We’ve all done it. You have to quickly trim your beard or mustache before an important meeting or date and don’t have time to clean up the mess. So, you just push your beard trimmings into the sink and wash them down the drain.
This may seem an easy solution. But the question is does allowing your beard trimmings to go down the drain hurt your sink and pipes. In this blog, we’ll take a look at that question.
Is it OK to Wash Beard Hair Down the Sink
No, it’s never okay to wash beard hair down the sink. Beard hairs and beard trimmings will ultimately clog your drain and pipes. These clogs require expensive or difficult process to unclog. Frequent clogs can also require regular use of liquid drain cleaners, which are bad for pipes.
Here are the primary reasons you should not wash beard hairs down the sink.
Drainage Issues
The primary concern with washing beard hair down the sink is the potential for drainage issues. Over time, as more and more beard hairs accumulate in the pipes, they can cause blockages. This results in slow sinks or even complete clogs. Such blockages can be frustrating to deal with and may require the assistance of a plumber.
Forbes Magazine puts the average cost to professionally unclog a drain at $230 dollars. Those prices range, according to the magazine, from $100 up to $360 for the most complicated clogs.
Liquid Drain Cleaners Are Bad for Pipes
The other concern over washing your beard hairs down the drain is frequent clogs require repeated use of brand-name drain cleaners. These drain cleaners are meant primarily for one-off use and not to be used on regular basis. According to many plumbing experts, the chemicals in drain cleaners can over time damage pipes. Repairing damage to your home’s pipes themselves can be extraordinarily expensive.
Environmental Impacts
Washing beard hair down the sink may seem harmless from an environmental perspective. After all, beard hair is biodegradable. While it’s true that hair will eventually break down, the process can take a significant amount of time. Additionally, the accumulation of a population’s worth of hair in sewage systems can contribute to clogs in municipal pipelines. In older municipal water systems, these clogs can lead to overflows and the release of untreated wastewater into natural water bodies, causing pollution and harm to aquatic ecosystems.
So, allowing your beard hairs to go down the sink is not only expensive and a hassle to unclog, it’s also bad for the environment.
Inexpensive And Eco-Friendly Ways to Prevent Beard Hairs from Going Down the Sink
Fortunately, there are several eco-friendly alternatives to washing beard hair down the sink.
Collecting the Hairs and Adding to Them to a Compost Pile: One option is to collect the hairs after trimming or grooming and dispose of them in a compost bin.
You would do this by making sure your sink and counter space are completely dry and that your sink drain is closed before starting to trim your beard.
This will prevent your trimmings from going down the drain and if everything is dry, the hairs are easier to sweep up with a small brush. After collecting them, you can add them to a compost pile.
Beard hair is rich in nitrogen, which makes it a valuable addition to compost, promoting healthy decomposition and contributing to the fertility of the soil.
The downside of this technique is that it often requires the use of towels, paper towels or tissues to make sure that your sink is fully dry before starting. Those then either need to be washed or thrown away, which is not the best for the environment.
Recommended Method
Use a Beard Hair Catcher: Our primary recommendation is to use a beard catcher. Beard hair catchers are reusable so they’re good for the environment and they help prevent a mess to begin with.
We recommend the By Jove Beard Hair Catcher. The By Jove Beard Hair Catcher is an all-one-piece beard trimmings catcher with an integrated tray that catchers the beard hairs for quick and easy disposal. It goes on in seconds, allows you to move freely while trimming your beard and folds back up into a single compact unit for easy storage or transportation.
This is definitely the quickest and easiest option for keeping beard hairs off your sink.
Electric Beard Trimmers with Attached Vacuums: These can be a good choice when you are doing very large grooming sessions or are cutting a long beard down to a shorter style.
The vacuum essentially sucks in the beard trimmings as you cut them. Unfortunately, Beard trimmers with vacuums don’t help when you need to trim your beard with scissors. Scissors are often necessary for more detailed grooming and are part of many guys’ grooming process.
Trimmers with vacuums also don’t provide any assistance in keeping hairs off the sink when you want to comb out your beard immediately after grooming.
Summary
While it may seem convenient to wash beard hair down the sink, it’s not advisable due to potential drainage issues and environmental impacts.
Beard hair can accumulate in pipes, causing blockages and requiring costly repairs. Additionally, the accumulation of hair in sewage systems can lead to pollution of natural water bodies.
By opting for eco-friendly alternatives, such as the By Jove Beard Hair Catcher, you can help minimize costs, hassle and damage to the environment.