Laurel & Incense Beard Oil

If the skin under your beard turns tight and itchy by the middle of the day, that’s the problem this oil was built around. Laurel and incense keep it cool and dry rather than the sweet barbershop wood most beard oils land on, and under that scent are eight plant oils that keep the skin from drying out in the first place.

Why your skin itches under a beard

Beard hair pulls your skin’s own oil up along its length, so the skin at the roots ends up drier than the skin on your cheeks. The longer and coarser the hair gets, the more it takes. Three or four drops a day put that oil back where the hair took it from, which is why you work it into the roots first and let the length get what’s left. That’s the difference between a beard you notice all day and one you forget you’re wearing.

Where you’d actually wear it

Grapefruit and pink pepper come first and fade quickly. Incense runs through the top and the base both, so it smells like one thing at nine in the morning and the same thing at four in the afternoon, only quieter.

• Top: laurel, incense, grapefruit, pink pepper
• Middle: iris, jasmine, nutmeg, geranium, cardamom
• Base: vetiver, leather, incense, patchouli, sandalwood

Once the opening steps back, someone has to be close to smell it, so it holds up in an office or across a desk from a client. This one is the cool, dry end of the full beard oil line.

Will it fight your cologne?

Dry incense and leather is the same territory a lot of men’s fragrance already sits in, so this layers underneath instead of arguing with it. If what you wear is citrus or aquatic, keep the oil to three drops and let the fragrance lead. If you wear nothing else, laurel and incense are enough on their own.

If you want the scent on more than your beard

You don’t have to stop at the beard. Laurel & Incense is one of only two scents that go past the oil. Laurel & Incense Face, Beard & Hair Wash cleans the beard without stripping the skin you just conditioned, and Laurel & Incense Beard & Face Moisturizer covers the face around it. Use all three and you smell like one thing, not three.

How to use

Work three or four drops through a freshly washed beard, starting at the roots, then comb into shape.

A 30 ml bottle holds roughly 600 drops. At three or four a day that’s about five months; at six, closer to three. Your beard size decides where you land.