8 Of The Best Beard Dyes To Keep Things Fresh in 2022

If you’re a man with a beard, coloring your hair is only half the battle in the chase for eternal youth. If you want to postpone or completely avoid the silver fox phase, you can always turn to beard dye to help shave a few extra years off your face.

There are a lot of steps that go into styling your beard for a more confident-looking, masculine image, and a lot of the time, going a few shades darker or lighter can make all the difference.  

While some might opt to shave everything off at the first sight of gray, it doesn’t take much cash or effort to keep your scruff in tip-top shape for that upcoming party or office meeting.

However, which beard dyes should you turn to? Which are the best for you? For your convenience, we’ve outlined some of the finest brands of beard dye for men you can get your hands on.

Staving away those pesky gray hairs requires a bit of follow-through, but if you want beard dye that doesn’t cut into your morning routine, this is the perfect product for you. Be sure to apply some of this wonder brew on your beard every time you hop in the shower, and you’re guaranteed to see results within a matter of days.

While it doesn’t completely get rid of the silver in your facial hair, the real selling point here is the ease of application. If you want to get an extra bit of camouflage, you can always opt for one of the lighter shades for that extra concealment, especially if you have a thinner, yet fast-growing, beard or mustache.

Active Ingredients: Biotin, Coconut Oil, Aloe | Type: Permanent | Colors: 3 | Cruelty-Free: Yes

Keeping your beard stylish doesn’t have to involve slathering questionable ingredients all over your face – and this particular brand of beard dye is as organic as it gets.

A lot of men are extremely sensitive to most beard grooming products, but the lack of chemicals in this one means you’re extremely unlikely to not know what you’re putting on your face.

This dye gives your beard a nice gradient that keeps things looking natural yet offers a long-term solution to any and all unwanted gray hairs. There are definitely cheaper options on the market, but you won’t have to worry about a visit to the beach or swimming pool washing anything off with Grizzly Mountain.

Active Ingredients:  Emblic, False Daisy, Neem Tree, Henna, Indigo | Type: Permanent | Colors: 1 | Cruelty-Free: Yes

On top of hiding unwanted gray hairs, the best beard dye for men should leave your facial hair intact once it wears out. Made of purely organic materials, this is the product to look out for if you want to look good and keep your skin smooth. You can also use this dye on your hair, so think about buying a three-pack to get the true bang for your buck.

Besides being a vegan, eco-conscious product, one of the best things about this dye is that it leaves your hair feeling silky smooth to the touch. Also, if matching your beard and hair color is tricky for you, you have over a dozen different colors to experiment with for a daring new look.

Active Ingredients: Henna, Indigo, Amla, False Daisy | Type: Semi-Permanent | Colors: 13 | Cruelty-Free: Yes

Dealing with mixes can be tedious if you don’t have much experience with beard dye, but this product is good to go right out of the box. 

As simple as a quick click and shake, you then use the brush to “comb” your beard to perfection. Best of all, it takes all five to ten minutes to set everything up, making this one of the quickest options you can find by a wide margin. 

You won’t be seeing signs of the color wearing off until well into month two (qualifying this as permanent beard dye), and even then, you’ll have plenty of foam left over to reapply and keep your grays at bay. 

Active Ingredients: Ammonia, Henna, Hydrogen Peroxide, P-Phenylenediamine | Type: Permanent | Colors: 7 | Cruelty-Free: Yes

If your facial hair is only starting to show signs of graying, you may want to consider this “minimalist” beard dye for touch-ups. The color capsules in the kit are just large enough to cover smaller patches of gray, and with a set of 20, you should have more than enough to hold you over for a good amount of time.

The kit also comes with two applicator brushes, and you can pick the best one to suit your beard length and thickness. On top of that, this is a beginner-friendly product thanks to the creaminess of the dye, which makes the application process even more straightforward than it normally would be.

