Honest Amish is one of the brands people meet first when they start looking after a beard. The company says it makes its oils and balms by hand in the US, sells them from its own shop as well as on Amazon, and calls the Classic oil one of the most well-reviewed beard oils on the planet. What is easy to miss is that “Honest Amish beard oil” is not one bottle: the brand sells three oils and a matching balm, and picking the wrong one mostly comes down to how rich you want the oil and whether you want a scent at all.
This page is for you if you have decided to try Honest Amish and want to know which of its oils to buy, or whether the brand is worth the money at all. If you would rather compare brands before choosing one, start with our guide to what beard oil does and how to choose it instead. If you are still unsure whether you need an oil, the balm section further down may be the more useful half of this page.
What Honest Amish actually sells
The oil line is three blends, all in a 2 oz bottle with a dropper: Classic, Premium, and PURE, which is unscented. Alongside them sits a 2 oz beard balm that shares the Classic notes. The brand also makes soap, wax and a beard comb, but the oils and the balm are what people arrive here for.
All four are sold on Amazon in the US as well as from Honest Amish’s own shop, so finding them is rarely the problem. Choosing between them is, so here is each one by the reader it suits.
Classic Beard Oil: the default bottle
Classic is the oil the brand is known for, and the safest first buy. Honest Amish lists a long run of plant oils in it, including argan, jojoba, avocado, apricot kernel, pumpkin seed and kukui nut, plus seven essential oils – cedarwood, clove, star anise, grapefruit, lavender, cinnamon leaf and peppermint – that give it its scent. The brand describes that scent as classic, natural, sweet and woodsy, and says it matches the beard balm.
The scent is also the main thing to think about before buying. Seven essential oils is a lot of fragrance for a product you put on your face every day. If you already wear a cologne, or you know that perfumed products leave your skin unhappy, Classic is the one to think twice about, which is exactly why the PURE bottle exists further down this page.
Premium Beard Oil: a richer blend for dry or coarse beards
Premium keeps the same job and changes the ingredients. Where Classic leans on the familiar carrier oils, Premium adds botanicals the cheaper bottle does not carry: baobab, moringa, sea buckthorn, rosehip and black cumin, on top of argan, jojoba, avocado, apricot kernel and pumpkin seed. Honest Amish describes the scent as a deep woodsy spiced blend rather than Classic’s sweeter note.
That richer mix is the reason to choose it: it suits a dry, coarse or longer beard that drinks up a lighter oil, and it is the bottle to pick if you want the heaviest conditioning the brand sells. The trade-off is price and, frankly, subtlety. Premium costs more than Classic, and on most beards the difference between two plant-oil blends is smaller than the price gap suggests. Neither one changes how much hair you grow, which is worth saying plainly in a category that often implies otherwise.
PURE Unscented Beard Oil: the same idea, no fragrance
PURE is the answer for anyone who liked everything about Classic except the smell. It uses seven oils – pumpkin seed, avocado, sweet almond, apricot kernel, kukui nut, argan and jojoba – and no essential oils at all, so Honest Amish calls it almost scentless. For skin that reacts to fragrance, or for a reader who shares a bathroom with someone who does, that is the whole point of the bottle.
What you give up is the scent itself, and nothing else. If the woodsy, sweet note is part of why you wanted the brand, PURE is not that bottle; if you wanted the conditioning without the perfume, this is the one to buy. It also pairs more easily with a scented balm or cologne, since there is nothing in it to compete.
The beard balm: when oil alone is not enough
If you came for an oil and are now wondering whether you need anything else, the honest answer is usually the balm. It is not a stronger oil; it is a different product. Honest Amish builds it on shea and coconut butters, olive, castor, jojoba and argan oils, beeswax and candelilla wax, so it sits on the hair instead of sinking straight into the skin. That gives it two jobs an oil cannot do: a little light hold, and enough body to help shape a longer beard instead of leaving it soft but flat.
The scent is the brand’s classic one – a mild sweet anise note with floral and spice behind it – and Honest Amish says it matches the Classic oil. For how to warm and work it in, see our guide to how to apply beard balm. If you want to see it next to other brands before deciding, our roundup of the best beard balms for men covers the alternatives, and our Honest Amish beard balm review looks at this one on its own.
How to use the oils
Honest Amish’s own instructions are short, and worth following as written: apply to a damp beard after a shower, take a dime-sized amount from the dropper, rub it into your hands, then spread it evenly through the beard. The step people skip is the last one: working the oil into the skin underneath the hair. That is where half the benefit sits, because the itch and flaking people call beardruff start on the skin, not the hair. If that is your main problem, our piece on whether beard oil prevents beard dandruff explains what an oil can and cannot do about it.
What these oils will not do
Beard oil softens hair and conditions the skin under it. It does not change how much beard you grow, and no bottle of plant oils will fill a patch. Honest Amish’s own pages talk about supporting healthy growth, which is a reasonable way to describe better-conditioned hair, but it is a brand claim rather than a guarantee – the same is true of every beard oil on the market.
Nor is any of this a treatment for a skin problem. If your face is inflamed, if the itch does not settle after a week or two of regular use, or if you are reacting rather than just drying out, that is a question for a doctor rather than a beard-care page.
Before you buy
A 2 oz bottle lasts a couple of months of daily use on a short-to-medium beard, so none of the three is a big commitment. Pick Classic for the standard bottle and its sweet, woodsy scent; pick Premium if you want the heavier botanical blend and do not mind paying more for it; pick PURE if you want no fragrance at all. Buy the balm as well only if you also want hold and a little shaping – otherwise the oil alone is enough.
One note before you order: cleaning the beard first is the step that makes any oil work better, so it is worth reading our roundup of the best beard washes for men if you are still using bar soap on your face. And if the brand price is the sticking point, making your own beard oil is genuinely simple – a carrier oil and a few drops of essential oil – though you will be choosing the oils yourself.
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