How to Fix a Patchy Beard—Or Rather, How to Maximize Its Potential
Remember, there are infinite numbers of beard styles out there. Having a patchy beard only limits a handful of those options—you’ve still got plenty to work with. (A few high-hold products will help, too.)
July 29, 2024
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It’s only natural to want the fullest possible beard ever. But hey, we don’t all get a full face of follicles, and a lot of us (myself included) end up with a patchy beard. And I have some tough news: It’s very hard to sprout hairs if you are genetically predisposed to it. So, instead of wondering how to fix a patchy beard, I encourage you to turn your focus to a different approach: How to make the most with what you’ve got.
The next time you’re worried about a few patches in your beard, or a total barrenness across both cheeks, just remember that some of Hollywood’s leading-est men are your contemporaries. Keanu Reeves! The guy is Neo and John Wick. And Oscar winner Robert Downey Jr! Fricken’ Iron Man has bald cheeks. Jackie Chan can only sprout a mustache, anchor beard, and a soul patch. Trust me, you’re in fine company.
Still, you’re here for more than just a little encouragement, so I have the following advice to offer you.
The Best Products for Patchy Beards
These are some of the patchy beard products that appear throughout the article.
- The Best Minoxidil for Patchy Beards: Ro and Hims Oral Minoxidil
- The Best Hair Wax for Patchy Beards: Church Sun Wax Pomade
- The Best Hair Spray for Patchy Beards: Sebastian Professional Shaper Hairspray Medium-to-Strong Hold
- The Best Beard Dye for Patchy Beards: True Sons Hair and Beard Dye
- The Best Hair Fibers for Patchy Beards: Toppik Hair Building Fibers
- The Best Filler Pencil for Patchy Beards: NuNorm Eyebrow and Facial Hair Pencil
Please use our links (those above as well as any links featured throughout the article); doing so supports the work we put into making Blue Print by Adam Hurly.
How to Grow More Facial Hair
Again, I’ll hit on the bad news: You can’t change your genetics and suddenly grow more hair with a needled beard roller, or beard oil, or biotin supplements, or some magic beard growth serum. But there still might be some dormant hope for you to get a fuller beard—in that you might have some lazy follicles just taking an extra 5 or 10 years to sprout forth. I for one feel like my beard has gotten very incrementally fuller in the cheeks the past 5 years or so—but not enough that I would have invested money or false hope in a big change.
I think the best hope you have for fuller facial hair is minoxidil (topical minoxidil is available over the counter; also available in oral tablets by prescription). It’s one of the key drugs used to reverse and prevent hair loss. Essentially, minoxidil can stimulate any dormant or budding follicles to grow by improving the circulation to them, which means better nutrition for those little buds. That said, instead of applying topical minoxidil to your cheeks, you could just take an oral minoxidil tablet (if it suits you) and enjoy the pro-hair benefits across your entire body—head included—Yes, it could increase body hair growth too.
Please read our minoxidil overview and speak with a doctor before you begin, just to understand any risks and set expectations—they should be set low for facial hair growth, alright? Oral minoxidil is a blood pressure medicine, so people with heart issues may need to seek alternate options.
You can get a prescription for oral minoxidil from telemedicine sites like Ro and Hims:
Ro Oral Minoxidil | Hims Hybrid Chews
Most dermatologists won’t tell you to hang any bets on the process; rather, it’s usually messaged like “eh, you could try it, as it’s probably the best option”. And I echo the dermos: Maybe stick with it for 6-12 months, and if you’re not noticing anything, hang it up. But again, oral minoxidil is a perfect hair loss treatment in its own right (maybe even the gold standard), and could prevent hair loss if you keep it up.
All of the key men’s wellness sites offer topical minoxidil options, too, if you don’t mind applying the serums to your cheeks on the regular. Remember, keep expectations low, and plan for a long road ahead.
Hims | XYON | Ro | Keeps | Happy Head
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How to Fill in a Patchy Beards
Aside from hoping and praying that more hairs sprout, the next best bet you have is to try some grooming products that make it look fuller. A little smoke and mirrors.
