It’s commonly thought that growing a beard will help keep you and your face warmer. After all, a beard is thought to act as another layer of clothing, right? Well…the answer isn’t as cut and clear as you might think! Let’s take a dive into this question and see if growing a beard will actually keep you warmer or not.
Beards have been grown since the literal beginning of mankind. The question is why they are grown. Although most people think they are grown for warmth purposes, this is actually far from the truth, as we are about to discover.
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What Are Beards Really Supposed To Do?
Beards are grown by men because the hair follicles in and around our face and jaw are stimulated by a hormone called dihydrotestosterone, produced by the overarching hormone testosterone itself.
As various testing has indicated, the purpose of a beard is not to help increase body heat or “warmth” but to instead provide adequate protection to a man’s face from the elements, heat, sunshine, and if the beard is large enough, falls and impact.
Beards, due to being linked to testosterone, have also historically been used to intimidate enemies or rivals. The thought behind the beard is that a bearded man seems to have higher levels of testosterone, and give off a sharper, larger jawline. Much in the way that a lion uses its mane to appear larger and more intimidating.
Beards and Body Heat
As mentioned above, the usefulness of beards is for shielding your face from various adversities, however, beards will not help increase your overall temperature. This is for a few reasons.
The first reason a beard doesn’t increase your overall temperature is that the beard actually blocks sunlight from reaching your skin. In this way, a beard actually acts like shade in the summertime, keeping your skin itself cool.
The second reason a beard doesn’t make you warm is that, unlike many other mammals, humans sweat and rely on the evaporation of that sweat to stay cool in warm conditions. A beard not only blocks the sunlight from reaching your face but also traps sweat beneath the beard, closer to your skin. Trapping this sweat and blocking the sun will actually not make you feel any warmer to wear a beard in hot conditions. Actually making you feel cooler…and cool looking!
Warm Beard Misunderstandings
The reason many people think donning a beard will keep you warm is often due to misattributions of how beards work! Traditionally people who lived in colder climates always have beards, so they must make you warm, right? Kind of…but not for the reasons you might think.
People think beards act like clothing, trapping a layer of warm air against your skin. but this is not exactly accurate because beards are extremely porous, breathable, and don’t cover much of your body. Think of a beard like the clothing of the nomads who roam the great deserts, who are fully covered in light robes. Why are they fully covered if they are trying to stay cool?!
Those robes, much like your beard, block the sun but are light and allow your skin to breathe, actually keeping you cooler than you would be if you stripped off those layers. much like the shade of a tree.
Beards are simply meant to block the elements from your skin. Your skin is actually what helps you process the feeling of heat or cold. For example, wearing a beard in the snow will keep the cold snow from touching your bare skin, causing you to feel warmer than you otherwise would. The same thing happens with rain, as long as your beard keeps from being overly saturated.
However, wearing a beard in the summer heat will actually keep you cooler by trapping sweat and blocking out the sun from your exposed skin, almost like a natural sunscreen.
Overall, a beard doesn’t make you warmer in every situation, in essence, a beard actually acts as a temperature regulator instead of a temperature increaser. This is because a beard works to keep you cooler in the heat, warmer in the cold, and overall protected from whatever the world has to throw at you!
Now, if you’re suffering from a different type of beard heat, the itchy and scratchy kind, then take a look at our premium Volt Beard Oil and Volt Beard Balm which will keep your beard healthy, happy, and hydrated!
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