Updated 12/5/2024: We're not going to lie: Finding the best beard kits for the holiday gifting season wasn't as easy as we expected, because it turns out that most beard grooming kits are…bad. In the past five years, the number of grooming brands and beard products have exploded beyond all reason. On balance, that's been good news for bearded men. You can now buy high-quality beard oil, beard trimmers, razors, and washes for every type of beard hair. (Pro Tip: Those all make excellent gifts for men.) But finding great kits worth the price had us digging through a lot of trash—specifically, lots of janky $25 beard kits on Amazon from brands we've never heard of. Hell, some of the kits from our go-to grooming brands failed to meet our standards.
The Most Wanted Beard Kits this YearThe Most Giftable Beard Kit: Murdock London Redchurch St. Collection Men's Gift Set, $75 $67The Best Beard Kit Overall: Scotch Porter Ultimate Beard Collection, $104 $63The Best Travel Beard Kit: Jack Black Beard Grooming Kit, $36The Best Drug Store Beard Kit: King C. Gillette Beard Care Kit, $30The Best Budget Beard Kit: Bevel Beard Goals Kit, $30The Best Trimming Beard Kit: Panasonic Ultimate All-In-One Kit, $210 $170Looking for Something Specific?AccordionItemContainerButtonLargeChevronHow We Chose These Beard KitsAbout the AuthorWe're not even being that picky: we just want quality hardware, well-formulated skin- and beardcare products, and nothing that inflates the kit's size or cost without being genuinely useful. That last factor tripped up more beard kits than we expected—too many think that more is more. Beard shampoo and conditioner and balm and oil? There's only so much moisture your face can absorb.
Ultimately, we found only seven kits and gift sets we believed in. They're great for kickstarting a new beardcare routine (maybe you followed our “How to Grow a Better Beard” advice?), refilling your empties in one fell swoop, or giving as a gift to men with fuzzy faces.
And if one of the seven sets below doesn't quite solve for your beard scenario, check out our guide to the best beard care products.
The Most Giftable Beard Kit: Murdock London Redchurch St. Collection Men's Gift Set
Murdock London
Redchurch St. Collection Men's Gift Set$75Amazon
What's Included: Beard moisturizer, beard oil, beard shampoo, beard brush
We mentioned this, but there are a lot of beard care sets from suspect brands sitting on Amazon—don't give someone the gift of garbage grooming. The Murdock London gift set is the lone exception we found. This kit comes with four premium products for hydrating, smoothing, and washing your whiskers. Crucially, it also comes with a beard brush, an unfortunate oversight in most kits. (It's a vegan beard brush, which means it's likely not as effective or long-lasting as a boar-bristle brush—but also, didn't require a boar to sacrifice it's hair.)
The Best Beard Care Kit Overall: Scotch Porter Ultimate Beard Collection
Scotch Porter
Ultimate Beard Collection$115 $98Scotch Porter
Products included (6): Beard wash, conditioner, balm, serum, beard brush, Kent pocket comb
Scotch Porter is a premium men's grooming brand, with a premium beard kit to match. This set is a particularly smart buy for anyone with dry skin or coarse facial hair, thanks to its three the moisturizing products (conditioner, balm, serum). And if that's not you, then good news: the kit will last even longer, because you won't need to all three of those products at once.
We're overlooking that overlap because this is the rare kit that comes with both a boar bristle brush—that's the good kind—and a trustworthy pocket comb from Kent. If you opt for a different kit, we'd highly suggest you get yourself a nice beard brush separately. It's one of the most important—and underrated—beard care tools.
The Best Beard Kit for Travel: Jack Black Beard Grooming Kit
Jack Black
Beard Grooming Kit$36Amazon
Products included (4): Beard wash, beard lube, beard oil, pocket comb
Jack Black makes one of the best beard oils in the world, though the brand's beard wash and lube are no slouches. They use natural ingredients and botanicals like as kalahari melon oil, Vitamin E, jojoba oil, aloe vera, and eucalyptus to hydrate your beard, soften the hair, and keep the skin below healthy and happy. When it's time to shave, the beard lube acts as both a shaving oil and a conditioner. And it all comes in TSA-friendly travel sizes, so you an look good on the road.