For starters, you can grow your scruff out long enough that you can style it over the bald spots, kind of like a little combover for your cheeks. You obviously can only do this if you’ve got ample hair in the nearby vicinity, otherwise it’s just going to look ridiculous—like an actual scraggly combover.
Try growing the beard out for a month or two. Just power through and keep a tidy neckline all the while. Once the hair is long enough to muss over top the patchy spots, try any of these things:
1. High-Hold Hair Stylers
Many beard balms will be heavy enough to help control the beard, but you should aim for the high-hold hair products instead. (I find balms really good at keeping long beards in place, which will already cover any patchwork.)
I’m talking waxes and hair sprays. These will really help take control of the direction the beard hairs lie, and as long as you don’t touch your face throughout the day, the hairs can stay styled. Go light on these with your face, and if you’re particularly acne prone, maybe skip it altogether—just to be on the sure side.
A couple product recs: Church Sun Wax Pomade and Sebastian Hair Spray. Close your eyes and mouth when shooting hair spray at your face, OK? And hold it about 6 inches away from your beard when applying. It’s kind of weird to spray hair spray on your face, after all, so be sure to really zero in on the hairs, and not the rest of your mug. (I am never above making these crafty recommendations, even if they seem oddball.)
2. Beard Dye
I think beard dye is really wrongfully maligned for its ability to add fullness. If your beard is lighter than your natural hair color, you can easily get away with dyeing it (assuming you aren’t trying to get anybody to notice that you did so). I always did this in my white Vitiligo spots on my beard, and in my nearly translucent mustache and goatee hairs. I’d do it over the weekend, and on Monday my coworkers seemed legitimately fooled that I had sprouted way more hair over the weekend. (I was never shy to admit I used dye; you shouldn’t be either.)
True Sons has a really great “demi-permanent” product that doesn’t block-dye everything, so you get a subtle blend that fades over the course of a month. You can keep re-upping it and nobody will notice. And truth be told, I think Just for Men is just fantastic these days. That M35 medium brown never fails me. (Always go one or two shades lighter than you think you may need.)
3. Hair-Densifying Fibers
Sprinkle-on hair fibers (yes, like Toppik) can sure be a mess. They never wash out of your pillow covers. And they’re kinda silly when a guy is so obviously avoiding just shaving his nearly-bald head. But, if you have a simple patchy beard and want to fill it in for a special occasion—read: don’t make it a daily habit, per the staining it can do—then sprinkle away. Most celebrity groomers I know use these products on their A-List clients for red carpets. The results are brilliant, since those fibers make each hair on your beard (or head) look way thicker.
4. Eyebrow / Mustache Pencils
If you have a sparse beard overall (as opposed to pure patches) then you could always “color in” the bare spots with a makeup pencil. They can make everything look fuller in general. However, it could start looking suspicious if you color in the entire cheek. I find them more useful under sparse hair in designated sections, like the mustache, chin, or in my case, under the vitiligo-sparse patches on my cheek. You can scribble them onto the hair and skin, then use the spoolie end to spread it evenly across the hairs and make them look denser as well. They should stay on without smudging all day, and sometimes I even notice some carryover to the second day, despite washing my face twice between. (With no transfer to pillowcases, either.)
NuNorm has a great roster of 8 shades (I use them in my videos sometimes when I want my eyebrows to look fuller, or my blonde-ish mustache to appear thicker without dyeing it). I also like recommending Sephora’s in-house selection, since they won’t break the bank and have 12 shades to choose from. I choose one slightly darker than my natural hairs for this reason (maybe one shade deeper) but I think your safest bet at the start is to match your natural color as squarely as possible.
How to Embrace a Patchy Beard
Remember, there are infinite beard styles out there. A full beard has access to all of them, and anything less than that full beard will have to scale back front here. But let’s say your options only total half of infinity—so what?! Wispy cheek scruff is still a style. A soul patch and anchor beard is still a style. Hell, Brad Pitt has been sporting a goatee on and off for his whole career—try the damn goatee!
You have to think in terms of what you can grow as opposed to what you can’t. (Hey, that’s a good life lesson, too. Nobody is sad that they can’t grow a banana tree in South Dakota. But the corn there—wow, it’s corn heaven.)
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