Collection: Beard Balm

Beard balm made in Australia for shape, softness and light hold — beeswax and shea butter for control, macadamia and sweet almond oils for conditioning underneath. Handmade to order in Moss Vale, NSW. Choose your scent, strength and size, or go unscented. From $39.95, free shipping over $99.

What beard balm does

Balm is the styling and conditioning step in one. The waxes give you enough hold to tame flyaways, train the hair down and keep a beard looking deliberate rather than accidental. The butters and oils underneath do the same conditioning work an oil does, just held against the hair for longer.

What it isn't is a wax. There's no crunch, no stiffness, and nothing that flakes out by lunchtime. You should be able to run your hand through your beard at 4pm and have it fall back where you left it.

Balm or oil — or both?

Straightforward version: oil conditions, balm styles.

If your beard is short and behaving, beard oil on its own is enough. Once it's long enough to have opinions — flyaways, a bit going sideways, an unruly patch — that's when balm earns its place. Most people past about three months run both: oil onto damp skin first, balm over the top once it's absorbed.

The full comparison is here: beard oil vs beard balm.

Choose your scent

The same blends we use across the beard range, so your oil and balm can be matched rather than fighting each other.

• Sandalwood · Black Pepper · Lime — warm, slightly sharp, and the one most people land on.
• Silver Birch · Bergamot · Forest Cassis — greener and brighter. The lighter choice.
• Cedar wood · Amber · Orange Peel — dry cedar over amber, with citrus on top.
• Tobacco Leaf · Guaiac Wood · Spiced Plum — smoky and spiced with a dark plum sweetness. The richest one.
• Wild Fig · Sea Salt · Vetiver — coastal and salty, best in warm weather.
• Unscented — same formula, no fragrance. For sensitive skin or under a cologne.

Regular, Double or Triple strength

Same balm underneath, your pick of fragrance level. Regular is quiet enough to wear under a perfume. Double is where most people land. Triple is for a full beard, which absorbs far more scent than a short one and can flatten a regular-strength balm by mid-morning.

Which size?

The small tin is roughly three months on a medium beard using it daily. The larger one is better value per gram and makes sense once you know the scent is right. Because we make to order, the bigger tin is no older than the small one.

What's in it

Beeswax for hold, shea butter for slip and conditioning, Australian macadamia and sweet almond oils to soften coarse hair. That's the working part of the formula. No petrolatum, no silicone to fake a smooth finish, no fillers.

Made in small batches in the Southern Highlands and filled by hand. If a tin isn't right, tell us.

How to use it

Scrape a thumbnail's worth from the tin — less than you think — and warm it between your palms until it turns to oil. Work it back through the beard from the skin outward, then shape with a wooden comb. Once in the morning is enough for most beards.

Apply it to a dry or barely-damp beard. Soaking wet and the balm won't grip; bone dry and it drags.

The rest of the routine

Wash with a beard wash block rather than shampoo, condition with beard oil, shape with balm. If you'd rather buy it as one thing, the beard grooming kits put a scent-matched oil and balm together with a comb and caddy from $99.