Beard Itch in Autumn and How to Stop It

Beard itch in autumn comes from the skin under the hair drying out, not from the hair. The heating goes on, the showers get hotter, the wind picks up and a scarf rubs the same strip of jaw all day. Each of those takes a bit of moisture from skin you cannot easily reach. The fix is gentler washing, proper drying, oil on the skin rather than the ends, and a beard short enough to look after. Start now, before the first itch, because by the time you are scratching the skin is already sore.

Why beard itch comes back in October

Summer itch is sweat drying into salt. Autumn itch is the reverse: too little moisture, not too much.

Three things shift around now. The radiators come on, so the air indoors gets drier and you spend more hours in it. The showers get hotter, because a hot shower on a cold morning is one of the few good things about October, and hot water takes oil off your face faster than anything you put back. And the collars go up. A wool scarf, a roll neck or a coat zipped to the chin sits under the jaw for the whole commute, catching on the hair and roughing up the skin underneath.

None of that is dramatic. Together, over a few weeks, it gives you a beard that feels fine at eight in the morning and is driving you mad by four.

There is a fourth cause we see every year. Men who took the beard off in August are growing it back, and a fortnight into regrowth every cut hair has a sharp end curling back against the skin. That one is mechanical, not dryness, and it stops on its own. Our week by week guide to growing a beard explains it, and nothing below will make it pass faster.

Find out what sort of itch it is

Look first, shop second. Comb the beard up against the grain under a good light and see what the skin is doing.

• Tight and dull, with fine white dust on the comb. Dry skin. This is the autumn one, and most of this post is about it.
• Yellowish, greasy flakes clinging to the base of each hair, sometimes with redness beside the nose or in the eyebrows. More likely the oily kind of flaking, and oil will feed it. It is told apart the same way as on the scalp, which our dandruff against dry scalp piece walks through.
• Red bumps along the neckline or under the jaw. Usually ingrown hairs, where a razor or a close trimmer went against the grain. Leave the neckline alone for a week.
• An itch only where the scarf sits. Friction. Change what touches your jaw and see if it settles in a few days.

Redness that spreads, skin that weeps or crusts, an itch that keeps you up at night: see a pharmacist first and a GP after that. We cut beards. We can tell you what the skin under one looks like, and that is as far as we go.

Washing a beard once the heating is on

Most autumn itch starts in the bathroom.

Turn it down for your face. Keep the hot shower if you want it. Just keep your face out of the hottest part, and give the beard a lukewarm rinse at the end.

Use something milder, less often. Body wash is made for your back, not your jaw, and the strong anti-dandruff shampoo on the shelf is not meant for daily use anywhere. Wash it properly on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, say, with a beard wash or something gentle meant for hair. In between, water does the job.

Rinse until it stops feeling slippery, then rinse again. Wash left in a dense beard dries onto the skin and itches by lunchtime.

Press it dry. Rubbing with a towel frizzes the hair and scuffs the skin. Press the water out, then let it finish in a warm room. A beard that goes out damp under a scarf on a cold morning stays damp against your skin for most of an hour, and that is its own itch. If you use a dryer, keep it on cool and keep it moving.

Oil goes on the skin, not the ends

This is the habit that fixes most autumn beards, and it is the one we see done backwards. Three drops rubbed between the palms and smoothed over the outside of the beard leaves the hair glossy and the skin underneath exactly as dry as it was.

Do it straight after the shower, while the beard is still a little damp. Three or four drops for a short beard, more for a long one. Work it in with your fingertips from underneath, against the grain, so it reaches the skin along the jaw and down the throat, then comb everything back into place. Our comparison of oil and balm covers which to buy, and for itch the answer is oil, because it gets to the skin.

If the skin is properly tight, an unscented face moisturiser worked in the same way does the same job for less. Fragrance is what to avoid on irritated skin, and plenty of beard oils are scented.

Comb or brush it once a day as well. It lifts dead skin out before it collects into flakes and carries the oil from the root down the hair. Rounded teeth, light pressure near the skin.

Length matters more than you would think

A long beard is harder to keep comfortable in autumn. Wash takes longer to rinse out, oil takes more effort to reach the skin, and the hair holds rain and shower water against your jaw on the way to work. We will not tell anyone to take a beard off, and shaving it in October only puts you through the regrowth itch in November. Taking a grade off the cheeks and tidying the underneath so air and oil can get in usually does more for the itch than any product.

On Harrow Road a Beard Trim is £11 for a 15 minute slot. Some of those minutes go on the barber combing it out and looking at the skin underneath, the bit you never see properly in your own bathroom mirror. Mention any sore patch before we start. We will do the neckline with trimmers instead of the razor and leave the aftershave off.

What to change this week

Turn the shower down for the last minute and keep your face out of the hottest water. Put the body wash back on the shelf and give the beard its own gentle wash every second or third day. Oil the skin from underneath straight after you dry off, and put something smoother than wool between your scarf and your jaw.

If the beard has grown out over the summer and is longer than you can look after, book a trim and ask for the underneath to be thinned as well as the outline tidied.

Give it a fortnight. If the itch has not changed by then, dryness probably was not the cause, and it is worth showing a pharmacist what is going on.