Dying your beard might seem like a bit of a challenge, but the risks are well worth the rewards. With these 8 easy steps to beard dying you can look like a whole new man in no time at all. Maybe you’re covering grays, or you might be giving your beard a total makeover. The point is that beard dyeing done right can look awesome, and we’re going to help you do it.
What You Will Need To Dye Your Beard
There are a few different tools that you will need to dye your beard successfully. Depending on what you are doing you may need more or less of these items to get the job done.
- Vaseline Or Other Lubricant
You will need vaseline, oil, or some other kind of lubricant to rub on your skin to keep the dye from coloring your face.
- A Beard Comb
The next thing you need to dye your beard is a beard comb. You will need this to get rid of any knots in your beard.
- Elastic Or Hair Clips
These are optional, but if you have a long and thick beard you are looking to dye, you will need hair elastics or clips to separate your beard into manageable sections.
- Beard Shampoo
You will want some beard shampoo to wash out the dye and to maintain your beard afterward.
- Color Enhancing Shampoo
comes in handy because washing your beard with it will make the coloring stay in for longer and look more vibrant.
- Beard Dye
We will discuss the different types of beard dyes, their properties, and their uses below in the section entitled Choose Your Poison. This is an article dedicated to dyeing your beard, so, of course, you are going to need beard dye.
- A Color Proof Dish
If you use a 2 step dye, something which we will discuss further on, you may need a color proof dish to mix the 2 different types of dyes. Something like a ceramic dish will work just fine. You only need this if your dye kit doesn’t come with its own mixing dish.
- Beard Dye Applicator Brush
Once again, you may not need this because your kit comes with it. However, if your kit doesn’t come with a color applicator brush, you will need to get one.
- 2 Towels
You will need 2 towels. One of them is to put around your shoulders and neck in case you spill any dye. The other towel is to dry your face off after you have rinsed the dye out of your beard.
- Latex Gloves
This is optional, but if you don’t want to risk coloring your fingers along with your beard, we would recommend getting some latex gloves.
What You Need To Do Before You Dye Your Beard
There are a few things that you will want to do before dying your beard to get the very best results that you can get. Here are some tips for your pre-dye.
- Don’t Wash
You want not to wash your beard for at least 2 days before dying it. This is so your beard can build up natural oils. Natural oils will help the dye absorb better and will help prevent skin irritation caused by the dye too.
- No Big Events
If you have never dyed your beard before, and you don’t know what it’s going to look like you shouldn’t dye it right before a big event. You might not like the look, and you’re going to have to live with it for a while.
- Old Shirt
Dyeing your beard can be a messy process. To dye it we highly recommend that you wear an old shirt that you don’t mind if it gets some color on it.
- Protect Your Hands
keep your hands from being dyed the same color as your beard by wearing latex gloves.
Choose Your Poison
When we said that there is a lot of consideration to be made when dying your beard we meant choosing what color or what type of beard dye you are aiming for. There are a few different types of dye to go with and choosing which one is right for you might just be the hardest part of this whole process. Here are some considerations to make before you choose a specific dye.
Touchup or Full Color
If you have half or less of your original color left in your beard because it is going gray, you might want to use a touchup beard dye that doesn’t completely cover up the grays.
This is especially important if you want to be a little subtle abut dyeing your beard or if you just don’t want the whole thing to be colored. You know, it’s that salt and pepper look.
On the other hand, if your beard color is less than half gray and you still have roughly 60 percent of your original color, you can choose a full dye. These dyes will color your beard completely and hide all of those grays.
They work well to turn your beard into one solid color and are quite convenient for hiding the fact that you’re turning gray. Obviously, it doesn’t matter if people know that you dyed your beard, but that’s all personal preference.
The Color
Of course, you don’t only have to go with the color that you’re beard naturally is. You can go with any color you want if you so choose. After all, not all of us dye our beards to cover up grays, either completely or to get that salt and pepper look.
Some of us might just want to dye our beard because we feel like it because we want to make a statement, or just because we like the color blue. Either you can cover up grays, or you can make yourself a whole new person.
The Ingredients
Another consideration to make before purchasing any one beard dye is what ingredients it has. You may not mind using some chemicals to dye your hair, which is great if you’re going for a green, purple, blue or any other non-natural color.
