As the days get colder and the air gets drier, a few of my bearded male friends have approached me about something for their increasingly scratchy, dry beards. Challenge accepted, gents.
This lovely oil was gifted to my friend Tekoa. He’s got a magnificent beard that’s perhaps a bit reminiscent of Darwin’s, though without the Santa Claus colouring. Tekoa is a photographer, and we’ve worked together on a couple Edwardian photoshoots, one of which was done using antique tin type photography. You can check out his work on his Instagram, and some of his tinny (and otherwise) portraits of me are on my Instagram.
The beard oil I made for Tekoa is a beautiful blend of rich oils accented with a subtle and intoxicating blend of essential oils. Meadowfoam oil is a wonderfully rich, anti-oxidant loaded oil that is brilliant for coarse hair (like beards!). Castor oil adds a bit of shine, and jojoba and sweet almond soften, hydrate, and protect. Despite all the rich oils in here, it’s still quite light and absorbs into the skin quickly.
Coffee is the star scent of this blend, though it’s far from overwhelming. It’s softened by vanilla-like peru balsam and sweetened with a bit of softly floral palmarosa essential oil. The tiniest amount of cade essential oil brings up the rear with a finishing note of deep smokiness. All in all, it’s a pretty wonderful scent blend—brilliant for coffee lovers in particular.
Here’s what Tekoa had to say:
“I really like the scent—it reminds me of a library full of old books which is one of my favourite smells, I remember talking about that with you. It is subtle and as it warms, gentle reminders pass by my nose. I never find it overbearing or headache inducing. It does make my beard softer and not as tangled. I have noticed a definite reduction in itchiness. I like it; I’ll probably hit you up for more down the road.”
Midnight Coffee Beard Oil
3g | 0.1oz meadowfoam seed oil
6g | 0.21oz sweet almond oil (USA / Canada)
5g | 0.17oz jojoba oil (USA / Canada)
6g | 0.21oz castor oil (USA / Canada)
4 drops Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
12 drops coffee essential oil
20 drops peru balsam essential oil (or 3 blobs benzoin)
4 drops palmarosa essential oil
The teensiest amount of cade essential oil, vetiver essential oil, or birch tar essential oil (see below for a photo/description)Makes 30mL/1 fl oz beard oil
Weigh out the oils into a 30mL/1oz glass bottle that has a dropper top. Seal and shake to combine, and then add the essential oils, seal, and shake again. Voila! Wasn’t that delightfully easy?
To use, place a few drops in your palm, rub your hands together, and run them through your magnificent beard, you bearded fella, you 😉
On measuring teensy amounts of cade: I took the eyedropper lid and touched it to the inside of the orifice reducer that came with the bottle of cade. See the photo below for how much I came away with—that’s what you’re going for. A full drop of cade will be overwhelming—FAR too much. Err on the side of too little, you can always add more. Also, if you don’t have cade essential oil, vetiver and birch tar are good alternatives.
Woohoo! Perfect timing, Marie. I needed something for ny husband’s birthday tomorrow. He has a beard and it itches in cold weather. And I have all the ingredients. Perfect timing!
Suhweet! I hope he loves it 🙂
Is the Peru balsam supposed to be really sticky? I added it and it’s not blending well with everything else.
No, not at all—mine is thin, and easily blends with everything else. Do you have a link to what you purchased?
HI there,
This isn’t relevant to this post, but I thought I would comment here, bc its a newer post ;).
I am REALLY pumped about starting to make my own makeup and whipped lotion however I am not sure WHERE to get Gluconodeltalactone and Sodium Benzoate. Also, where is the cheapest place to buy ingredients, (i live in the US).
thanks so much,
Kathryn
Hi Kathryn! There’s no such thing as an “old post” here as all my comments come into a queue that’s sorted by date left, not the post they’re on. Did you check out my “Where to Buy Ingredients” page? It’s got a gigantic list of places to purchase ingredients all over the world. It’s linked in the menu and in the great big box above the comments 🙂
Thanks for the reply Marie!
I actually did check the list and am using it! The only wee problem is that there are so many units to convert and different places to get oxides and micas. Its a bit overwhelming…..
btw: Have you bought any products from Making Cosmetics. com? I am considering buying from them.
