that is growing on your head and the hair that is found elsewhere on your body.
And this difference is well observed in hair growth.
The growth cycles between head and facial hair differ substantially. Facial hair doesn’t grow as fast as the hair on your head even though they share similar characteristics.
If we want to be more specific, body and facial hair versus head hair differ both in length and growth cycles and growth cycle duration.
Head hair grows continuously as opposed to facial hair.
Even though beard has the same number of cycles (3 cycles explained below ), facial hair alternates between growth spurts and periods when it doesn’t grow which can be between three and six months.
It normally happens a few months – between one and up to five – after you start growing your beard. This is exactly when you notice that your beard doesn’t grow as fast as you anticipated based on the growth pace up till that moment.
Let’s dig into more detail and see how long it takes to grow your beard during each hair growth stage.
How long does it take to grow a beard then?
There are essentially three hair growth cycles.
- Anagen
- Catagen
- Telogen
The anagen phase can last years, even up to seven, while the catagen has a duration of only a few weeks or even months and finally telogen, that only lasts a year or so.
Hair growth stages
Anagen
This is the starting phase of the hair growth cycle and it last the longest. It’s the stage when the hair follicle starts growing. The pace is at usually around 1cm per month.
The anagen phases can last even up to seven years, depending always on your genes, hormones, health, lifestyle and age.
Once the anagen phase of hair comes to an end, the hair enters the catagen phase.
Catagen
Now, the catagen phase is the one that frustrates all men that want to grow a beard.
During this phase, the hair stops growing and the root of the hair doesn’t get blood supply anymore. This is when the hair is one step closer to leaving your head or face.
This phase can last only a couple of weeks before the hair follicle enters the last phase of the hair growth cycle – telogen.
Telogen
That’s the most disappointing part of the hair growth cycle.
It also happens to be the phase that makes all men worry.
It’s the time when the hair falls off of your face and head. This is the last phase and then, new hair will grow, starting from the anagen phase once again.
On average, the hair that stops being part of your beard and head is around 1 to 100 less per day. Even though it might seem a lot, think about the hundreds of thousands -if not millions, that you still have on your head and beard.
Let’s come back again to the difference in beard and hair growth cycle to better understand how long it takes to grow your beard.
Remember what we just discussed about the anagen phase.
The anagen phase of facial hair lasts shorter and the telogen phase lasts longer compared to head hair. This is really what best explains why facial hair doesn’t grow as fast as hair on your head.
Factors that affect the hair growth potential
Besides the hair growth cycle, there are other things that may affect how long it takes to grow a beard.
Genes play a very important role in your beard growth. This is also most difficult thing to change -if at all possible. Science shall prove.
Your genes normally determine when your beard starts growing during your puberty, how strong and how long -in terms of length, it will eventually become.
Based on these factors, there’s a chance that some men may never be able to grow a long or dense beard.
Age
Most guys start seeing the first signs of facial hair growth in puberty. This would normally mean somewhere between 12 and 16 years.
There are, of course, cases when facial hair starts growing at a later stage.
In order to determine how long it takes to grow a beard, it’s important to understand that hair growth pace is very different depending on age:
- 12-18: Facial hair starts appearing on male’s face and in most cases, young guys have soft and patchy beard. This is the time when testosterone starts kicking in and hence, the appearence of facial hair. Growing a beard during this time isn’t impossible but kinda challenging for most guys.
- 18-25: During these years, facial hair starts growing thicker and beard gets fuller. There’s a good chance that many guys might not experience fuller beard even during this time and it might take a few more years. Some guys may already reach their growth potential and be able to grow a fuller beard. 20’s are also the age of men that have their highest testosterone levels.
- 25-35: This is usually the time when beard growth reaches its full potential. The speed of beard growth is now faster than ever before. During these years, growing a beard takes the shortest time for all guys. It’s also the time that you’re reaching the beard growth potential that your genes determine.
I understand that the above age groups might not be representative to many guys but it gives you an idea what to expect and how long it takes to grow a beard based on your age.
Race
This is also something that heavily determines the time that it takes to grow a beard and when you first start seeing facial hair as a teenager or even as an adult.
Usually, Caucasians and African Americans have thicker beards while Asians are normally among men that find growing a full beard challenging.
How to grow a beard faster and thicker
Even though your genes may not be on your side, there are a couple of things that you can do to grow your beard faster -and thicker potentially.
Again, all these tips for growing a beard aren’t a guarantee. But it certainly won’t change your lifestyle so drastically to scare you off from implementing them.
Balanced diet
Maintaining a healthy diet doesn’t only help you with your overall body health but it’s also beneficial for your hair and -needless to say, growing your beard faster.
Foods rich in proteins and vitamins, such as A, B, C and E as well as copper and magnesium might be the starting point.