Active Ingredients: Water, Cetyl Alcohol, Mineral Oil, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate | Type: Permanent | Colors: 5 | Cruelty-Free: Yes

Anyone looking for beard dye to get them through a big event before coming off the next day should look no further than Blackbeard’s products. This “save-the-date” dye takes all of two minutes to apply, and you don’t have to worry about the ingredients damaging your skin either.

Although the color comes off relatively quickly, this could be seen as a blessing in disguise as you won’t have to shower in scalding water to take it off. This dye also doesn’t suffer from the lingering smell of chemicals that plagues many of its competitors, and between the decently sized package and the inclusion of an applicator brush, you have yourself a product that could last you several months.

Active Ingredients: Isododecane, ethylene, propylene copolymer, trimethyl siloxy silicate | Type: Temporary | Colors: 5 | Cruelty-Free: Yes

Although it’s primarily a type of shampoo dye intended for hair, this Softsheen-Carson product also makes for great beard dye thanks to the aloe vera formula, which can keep your mane’s color consistent for up to 6 weeks. 

Since this is effectively a form of shampoo, it also accomplishes a secondary function, especially for men with thicker beards, keeping it fluffy and incredibly pleasing to the touch. The cherry on top is that this is one of the cheapest products of its kind on the market, selling for just above the price of an average bottle of hair conditioner, so you won’t have to break your bank for a quality beard dye.

Active Ingredients:  P-Phenylenediamine | Type: Permanent | Colors: 2 | Cruelty-Free: Yes

This beard dye for men is effectively a kind of male makeup. While it does a great job at concealing gray hairs, all it takes is a few thorough washes to remove the color, making it a solid quick-fix option if you’re a young guy looking to briefly conceal some silver patches. Still, if you can avoid getting it wet, the dye can actually hold for upwards of a week.

The formula of this product is interesting in that it doesn’t irritate your skin, allowing for mistakes if you don’t quite know what you’re doing. Still, since the kit comes with a nifty applicator, you generally shouldn’t have much trouble getting the mix and application right after a couple of tries.

Active Ingredients: Cetearyl Alcohol, Glycerin, Aminopropyl Dimethicone, Cyclopentasiloxane, Dimethicone | Type: Semi-permanent | Colors: 5 | Cruelty-Free: Yes

What to look for in a beard dye

Even though setting everything up is relatively straightforward, there are some things to keep in mind before applying beard dye. Here are some of the main considerations before making the jump:

Ingredients

Although it varies from person to person, the two main ingredients that tend to cause trouble with beard dye are ammonia and PPD. While the former is relatively rare in modern-day dye brands, PPD can often cause skin irritation that takes a while to clear up. 

It can be hard to find beard dye that’s genuinely 100% natural, but there are a number of options that come extremely close. To minimize the risk of anything going wrong, it’s always good to bet on brands that offer an organic base through ingredients like henna and indigo.

Color

Beard dye for men can come in a variety of colors, and the exact one you should go for largely depends on the color of your hair. You’ll generally want to opt for dye that matches your hair color as closely as possible, but if there are no identical options, you can usually afford to go a shade lighter and just apply more until you get a darker tint.

One of the biggest don’ts in dying your beard is making way darker than your hair.  If you go overboard, it’s pretty easy for people to tell that you’re using dye (which largely defeats the purpose), and can look extremely unnatural if you achieve a consistent shade from top to bottom.

Is it permanent?

The “permanent” label on some of the best beard dyes for men is more of a marketing strategy than anything; what permanent really means is you won’t have to worry about losing color for about a month. Still, messing up isn’t the scariest thing in the world, since most beard dyes can come off if you shower and wash your face more frequently. 

If you’ve never dyed your beard before and want to make sure you get it right, it might be a safe bet to get yourself some 24-hour dye and play around with it over a weekend when you have nowhere to go.

Ease of application

For the most part, applying beard dye is one of the simplest home-grooming habits you can practice. Generally speaking, the “hardest” part of dying your beard is