I've been trying conditioner on my face lately myself and I've been having great results as well. It truly does seem as if the whiskers are much softer than if I don't use it and just rely on hot water and lather sitting on my face for ~2 minutes before shaving. I still do plenty of hot water and let the lather sit, but the conditioner was a noticeable improvement IME. I massage it in before I wash my hair, and let it sit on my face while I shampoo and rinse my hair, and then I rinse it off. I have no idea if it matters how long you let it sit in your beard, but it works for me and it's easy enough so I'll stick with it.

I don't normally use conditioner by itself, so I'm using a hotel bottle at the moment. I'm going to go buy a "real" bottle when it runs out though, so any suggestions of some good stuff that won't break the bank would be great!