7 Tips for Trimming Your Beard

In today's Charlemagne Premium blog we are going through 7 tips for trimming your beard. As we have said once or twice before, there are plenty of routes to the same destination. Trimming the beard down, shaving the contours, or simply putting your facial hair back into shape.

To help you find your own route, we will start with cutting the beard using an electric trimmer.

Electric beard clippers, better known as beard trimmers

Here you are: you have grown the beard out and now you are standing in front of the mirror wondering what to do with all that glory. Step one, and it pays off, is to decide how long you want the beard to be. If you wear a three-day stubble in particular, length is quite literally the deciding factor. An electric beard clipper, also called a trimmer, is the perfect tool for the job. It cuts dry hair down to the length you dialled in using an adjustable guard. Thanks to that guard, and a few passes across your face, every single hair gets caught and the beard style you had in mind starts to take shape.

Beard scissors

If you do not want to cut the beard back because you prefer the length, this is where beard scissors come in. They are made for taking individual sections down to the length you want. Around a well-kept moustache they are simply non-negotiable. The fine tips let you reach the awkward spots on your face, like the hairs directly under your nose. Stray hairs that refuse to behave are dealt with in one quick snip. There is a good piece on this on our blog.

So now that the beard is cut to length, short or long, it is time to shape the contours.

The straight razor. Trimming your beard like the pros

A straight razor puts the contours of your style into clean, sharp shape. The market offers two kinds. First, the shavette with a replaceable blade. As the name suggests, the blade can be swapped out. That makes it the right pick for beginners and for daily, sometimes professional, use. A fixed-blade straight razor, on the other hand, has to be stropped regularly on a leather strop or it loses its edge. Both tools have their own strengths and weaknesses. What matters is which one sits best in your hand. Since we have probably got you curious, this blog post is the right place to read up.

Shave soap, more than a bit of slip

Trimming your beard with a straight razor calls for one essential piece of kit. Correct: shave soap. Whipped up properly, it builds the ideal cushion between your skin and the blade, so the hairs are cut right at the surface. The result is an extremely clean finish which, as mentioned, is what makes your contours look precise.

The gadgets the market offers

To make beard trimming as foolproof and painless as possible, the global market sells all sorts of aids. Shipped mostly out of Asia, one example doing the rounds over here is the shaping template. A genuinely amusing product, though one that often promises more than it delivers. The various tools built into the template are supposed to influence not just the cut but also the care that follows. Do not fall for it. What you actually need to do with your facial hair after trimming, we will show you now.

What to do after trimming your beard

Now that the trimming is done, it is time for care. Beard oil to make the hair less unruly and give it a silky shine, or styling with pomade or even beard wax when you want real hold. Cutting hair always puts strain on hair and skin. So it is a must to reach for the products that help your beard shrug the whole procedure off. The same goes for your skin. Creams, oils and countless other products can put back the moisture the process stripped out.

And finally, the polish

Once the beard is trimmed and conditioned, it wants shaping. Comb it through with a beard brush or with a beard comb. Brushing and combing drives the care products you just applied deep into the hair, so they work right down at the root. On top of that they look after the skin underneath. Double points there.

As we flagged at the start, trimming a beard and caring for it comes in many forms. If you are growing your beard out, there is no way around combining a few of these methods to get the result you are after. Sure, an old mountain farmer does not need to fuss over his facial hair. He would rather leave the shearing to his sheep. As a proper city lad, though, you hold yourself to different standards. To keep meeting them, you will find the right care products and beard grooming kit as always in our Charlemagne Premium shop, because:

"A healthy and well groomed beard is important for a real man, that's why we offer everything you need to keep yours doing so."

As barbers with more than 20 years in the trade between us, we went looking for styling & care products that convinced us 100%. There were some good products on the market, but none that gave us everything we needed. After some thought we decided in 2014 to develop our own range. For two years we used every free minute after work at the barbershop to refine the formulations down in our cellar. When it came to ingredients, only the best was good enough. We bought the finest jojoba oils available in Morocco, and argan oil from Italy.

After two years and a good many attempts our first product line was ready, and it has been winning customers over ever since: we think 98% positive reviews speak for themselves. Since the official launch in 2016 it has of course been developed further, continuously. That is one of the reasons Charlemagne Premium products have won not one but several comparison tests in recent years.

You will find all our products right here in our online store. For any questions about them, you can reach us any time at info@charlemagne-premium.com.