Proraso Beard Oil Review – Fresh Summer Morning
Proraso Beard Oil
Light and Airy, Proraso Beard Oil is great for guys who want to maintain a healthy beard but don’t want to feel like they have slathered oil all over their face. The aroma is gentle and fresh and sticks around for a short time to help you feel clean.
Pros
Eye-dropper allows you to easily gauge how much want to use
Natural Ingredients
Dermatology Tested
Cruelty-Free
Cons
Aroma is somewhat of an acquired scent
Aroma is unique and may clash with other beard or skin products
It doesn’t provide any styling hold
A small amount of oil for the price
And we are back again, bearded friends, for the second part of our three reviews on Proraso’s beard products.
In our last review, we looked at the Proraso Beard Wash, which was nice, if somewhat heavy-handed.
The beard wash did the job of cleaning our beard but left it without any of its natural oils to protect it from the elements and provide a healthy and lustrous shine.
That is why Proraso has concocted this light and airy beard oil to put that healthy shine back along with some natural ingredients to boost the long-term health of your beard.
However, how does this beard oil stack up in an already saturated market?
Let’s find out.
Description and Features
Like 99 percent of other beard oils on the market, we have the Proraso Beard Oil coming to us in a small amber bottle with an eyedropper.
I like the eyedropper design for the most part. It allows me to gauge how much I want to use every time I sit down to re-oil my beard every morning.
Though the bottle does seem somewhat small overall. It is like they are putting much less in the bottle than it could hold.
However, the cap had a pretty secure lock on it when I went to open it the first time. It’s the same kind of tamper-proof safety cap you would get from a bottle of soda or juice.
That would be the first time I have ever seen that in a beard or hair care product.
Scent
Seeing as how this is the same scent as the recent review I did over the Proraso Beard Wash (Cypress and Vetyver), a less professional writer and reviewer would just copy and paste the same scent from that other article and be done with it.
Right?
Well, lucky for me and you, dear reader, I am somewhat more professional than that. Not much more, but enough.
The first note that hits me when I apply this beard oil is a deep musky aroma that makes me think of fresh-cut grass. I feel like I am out back mowing a lawn but without the taint of gasoline fumes to make me high.
It’s followed by a nice and clean floral aroma that isn’t sweet but is very natural and uplifting.
If you go by others though, the general consensus is that the scent is definitely something you will either love or you will hate. Some have described it as smelling like an “old-man smell” or “dishwashing detergent.”
I don’t really get that myself, but each to their own I suppose
Overall, I find the aroma heavy at first but then fresh and clean.
Like the Proraso Beard Wash, the Beard Oil is also available in several other aromas:
- Refresh: Eucalyptus and Rosemary
- Azur Lime: Citrus and Mint
- Wood and Spice: Cedarwood and Saffron with a hint of Vanilla
Ingredients
Looking at the ingredient list for Proraso Beard Oil is great until you get to the million-dollar words at the very bottom.
It starts off with Avacado Oil, Walnut Extract, Sunflower Seed Oil, and Macadamia Nut Oil. All of these are great for use in hair or on the skin. They unclog the pores, hydrate your skin, boost hair shine, increase hair and skin elasticity, repair damage, provide vitamins, and exfoliate the skin.
Then you get to the big science words: Tocopheryl Acetate and Pentaerythrityl Tetra-di-t-butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate.
If you are anything like me, when you read that second word, your eyes glaze over, and you lose track of what syllable you are on.
However, I can tell you that both of those are not anything hazardous.
Tocopheryl Acetate is just a synthetic form of Vitamin E, which can improve hair and scalp health.
Pentaerythrityl Tetra-di-t-butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate itself is a synthetic anti-oxidant that helps to boost the other anti-oxidants like Avocado Oil and keep them stable for longer.
Overall, the ingredients are some of the best you can find on the market. They just look somewhat scary from the names themselves.
User Experience
For this review, I used this beard oil every day for about a week.
I put a few drops into my hands, rubbed my hands together to get the oil nice and warmed up, then I proceeded to work it into my whiskers slowly.
Each time I made sure to apply it evenly over a clean beard and face to make sure I didn’t trap any unwanted dirt or oil.
How is the Texture?
The Texture is lighter than most of the beard oils I have used. It warms quickly in the hands and goes onto the whiskers extremely quickly and easily.
Unless you have a very heavy beard, you will find just three drops all you need to get it down to the skin and let it slowly absorb.
This beard oil is a perfect companion to the Proraso Beard Wash as it replaces the moisture and shine that can be lost from overuse of just beard wash or soap and water.
How Easy is it to Use?
Overall, this is like other beard oils that use eyedropper designs. It is easy to gauge how much you want to use and not overdo it with the oil.
The only complaint I really have in that regard is that it isn’t as easy as the pump-top design. The pump can be operated one-handedly, while I need both hands to use the eyedropper.
Funnily enough, there is another user interface issue I have with this particular bottle of beard oil. The rubber they use on the top of the eye dropper is very hard. It is almost like stiff plastic rather than rubber.
This makes it somewhat more work-intensive to get the oil into the dropper, but it isn’t anything a grown human couldn’t handle.
It just kind of struck me as odd. I suppose it would be easier to resist wear and tear, and normal degradation.
It is an interesting design choice, to say the least. This means it would travel much better than some other beard oils.
It also seems I am not alone in my surprise at how stiff the rubber on the stopper is. Multiple other reviewers have mentioned the same issues, with some claiming that it even ruined the process of putting on the beard oil.
To me, that sounds more than somewhat hyperbolic, but this is the internet we are talking about here.
Value for Money
As of the time of writing, Proraso Beard Oil can be ordered from either the Proraso Website or from Amazon.com for 16 USD.
You can also get it in a box gift set that comes with the Beard Wash and Beard Balm for 45 USD on Amazon (see image below for the kit I bought).
Is that a good cost for only 1 oz or 20 ml of beard oil?
I suppose so. It is around the middle of the road, honestly. 15 USD is right where most beard oils sit, and just around there is where I would look to get some nice beard oil that is both good for my skin/beard and not going to break the bank.
You could find it less expensive, but the quality of ingredients would seriously start to suck.
You could find more expensive, but you are going to hit some diminishing returns on how much better your beard is going to look and the quality of ingredients.
Final Thoughts – Who is Proraso Beard Oil really for?
If you are looking for a high-quality beard oil for a moderate amount of money, then Proraso Beard Oil is going to be just right for you.
Honestly, you can do so much worse for your skin and your pocketbook.
I am a big fan of Proraso’s products overall, and they have an extremely solid track record of high-quality ingredients and high-quality products.
This beard oil makes a perfect companion product to Proraso Beard Wash.
The only reservation I could make about Proraso Beard Oil is if you find you have extremely sensitive skin, or you have an allergy to any of the above ingredients, you might want to pass.