Thanks so much for your time,
Kathryn
I referred you to the list because I’m in Canada and generally do not shop from American suppliers. The only American supplier I’ve ever shopped with is TKB Trading, and I’ve been super happy with the stuff I got from them… but shipping was $63 for a box roughly the size of a shoe box o_O. It would have been free if I was in the US so… yeah. I don’t do that often! I usually shop from New Directions and Saffire Blue. There is an American New Directions as well, and they have great prices on everything, but are definitely catering more and more to larger companies and larger orders these days :/ I’ve noticed a lot of their packaging is now only available as 1 or 100 (or more), and most oils are 473mL/16 fl oz and up. They also have a $100 minimum order policy now, which isn’t hard to reach, but still irksome if you just need a few things!
All the places on that list were recommended to me by readers, though, so I feel good about recommending them as per my reader’s recommendations 🙂
Ok thanks! (sorry about my overload of questions!)
Where do you generally get your oxides and micas?
And I have seen a few oxides listed as “oxides” but are they “iron oxides”?
I really appreciate your time!
Kathryn
I usually shop from New Directions and Saffire Blue, and that includes micas and oxides. Saffire Blue has better selection, and NDA can have better pricing.
There are a couple different kinds of oxides—not all of them are iron. Green, for instance, is a chromium oxide, and then there’s zinc oxide and titanium dioxide as well, so I generally just broaden things out to “oxide”. It isn’t important that it be an iron oxide, what will really matter to you is the colour 🙂
I made this the first day you posted it. My husband who doesn’t like scents loved it He didn’t know anything about beard oil, now he’s been using it every day.
He loves the way it makes his beard feel nice & soft..
He wants one unscented now for work lol
Thank You <3
Angelina's Natural Skin Kiss
You’re a DIYing machine, Angelina! I’m so glad your husband is loving it! 😀
Is there anyway you could sell me a bottle of this to try before I take the plunge of buying all of the ingredients?
Sorry, I’m not set up to sell stuff, and insurance for selling body products in Canada is incredibly expensive. I’m not hugely keen on taking out a $3000 insurance policy and registering my formula with Health Canada to sell you a single bottle of beard oil :/ There are loads of places selling beard oil online, though—have you checked Etsy?
Hello
Where can I get the coffee oil at thx
KURT LOEHNER
Check out my big list of places to shop around the world—it’s also linked in the main navigation 🙂
Why do you use Cade oil? It smells exactly like BBQ sauce aha
In super tiny amounts it contributes a lovely mild smokey note; do be sparing, though!
Haha
I had never heard of cade oil and was wondering what it smelled like. You painted a pretty picture for me.
Thanks
Also, these amounts don’t equal to the full 1oz… Can you give me a recipe so that I can use these but have them equal the full bottle?
Hey Anthony! They, do, actually 🙂 The recipe is provided in weight, and when all is said and done, those weights of oils add up to 1 fluid ounce. I’ve never understood the idea of having two totally disparate measurements with the same name, but then again, I’m a metric person 😛
Haha oh then I must have did it wrong! It gave me like a little more than half a bottle 🙂 I’ll try again
It sounds like you did it by volume instead of by weight (quite the feat with such awkward measurements!). I really recommend getting a scale—they’re quite inexpensive and yield WAY better, far more consistent results than trying to DIY by volume 🙂
Okay ! Thank you ! Can I follow you on any social media?
Of course! I’m on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube 🙂 YouTube is a bit new, I’ve just started publishing videos! My newest one is a walk-through on making lotion 🙂
Thanks for reading and DIYing with me!
I finished making the recipe. Are you really supposed to put 20 drops of the balsam?!? Not 2? Because I made it and you can’t smell any of the coffee just the balsam. I just wanted to make sure I got the recipe right because the comments say everyone loves it, but this definitely isn’t even close to coffee smelling oil.
From your previous comment I’m thinking you might not have the right thing—does your peru balsam smell like vanilla? Do you have a link to the product page?