If you've noticed that we haven't mentioned the beard comb included in Jack Black's kit, that's because our mothers taught us that if we can't say anything nice, not to say anything at all. The Beard Lube by itself costs $28, so ignoring the comb isn't costing you anything.
The Basic Kit for Regular Beards: King C. Gillette Beard Care Kit
King C. Gillette
Beard Care Kit$30King C. Gillette Beard Care Kit
Products included (3): Beard balm, beard and face wash, beard oil
The King C. Gillette line provides beard and shaving products that are a step above cheap drug store shaving creams and oils. This particular bundle includes the brand's GQ Grooming Award-winning beard balm (for keeping those hairs soft and in place), the double-duty beard-and-face wash, and a beard oil. At $30 for a collection of full-size products (including that 11 oz. bottle of cleanser), it's a cost-efficient bundle that leans on tried-and-true ingredients—argan oil, cocoa and shea butters, jojoba oil—that'll keep your beard in king-level condition.
The Basic Kit for Curly or Coarse Beards: Bevel Beard Goals Kit
Bevel
Beard Goals Kit$31Amazon
Products included (3): Pomade, beard conditioner, beard oil
Bevel's Beard Goals Kit has been a favorite of ours since 2021, when we first started reviewing beard kits. Bevel is best known for its no-expenses-spared hardware, with beard trimmers and hair clippers that look better—and perform better—than most anything else out there. The brand was born with the intention of creating better grooming products for Black men, and that holds true for this beardcare kit—though the pomade, conditioner, and oil will work well for anyone with curly or coarse hair. Compared to the similarly-priced Gillette set above, Bevel's lacks a cleanser (we've got some suggestions), and triples down on smoothing and softening the skin and follicles with an oil, conditioner, and pomade.
The Best Beard-Trimming Hardware Kit: Panasonic Ultimate All-In-One Kit
Panasonic
Multishape Ultimate All-In-One Kit$170Panasonic
Products included (1+attachments): Panasonic Multishape base with 5 attachments: 3-blade foil shaver, hair trimmer, comb guards, nose and ear hair trimmer, toothbrush heads
As dedicated beard trimmers go, the Panasonic Multishape Ultimate All-In-One is not first in line in our best beard trimmers review. It's hard to beat a dedicated product, and the Multishape is more of a Swiss Army Knife—though one we vouch for, if you can put it to use. The kit features a handle with a rechargeable Li-Ion battery that can accept five attachments, two of which are designed for facial hair maintenance: a foil shaver to erase stubble, and a beard trimmer with four guides plus adjustable lengths (just twist the head).
Beyond beard maintenance, the Multishape also has a nose-and-ear hair trimmer and two toothbrush heads, including an adapter. Which is to say: the Panasonic Multishape can do a lot of jobs. It isn't the best at any one of those jobs, but it'll simplify your countertop and keep your Dopp kit streamlined while traveling.
How We Chose These Beard KitsWe encountered a few common issues when searching for beard sets: Low-quality products, sets that were missing necessary grooming tools, or kits with too many similar products. So, what do we look for in beard kits? High-quality products from trusted brands that add up to a solid deal. Ideally, these products come in a convenient and cost-effective package.
We started by checking the beard and shaving kits made by our favorite grooming brands: Bevel, Jack Black, Kiehl's, Horace, Scotch Porter, and more. We also checked the options available at our favorite retailers, including Amazon (of course), Nordstrom, Sephora, and SSense. While we didn't test the kits as-sold, in the course of our always-on grooming product reviews (culminating in the annual GQ Grooming Awards), we have tested most of the products included in these kits. GQ editors and product reviewers have also tested a small mountain of beard care products for our various shopping guides over the past decade. As such, we're uniquely qualified to judge the contents of these kits.
In total, we found six beard and shaving kits we can recommend—seven including a multitool-esque beard trimmer. We realize that's a small fraction of the beard kits for sale on sites like Amazon, but we stand by these selects.
About the AuthorTimothy Beck Werth is an experienced editor, writer, and product reviewer with 15 years of experience as a journalist. He mostly covers beard care, tech, smart home gadgets, and home goods for GQ Recommends. Tim's reviewed countless beard grooming products for GQ and other sites, and he's had a beard for the past decade. At any given time, his bathroom is full of boxes and boxes of beard oils, trimmers, washes, razors, and brushes.
