Beard balms run a pretty wide gamut, there are very light, thin balms that provide just enough hold for those lucky enough to have low maintenance beards...there are firm, waxy balms for unruly, beards that require a ton of maintenance (like mine)...there are greasy, heavy balms for, well, I'm not sure what those are for, but they exist...now, this balm is a different beast all together. Acording to the Beardbrand website, their styling balm is a versatile product meant to be used both in your beard and head-hair...as a bald-headed sunuvabitch, I cant speak to how effective it is on head hair...but lets examine how well it works as a bear balm, shall we???
Scent... Old Money is part of Beardbrand's gold line. These products use very high end, exotic ingredients to achieve unique scents. Acording to beardbrand, Old Money is a blend of aged oak, black pepper, and amber. I get mostly oak and amber, but through both of these, there is a strange component that I cant quite put my finger on...it reminds me of walking into a healthfood store or something....an implacable melange of spices and grains, with a pronounced vegetal component. I wouldnt call the final product 100% faithful to the description of the scent, but it's still an overall pleasant experience. From a strength standpoint, the scent is strong enough to be noticable, but nowhere close to overpowering (in fact it could stand to be just a bit stronger). It also doesnt seem to last a terribly long time, an hour or so, and it becomes almost completely undetectable. How does it work? The thing you notice first when using this product, is that it has a very unique texture. almost more like a "pomade, meets styling clay, meets beard butter" sort of thing. It doesn't immediately become transparent as you warm it between your hands, in fact it seems to leave a white residue on your beard until you comb it in. This doesnt bother me in the least, but I can understand where this would be an inconvenience if you were in a hurry, and just want something that you can work in with your hands and be done with it. As far as hold, this stuff is awesome, it offers medium control, that is still flexible enough to comb through hours after application. Your beard will maintain a soft, healthy texture, while feeling in no way greasy (dontcha hate struggling with smearing a shitty balm around your cell phone screen with the hem of your tee shirt, when trying to clean it off after taking a call?). The bottom line. While this is an awesome product, and unique from many other balms on the market, the price does make it somewhat out of range for some people (Beardbrand charges a premium for all of their gold line products). Still, the question of it being "worth it" is something that you have to decide for yourself. I personally think this is a great product to have in your beard care arsenal, but when you can buy multiple tins of many other high quality balms on the market for the price of one of these, it's understandable where others might take a pass on it. Overall Score: 92 Ingredients: Water, Lanolin Wax, PVP, Cetearyl Alcohol, Ceteareth-25, PEG-8 Beeswax, Tribehenin, Fragrance, Dipentaerythrityl Hexacaprylate/Hexacaprate, Tridecyl Trimellitate, Glycereth-26, PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, Tridecyl Stearate, Neopentyl Glycol Dicaprylate/Dicaprate, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Polyquaternium-72, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Hexylene Glycol, Tetrasodium EDTA, and Sodium Hydroxide $37 at beardbrand.com
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