How to Get the Perfect 10-Day Stubble

Author:

A beard-grooming enthusiast who writes about beard products, styling and other related facial hair trivia who also sports a beardstache.

How to Get the 10-Day Stubble Length

If you have done any research into facial hair attractiveness, you might have found that numerous studies show that a bit of stubble is the most attractive. Stubble is more attractive than being completely clean-shaven or having a full-on beard.

So you have an upcoming date, you might just want to skip the razor (or in the case of a long grizzly beard) give it trim down. Now that you know, you want to get a stubble though — how can you make the most of it? That’s exactly what we want to discuss right here.

Feed Your Stubble With Beard Oil
Use a Stubble Softener
Tidy Up the Stubble Beard Lines
Fade Your Stubble Beard
Make Use of Stubble Dye

Note: A 10-day stubble in terms of length and the mm you are looking at between 4mm to 5mm. So you will get somewhat of a light to heavy stubble.

1. Feed Your Beard and Use Beard Oil

Now you might be thinking that beard oil is literally just for those with a good solid beard, when in fact it can be very much used to help bring out the most in your beard stubble too. See, beard oil is basically a specialised concoction of carrier oils as well as essential oils. With regular use allows your stubble to be soft as well as smell freaking great.

If you take a look at the ingredients, you will see the likes of Argan Oil, Coconut Oil and a range of other carrier oils that all contain great hair properties that include strengthening, softening and basically bolstering the hairs. This will not only work great for the stubble that you are now sporting, however, but it will also work very well for the very foundations of your beard, your skin.

See, the main job of a beard oil is to not just keep the hairs themselves healthy but also help aid the oils that naturally reside on your face (namely sebum). It keeps the hairs moist. What tends to happen is that as you grow out your beard, they naturally soak up the oils that reside on your face that can leave it feeling dry and itchy (this combined with the fact that your hairs are shorter and stubbly) this is what causes the ‘itchy beard syndrome’ which causes a guy to shave it off (and repeat the whole process again).

So by applying beard oil, you are adding surplus oils to your face that can help keep your skin moist as well as the beard hairs, leaving you with a fresher looking skin, a non-itchy beard and not to mention due to the essential oils — you will smell fantastic as well.

In truth, if there is any tip that you want to be using from this guide to achieving the best possible looking stubble you can, it would be investing in a top-quality beard oil. If you are looking for a particular brand to do that with, I highly recommend the Beardbrand beard oil range, all fantastic beard oils that will really help to bring out the best in your beard as well as smelling absolutely great.

2. Use a Stubble Softener

Now as mentioned, using beard oil will definitely help to soften up the stubble beard somewhat. However, if you are particularly conscious of a rough stubbly patch — you can take further precautions to help soften up your stubble further.

For instance, you can use a product called Soft Goat, which is basically a pad that you can use across your stubble to smooth out the hairs. How this works is basically like the following.

When you shave or trim your beard, you are basically creating sharp jagged edges. That’s what you can feel as you brush your hand across your stubble and it feels rough — almost like a sandpaper type feel.

What Soft Goat essentially does after applying it a few times, will start to get those sharp-edged hairs and smooth them over. Creating a much smoother surface, and less jagged edges. This will then allow your stubble to not only be smoother but it will have a cleaner looking appearance too. Once using it though, I definitely recommend that you then top up your stubble with a few dabs of beard oil as it will also remove some of the much-needed moisture that keeps your facial hair in good condition.

3. Tidy Up the Stubble Lines

Now, to get the perfect stubble you need to make sure that it doesn’t go out of bounds. The styling doesn’t stop for the stubble just because you have trimmed it down to your desired length.

You need to account for the lines that you are making. There are two sets that you need to pay particular attention to. The pairs of cheek lines as well as the necklines. You don’t want to be going too low or too high.

4. Fade Your Beard Out

Now if you are looking to earn some extra style points — you can try some beard fading. This is basically where you can fade your beard into your hair or just fade it across your neckline.

You will need a sophisticated beard trimmer (or general clipper) to do this. However, if we start with your neckline. As you are sporting a 10 day stubble at roughly 5mm. What you can do, is set your beard trimmer down to around 3mm and then shave slightly inwards from your beard line all the way parallel to your beard line with about one finger in.

This gives the look of a faded inwards beard as it naturally draws the eye in to a faded out look.

A similar method can be carried out with your sideburns in the way it connects into a disconnected undercut style hair cut. Where the beard length joins up with the same length hair cut — with incremental fades that take place. See the video below for further explanation. However, this is quite an advanced undertaking for a first go — so I recommend either heading to your local barbers to get it done or at least trying it out a few times at home before you head out on a date.

5. Make Use of Stubble Dye?

If you are worried about sporting the odd grey hair or simply that your stubble is spouting a lot of different colours. Firstly, I think this is not a big concern and it can really add a lot of character to facial hair. That said, some guys can be conscious of this fact and hence I recommend that you reach for a dye.

You can natural dyes such as the Henna Dye to match up with your beard as well as other options. Ensure you follow the right instructions to get the results that you want. Then carry on with the above steps to make the most out of the 10-day stubble length that you've got. I'd recommend trimming and shaping up the beard first and then applying the dye. If you want, you could even get a professional to carry this out for you. However, there are plenty of great guides on there on how to do this such as the video below:

What If You Have Patchy Stubble?

If you have a patchy beard then that's absolutely fine. In fact, they add more character to stubble and you will see plenty of people rocking a mighty fine looking patchy beard. It doesn't need to be exactly uniform to look perfect. Much like, beard and stubble dye really aren't required - having a patchy beard adds authenticity to the stubble and it's only really the first three points that you might need to take care of.

Let us know how it goes with your quest to achieve the perfect stubble and if you have any questions or comments, then please let us know. If you want some studies to take a look at to prove stubble is the way to go, the see the following:

References

The Role of Facial Hair in Women's Perceptions of Men's Attractiveness, Health, Masculinity and Parenting Abilities (2013)

The Masculinity Paradox: Facial Masculinity and Beardedness Interact to Determine Women’s Ratings of Men’s Facial Attractiveness (2016)

The Effects of Facial Hair Manipulation on Female Perceptions of Attractiveness, Masculinity, and Dominance in Male Faces (2008)

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.