That is of course because completely natural ingredients can’t create vibrant colors like bright green, pink, blue, purple, and so on. This dye is about as close to chemical free as you could get while still being an unnatural hair color; it’s blue.
Some bright colored dyes may state that they don’t have this and that chemical. However to achieve colors like that there does need to be a certain amount of non-natural product in there.
The blue dye we linked to above is about as close as you will get to being 100 percent natural and organic. You should probably know that chemical dyes aren’t the best for your hair. They can cause skin irritation and they usually make your hair brittle and dry.
If you want to protect your beard from those things as best as possible, you will want to choose a natural and organic hair dye. That means that the dye doesn’t contain peroxide, PPD, Metal Salts, pesticides, or preservatives. These are great if you’re going for a natural color like black, brown, or red.
You could choose something like this, or you can choose henna if you like. It’s great to choose a natural dye because they are perfect for bringing back your old color and are healthy too.
Permanent or Temporary.
The Final Consideration to make before purchasing a beard dye is if you want it to be temporary or permanent.
Permanent dyes will stay in a long time, and the only way to get rid of that color is to let it grow out. However, they do of course take less work because permanent dyes require less frequent re-colorings.
On the other hand, temporary dyes like this one will wash out after 4 – 6 weeks. Therefore they require a little more maintenance, but they are also great if you aren’t sure what it’s going to look like.
Steps You Need To Follow To Dye Your Beard
Dying your beard may be a little bit of a tricky process, especially the first time you do it. It’s not all that hard once you get the hang of it though and once you’ve done it a few times, it all just becomes muscle memory. Follow the steps below and you will be able to dye your beard any color you want without any problems at all.
Step 1 – Set Up The Dye
This step is optional in the sense that not all beard dyes come with 2 types of color. Dyes like this one are considered a 1 step dye and only have one type of color included which means that you can skip this step.
On the other hand, if you get a 2 step beard dye like this Just for Men, you will need to mix the 2 colors first. This entails mixing the color base which will provide the main color boost together with the color developer which makes the color brighter and keeps it in your beard for longer.
Mix the color base and the developer together in either the dish that comes provided or a color proof dish of your own. When it comes to the amount that you need to mix to cover your beard it will depend on how big and thick your beard is. Your best bet is to follow the instructions closely.
Step 2 – Comb Your Beard
Use a beard comb to make sure that there are no knots in your beard. This will make it much easier to evenly apply color to your facial hair without missing any spots. Running into knots in the middle of the dying process is a big pain. Combing your beard before dying will also stretch it out and make everything more visible, thus making it easier to see the areas where you want to apply the dye.
Step 3 – Apply A Lubricant
This is important if you want to avoid dying your face along with your beard, something you don’t want to do. Simply apply some oil like beard oil or a lubricant like Vaseline to the area of skin around your beard. The grease will keep the color from getting on your skin. If you want you could even use some olive or canola oil; it might smell a little funny, but you can wash it off.
You can also use Vaseline to make a pattern in your beard. To make a pattern in your beard just apply some Vaseline to the beard hairs that you don’t want to dye. This will keep the color from taking hold as much on those hairs. This makes it a lot easier than just avoiding the areas you don’t want to color. Even if you get a spot, you don’t want to dye it still won’t take hold.
Step 4 – Separate Your Beard
This is another optional step and is only necessary if you have a long and thick beard. If you have a short beard, you can skip this step.
For this step use elastics or hair clips to separate your big beard into manageable sections. This will make it much easier to apply the dye evenly. You don’t want to only apply dye to the outside layers of your beard. The beard dye needs to be put on the interior, sides, and back of your beard too.
If you separate your beard into chunks with clips or elastics, just dye one part at a time, releasing the clips of a certain section when it comes time to color it.
Remember that beard dye works quickly so this is a time sensitive issue because it gets darker the longer you leave it. Dying a really big beard that is divided into sections needs to be done fast to avoid the color from getting too dark.
If one section is left for too long before you finish the last section, the color will become very dark and will not look natural. Plus the section you dyed first will most likely end up being darker than the following sections.
Step 5 – Brush In The Color
Most beard dying kits will come with an applicator brush included. However, if the dye you bought doesn’t come with a brush, you will need to buy your own beard color applicator brush.
Once again this step will differ according to whether you got a 1 or 2 step beard dye as we discussed in step 1. This step will also differ depending on if your dye is a touch-up or full dye like we talked about when we were choosing your dye.