It’s really too bad the regulations up there are so tight (nevermind the absurd “international” shipping costs), as I’m sure I’d be one of a number of people who would buy this one from you. Have you tried testing making it into a balm or wax? Being allergic to coconut makes finding a quality product that I can tolerate (or love) the smell of into quite a challenge. At $75-80 to get starting materials for even the oil, the idea of experimenting is nearly out of the question. Do you think it would be as simple as omitting the sweet almond, jojoba, and castor, adding the others to the beeswax (or carnauba), and slowly adding them in until I achieve desired consistency? To that end, I don’t even know how much wax to start with. I’ve seen simple DIY waxes done 1:1::coconut:wax, but for previously stated reasons, haven’t tested them.
I haven’t tried turning this particular one into a balm, but I do have a couple beard balm recipes as well 🙂 I’ve also done some experiments with waxes and liquid oils that you will probably find very useful!
Probably sounds like arguing semantics, but it’s more of a mustache wax that I’m going for. The temperature of breath under the nose renders balms useless for hold. Regardless, I will absolutely be checking out those links, when I come back up for air (studying).
That’s totally understandable! You might want to look at a blend of beeswax and one of the C-waxes for a higher melting point combined with the creamy/tack of beeswax 🙂 Happy experimenting! Check out TKB Trading in the USA for small amounts of things (they also offer free shipping within the USA at a certain spend amount… sadly not to Canada, I just paid $63 to get a shoebox sized order to me!).
Do you check to see the skin irritant level first before using a certain type of essential oil? Palmarosa essential oil is pretty high dermal irritant, even when diluted. I definitely would NOT recommend this for anything touching the skin
I did; I checked Tisserand’s Essential Oil Safety for Professionals, which is amazing. It states that palmarosa is a low risk of dermal sensitization, with a maximum dermal use of 6.5%, which is this recipe is well below. “Undiluted palmarosa oil was moderately irritating to rabbits, but was not irritating to mice; tested at 8% on 25 volunteers it was neither irritating nor sensitizing” (page 379 Essential Oil Safety: A Guide for Health Care Professionals, Second Ed.).
Can you explain the vitemin E.
I’m looking at severial locations and at
windy point they are using E mt-50.
TKB uses Tocopherols, Natural T-50
Vitamin E.
And bulk acopathy uses VITAMIN E (TOCOPHERYL ACETATE)
What are the differences are there any?
From my research mixed tocopherols are included for delaying rancidity, while Vitamin E Acetate is chosen for skin benefits. You want T50 or MT-50 tocopherols. I must say I’m not terribly impressed with the product description on Bulk Apothecary—there’s no recommended usage rate or INCI, and the description appears to be mostly written for SEO rather than to actually inform customers of anything useful.
I’ve just ordered all of the stuff I need to make this. If I change the carrier oils up a bit will it change the scent at all? I was gonna use hemp seeds oil, castor, meadowfoam, and maybe some grapeseed oil.
The hemp seed oil may add a grassy note—take a whiff and see what you think (some are stronger in the scent department than others). Happy making!
Hello Marie,
Thank you for another awesome recipe. I am super excited to make it for my husband. He looooves coffee. Would be an awesome anniversary present. But I can’t find meadowfoam, can I substitute meadowfoam oil with another one? If so, could you tell me, please, which one is better?
And, I have coffee extract(Co2) can I put this instead of coffe E.O? 1 or 2 drops would be enough?
Thank you!
You can use more jojoba oil in place of the meadowfoam seed oil 🙂 And use your coffee extract to “scent”—I suspect 1 or 2 drops will be plenty in a recipe this small!
Hello Marie!
I´d love to prepare this for my dad, however I cannot find: peru balsam essential oil, palmarosa essential oil nor cade essential oil, vetiver essential oil, or birch tar essential oil. Could I use a blend of eucalyptus and oak essential oils?
Give this FAQ a read 🙂
Hi I was thinking of using dimethicone and Cyclomethicone at 2% each in the recipe. I was thinking of replacing 2% each castor oil and meadowfoam oil. Does that make sense to you? Do you think it will make it a lighter oil, but still moisturizing enough? Thank you
2% cyclomethicone won’t make it much lighter, but try it and see what you think!