Does your face routine also work under your beard?

Under your beard is ordinary facial skin. So the three steps stay the same. Wash in the morning and apply a day cream with SPF, wash in the evening and apply the night cream. What changes is where it ends up: on the skin between the hairs, not on the hairs. Two things do become less certain with a beard. How much sun filter lands on your skin, and whether the fragrance ingredients in your cleanser suit you.

The hairs are not a layer something has to get through.

A beard does not cover your skin. It grows on it. So your cleanser and your cream have to get past it, right down to the skin. Massage with your fingertips until you feel the skin. If you keep stroking over the hairs, you are caring for your beard and not your face.

To dermatologists, that skin is no exception. The pocket guide on huidziekten.nl (a Dutch dermatology reference) lists a row of typical sites for seborrhoeic eczema. The beard is among them, alongside the scalp, the eyebrows and the fold beside the nose. We come back to this further on, under flakes.

Washing: lukewarm water, and right down to the skin.

The page for the Daily Face Wash says how it is meant to be used. Apply to a damp face. Gently massage in with circular movements. Rinse off with lukewarm water. With a beard, massaging in takes a few seconds longer, because you are working between the hairs.

This cleanser washes with glucosides instead of soap. The list includes Coco-Glucoside, Decyl Glucoside and Lauryl Glucoside. Sodium lauryl sulphate and Sodium Laureth Sulfate are not in it. Nor are there scrub particles. The order of the whole routine is on the daily routine.

Two of our three products contain natural fragrance.

This part does not work in our favour. We include it anyway. With a beard, a product stays between your hairs longer than on a bare cheek.

Read on 4 November 2026 on our own product pages:

  • Daily Face Wash. Contains natural fragrance. Listed separately are Coumarin, Benzyl Benzoate, Benzyl Cinnamate and Vanillin. Plus Myroxylon Pereirae Oil/Extract and Juniperus Virginiana (Red Cedar) Oil.
  • Day Cream SPF 30. Contains natural fragrance. Listed separately are Geraniol, Citronellol, Citral, Beta-Caryophyllene and Vanillin, plus the same cedar oil.
  • Night Cream. None of those separate fragrance names is on the list.

Why those names appear separately on the label: they are fragrance ingredients that often cause an allergy. A dermatologist tests them in the patch test. The Dutch Society for Dermatology and Venereology (NVDV) lists eugenol, isoeugenol, oakmoss, geraniol, hydroxycitronellal, amyl cinnamal, cinnamal and cinnamyl alcohol in fragrance mix I. In fragrance mix II: lyral, citral, citronellol, farnesol, coumarin and hexyl cinnamic aldehyde.

Four names from those mixes are in our lists. Geraniol, citronellol and citral in the day cream. Coumarin in the cleanser. If you react to one of those ingredients, those two are not for you. You can read each list in full on the product page and in formulas and ingredients.

What SPF 30 still means under hair.

The number on the box comes from a lab test on skin without hair. According to the protocol, a fixed layer is applied: 2 milligrams per square centimetre. That is stated in an assessment by the Dutch RIVM.

In practice, hardly anyone applies it that thickly. The median is a quarter of that. The RIVM works it through: "the actual protection factors of sunscreen products labelled SPF50, SPF30 and SPF20 are not 50, 30 and 20 but only 7, 4 and 2".

That applies to everyone, with or without a beard. How much lands on your skin under beard hair, we have not measured. So what we think about it is an assumption, not a figure: between hairs, an even layer is harder to achieve. That is our estimate; we have not measured it.

What you do with this in practice. Apply generously to the areas without hair or with short hair. Your nose, your forehead, your cheekbones, the strip above your beard line, your ears and your neck. The page for the Day Cream SPF 30 puts it like this: apply it generously before you go outside, and do not stay in the sun too long, not even with SPF.

One more thing that matters with a beard. The sun filters in this cream are three organic filters. In the list they are called Diethylamino Hydroxybenzoyl Hexyl Benzoate, Ethylhexyl Triazone and Bis-Ethylhexyloxyphenol Methoxyphenyl Triazine. Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are not in it. Those are exactly the two that can leave a white cast in hair.

What is in the night cream.

The list for the Night Cream contains none of those separate fragrance names. What it does contain: five ceramides listed by name. Ceramide NP, AP, AS, NG and EOP. Alongside them cholesterol, shea butter, olive oil and grape seed oil. The list has 54 ingredients.

That is what is on the label. What those ingredients do under a beard, we have not tested. So we do not promise it. If you react to one of those fragrance names, this is the cream to look at for the evening.

Flakes in your beard: dry, or something else.

White flakes between your hairs do not have to be dry skin. Thuisarts (the Dutch GPs' patient information site) describes eczema with yellow or brown, greasy flakes. It can itch. It is often found between the hairs, in the eyebrows, between the eyelashes, beside the nose and in and behind the ears. The medical name is seborrhoeic eczema. It is caused by a lot of yeast cells on the skin.

The difference is in the flake. Dry skin gives small dry flakes and a tight feeling. Greasy, yellowish flakes with itching belong to the eczema above. If you also see flakes in your eyebrows or on your scalp, that is a sign.

Thuisarts then gives this advice: "Wash your hair and skin with a shampoo and soap without perfume in them. For example a baby shampoo." Further: do not wear a hat or cap, and reduce stress. If it bothers you a lot, the GP can give ketoconazole cream. Once a day on the affected areas of the face, for 2 to 4 weeks.

So our cleanser does not fit with that, because it contains fragrance ingredients. A cream from a webshop is not a treatment for this eczema either. That belongs with the GP.

If your skin is only red shortly after shaving, it is something else. That is covered in why your skin is red after shaving.

What this routine does not include for a beard.

Many advice pages about beard skin mention an exfoliant with salicylic acid. Once a week, against flakes and bumps along the beard line. We do not have that step. Checked on 4 November 2026 in all three of our lists: no salicylic acid, no glycolic acid, no mandelic acid, no azelaic acid and no retinoid. Lactic Acid is in the Daily Face Wash and the Night Cream. No amount is given, so that says nothing about strength.

If you want that weekly step, buy it elsewhere. We also do not stock beard oil, beard balm or beard shampoo. Three products and two moments a day. Why that is, is on why three steps are enough.

What we do not know.

We have not tested these three products on men with a beard. We have not measured how much product lands on the skin under hair. So we do not know whether they suit irritated beard skin. And so we do not promise it.

What we do: show the full list for each product. If you react to an ingredient in it, you know that before you order.

When should you see your GP?

See your GP if the flakes bother you a lot. Or if your skin is very red with a lot of itching. Or if anti-dandruff shampoo does not help. The same applies to bumps along your beard line that hurt or keep coming back. If you want to know whether you react to a fragrance ingredient, a doctor can refer you for a patch test. Trying it out yourself on your face is not the way.

Sources