DIY Beard Balm

As my beard got longer, it started to get a little too wild looking. Thanks to my beard oil, it was soft and healthy, but it was becoming impossible to tame it.

I didn’t want to go crazy with the styling, but a product that could get my beard under control and conditioned seemed like a mystical serum. Thankfully, the good people down at the internet told me about beard balm.

Like beard oil, the guys who do that well also have a respected beard balm. If you want to save yourself the effort, don’t hesitate picking up one of their great products.

Beard balm uses many of the same ingredients as beard oil, but adds beeswax to give it a bit of hold. A form of butter, usually shea or cocoa, is also added to make it easier to spread, plus have healthy benefits themselves.

Since beard balm uses many of the same oils, you can be equally as creative. You can easily create a balm that smells the same as your beard oil, or you could try something different. As the cliche goes: you’re only limited by your creativity.

Keep in mind, I’m a cheap ass, but here is how I do it:

Compared to beard oil, balm is much more labour intensive. But that being said, if you can reheat pasta sauce, you can make beard balm.

Again, I started by going to my recycling bin. I pulled out a mint tin to keep the finished product in. It’s the perfect size and fits nicely in your pocket if you want to carry it around with you. That being said, I don’t, but it’s nice to know it will travel easily if needed.

I bought a cheese grater at the thrift store for a few cents. It makes measuring the beeswax easier, and I don’t have to hear about it from my wife when I don’t clean our regular grater well enough and our cheese tastes funny.

Obviously, to measure stuff you need measuring spoons. I’m not a big stickler on being precise and I don’t like cleaning too many different utensils, so I tend to just reuse the same one for all the ingredients.

Now comes the hard part. I don’t have a fancy double boiler, instead I just put an old jam jar in a pot with a bit of water. I keep the temperature low and continuously stir the wax and butter to make sure they only melt and not burn. I obviously wouldn’t want to do this if I was making a lot, but since I’m only melting a few ounces at a time, this works fine.

These are the ingredients I use and are the stars of any beard balm.

Half the ingredients for my beard balm are the same as my oil. Jojoba is my carrier oil and tea tree and bergamot are the essential oils I use for scent and extra goodness.

I bought this giant brick of beeswax at the health food store for $10. As you can see, I haven’t used that much of it yet, and with my second attempt I initially used too much beeswax and my balm was too hard for my liking. The more wax, the stiffer the hold, but it also makes it more difficult to work it in.

To make my balm silky smooth I use shea butter. I think I may have tossed in coconut oil once, but it wasn’t very much and I certainly didn’t measure the amount - shea butter is my go-to. It smells pretty good and has many healthy benefits. I guess, technically, you could just rub shea butter into your beard by itself, but adding other ingredients gives a balm even more benefits and makes it last longer.

To mix all the ingredients together, start by melting the beeswax and butter. Remember, go slow on low heat as you don’t want to ruin a batch. Once they are completely liquid and transparent, remove from the heat. Now, add your oils and stir them in. Before the mixture hardens again pour it into whatever you plan on keeping your balm in. You have to move kind of quickly once you’ve taken it off the heat, as the wax will harden again fairly soon.

And that’s it. Not that difficult at all.

Here’s what my finished product looks like. It’s semi-solid, but easily melts in your hand.

Since I’ve made this one, I actually don’t use it in my beard very much anymore. However, I’ve been letting my hair on the top of my head grow out and I use this as my hair styling wax. It doesn’t have a super high hold, but it works well enough for me and I know it’s all-natural so it’s kind to my hair.

What do you think about how I make my beard balm? Is this something you think you could handle? Do you have other uses for it that I haven’t thought of? Let me know in the comments below.