Enrich your diet with chicken, eggs, broccoli, spinach, avocado and dairy food. They could definitely help you in your beard growth journey.
Fish like salmon -and all fish really, that offers omega-3 fats also contributes to hair growth. As a quick note, the hair shaft is made partly by omega-3 fats and this kind of foods may help you boost your beard growth.
Proper beard maintenance
Even though it seems kind of ironic, trimming your beard may be beneficial in terms of growth.
More particularly, trimming the split ends as well as detangled hair, can make you lose less hair and this is what could help you overall with the beard growth potential.
This way, your beard grows healthier, thicker and eventually, faster.
Massaging your beard
By massaging your beard and the facial hair roots frequently, you stimulate the blood flow on your face.
If you remember, we discussed earlier that during the catagen phase, blood flow is cut and this is why the hair stops growing and finally falls off of your beard during telogen phase. This probably gives you a quick idea how important blood flow is to your hair growth.
Exercise
With exercise, testosterone levels increase. Testosterone, being an androgen, shares a big part of responsibility for your beard growth.
Boosting it with frequent work out can only be beneficial. A healthy body is able to deliver the hormones to their target.
Brushing your beard
Using a top quality beard brush with boar bristles like this one here can also help you grow your beard faster, and again, healthier.
Being natural hair brushes, boar brushes are able to deliver sebum oil across the length of your hair while brushing, moisturizing and making your beard softer.
By making the beard healthier, you should expect to have less beard split ends, stronger hair and less prone to breakage.
As a result, using a brush might help you grow a beard faster and thicker.
Applying beard care products
Beard care products such as beard oil and beard balms are great for making your beard softer.
They contain such natural ingredients that make them the best beard care products.
Besides softening your beard, the ingredients of these products are proved to promote beard growth, eventually making your beard grow faster than its normal growth rate.
Will beard oil help with growth pace?
There’s no simple answer to this either.
Beard oil and balm contain ingredients such as castor or jojoba oil that have been proven great for helping with hair growth.
Applying beard oil on daily basis might not contribute directly to beard growth, but it would certainly improve the quality and health of your hair. Indirectly, healthy hair that does not break or that is thick enough, means longer beard.
Of course, there is no guarantee that this will lead to a substantial beard growth.
But even if there’s no effect in this respect, applying such products combined with the other tips that we already mentioned, can definitely assist you in your beard journey.
Worst thing that can happen is to actually get a healthier and softer hair and hopefully, make your beard grow faster.
Other products that may help you in growing your beard
We talked about how selecting the best beard oils and beard balms can help you grow a beard faster because of its ingredients.
Some of the key ingredients, that are found in these products are the following:
- Castor oil
- Argan oil
- Coconut oil
- Jojoba oil
- Hemp seed oil
All these are premium and all-natural oils that can help with hair regeneration and growth, moisturisation. In addition, they help with dryness prevention, beard split ends and beard dandruff.
It’s no coincidence that besides beard grooming and care products, most of these ingredients are found in hair care that are meant to be used for hair growth as well as in skin care.
Beard growth vitamins and Beard growth serums
There are a lot of products out there that promise you to make your hair and beard grow longer.
Products like beard growth vitamins and beard growth serums are among those that could make a difference in your beard.
Even though these products might help your beard grow faster, I wouldn’t personally recommend them.
Any reason why I wouldn’t?
I think that supplements should be the last thing that you should consider taking.
I would use such products only after I exhausted all other natural methods available for receiving all the nutrients I can. And only after I would pay a visit to the doctor.
Think about it.
First, follow all the tips we previously discussed. Balanced diet, beard maintenance, exercise and applying all the beard care products that are mostly naturally derived.
If after all this, you haven’t seen any progress, then it might be a good time to consider adding supplements to your routine. Not before though. And, again, not before you consult a doctor.
Until then, you might try to implement everything we already said and if this still doesn’t work, you can further proceed with beard growth vitamins or other products that may help you, upon consulting a specialist.
Some beard growth vitamins that I found online and you may consider -after you confirm that you actually need them, are the following:
- Hair and Beard Growth Supplement – 5000 MCG of Biotin – Vitamins A, C
- VitaBeard – Beard Growth Vitamins for Men – Vegan, Non-GMO
- Beard Growther Vitamins
Please bear in mind that I haven’t used any of them and I don’t have a personal opinion whether they work or not. Use at your own discretion.
Signing off
So, do we finally have any idea how long it takes to grow your beard then? What do you think?
As you already understood, this heavily depends on various factors such as your genes, maintenance and your daily routine.
Most of all, if you want to grow a beard successfully, without shaving it off in the first couple of weeks, you need to equip yourself with patience and strong will.
Once you have these two, it’s in your hands to assist your body in beard growth by treating it in the best possible way.
After a few months, you will be able to enjoy the fruits of your hard work and enjoy stroking your long beard while telling stories to your kids.
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