Keep in mind that 1 or 2 step dyes are not mutually exclusive to touch up and full dyes; a full dye can be a 1 or 2 step formula. We’re going to talk about all 4 of these beard dye types individually.
For a 1 step beard dye, the color will most often be contained within the shaft of the brush. Thus you can just brush it in as is. Use the brush to evenly apply the dye to the desired areas that need coloring. If you are covering up, gray hairs make sure to start with the gray ones first.
If you start by dying your natural colored hairs before the gray ones, your natural colored hairs might look darker than the rest. Therefore start with the gray hairs and apply slightly less color to your darker hairs than the lighter ones. This will ensure that your beard is evenly dyed.
However keep in mind that you will need to dye your whole beard, not just the grays. This is because not dying your still naturally colorful hairs will make them end up being a slightly different shade than the colored grays. The trick is to apply dye still to the hairs that still have color, just not as much as to the gray ones.
For a 2 Step beard dye, depending on the type of brush you have, you will have to keep applying more dye to the front of the brush, or you might be able to pour it in the back of the brush. The only other difference being that the 2 step dyes require mixing whereas the 1 step dyes do not. Other than that all of the actions and tips you need to follow to apply the 2 step dye are the same for as for a 1 step beard dye solution.
Applying a full beard dye is pretty easy, but it can come in either a 1 or 2 step formula like either of the ones mentioned just above. Depending on which kind of dye you have, just follow the steps outlined above for either the 1 or 2 step beard dye.
If you are dying your full beard just make sure that you generously apply the dye to all beard hairs and that you get the gray ones first. Remember that the point of a full beard dye is to color all of your facial hair evenly. Therefore it is essential to follow the advice we discussed about how to get an even coloring when dying gray hairs mixed with still naturally colorful hairs.
For a touch-up beard dye how much you apply and to where is up to you. On a side note, these touch-up dyes usually always come in a 1 step format with only one tube of color. If you’re doing a color touchup, but still want to leave some gray, you simply need to apply dye to some of the grays while leaving others as is. How many grays and in which areas of your beard you want them to be in is something that you will have to figure out for yourself.
Step 6 – Play The Waiting Game
We can’t tell you exactly how long this step is going to take because each type and brand of beard dye will take a slightly different amount of time to take effect. We can’t stress enough how important it is that you follow the directions on the packaging.
Don’t leave the dye on for any longer than is recommended because it will become much darker than you want, plus it might damage your beard too. You will also know when the dye has been on there for long enough because as you watch it, the dye will all of a sudden become darker. Now it’s time to wash it out.
Step 7 – Wash Out The Dye
Now it’s time to hop in the shower and wash out all of the dye. Most dyes will recommend that you use cold water for this step. You will also want to use some beard soap or beard shampoo to get rid of any residue in your beard. Even the smallest amount of beard dye can become irritating when left in the beard for a prolonged period, plus it will feel weird too.
For this step we recommend that you use a color enforcing, protecting, or color enhancing shampoo so that the color will last long longer. You can also use these shampoos down the road which will greatly extend the color life of your beard. That means you don’t have to dye it as often. Keep in mind that many color enhancing shampoos will contain some chemicals.
If you are more concerned about keeping your beard healthy instead of keeping the color in for longer, you can use a good beard shampoo too. Using specialized beard soaps and shampoos will provide your beard and skin with the necessary nutrients to keep them healthy, moisturized, and looking great.
Step 8 – Dry And Apply Beard Oil
After you have washed out the dye, just towel dry it until it’s not dripping anymore. You may see some color rub off on the towel, but that is just excess dye that didn’t come off in the rinse.
Try not to blow dry your beard because that will make it dry and brittle, plus it will wear out the color quicker too. Now just apply some beard oil to your newly dyed facial hair to give it the moisture and shine that it needs.
Easy Steps To Beard Dyeing: The Conclusion
We hope that we could be assistance in regards to the topic of dying your beard. It’s not all that hard and like we said the most difficult part is choosing which beard dye and color is right for you. If you follow our simple steps and the tons of advice we’ve provided you with, there really shouldn’t be any trouble at all.
If you have any comments or questions about dying your beard, we would love to hear all about it. Maybe you’ve found the best beard dye ever, or maybe you’ve discovered a great dyeing technique. Whatever the case may be, we would love to hear from you no doubt.
