12 Shaving Tips To Get A Smooth Shave
Right now we want you to forget everything that you have heard about shaving on the internet: baby oil, shaving cream, and of course your boyfriend’s razor. Today we gonna tell you every single shaving hack that you need to know to both simplify and perfect your shaving routine.
Want a Perfect, Safe Shave? Try These Tips
1. Oil Before Shaving
The very first hack is to apply oil onto your skin before shaving so we recommend using jojoba oil because it is anti-inflammatory so it works well to prepare your skin for shaving about an hour before you shave you need to apply jojoba oil to your legs just to smooth out your skin and hair.
We recommend you do this an hour before you even get in the shower it will help to soften the skin and it just gives you super-smooth legs after shaving.
2. Dry Brushing
Our second hack is to dry-brush before shaving. Dry brushing is a form of physical exfoliation where you use a brush like this one over your skin. You can dry brush on your skin after you apply jojoba oil or any other kind of oil. It will help to smooth everything out and it just gets rid of dead skin which can be a culprit of ingrown hairs and razor bumps.
But for your information, we would not recommend dry brushing and using another form of exfoliant like a body scrub in the same shaving session just because we know that would be too harsh for your skin.
3. Castile Soap
Our next hack is all about using castile soap in your shaving routine. First of all castile soap is a versatile vegetable-based soap it cleans by lifting dirt grime and bacteria off surfaces.
You can use it on your skin and your countertop but there is a huge key here you always need to dilute it with water whenever you’re gonna use it. You need to keep your castile soap in a little container like this we got from Amazon (a little travel-size container).
We recommend doing 60% water and 40% castile soap. First of all, it doesn’t over irritate your skin, it doesn’t dry it out which can be a problem if you use a drying soap before shaving. But most importantly it is heavy-duty, it will get rid of all of the oil and dirt, and just any buildup that may be on your skin which can seep into your pores or hair follicles and cause ingrown hairs and razor bumps, and strawberry skin.
4. Exfoliation
we’re gonna talk about the importance of using a chemical exfoliant before shaving. So if you don’t deal with legit strawberry skin which is also known as Keratosis Pilaris then you can get away with just using these body scrubs SheaMoisture Illuminating Hand and Body Scrub.
And even if you do have strawberry skin These body scrubs ( OGX Sea Kelp & Hyaluronic Acid Body Scrub & Wash ) which are more like physical exfoliants will work just fine for exfoliating your skin before shaving. We also recommend this Brown Sugar Scrub.
But if you want something a little bit more heavy-duty then this is the body scrub that you want to use. This is our first aid beauty and it’s called the Bumpy Eraser Body Scrub. It’s made with 10% aha or alpha hydroxy acid which is key here. You have to use this after washing your legs and before shaving.
The reason you want to do this is simple, as we’ve been mentioning if there’s any dead skin dirt, or oil left on your skin before shaving then this can cause bumpy skin and stubble because all of that can clog your hair follicles but if you exfoliate using a chemical exfoliant with alpha hydroxy acid then it’s going to help get rid of any buildup on your skin to give you a much closer and smoother shave.
5. The Right Razor
Before jumping into the kind of razor you need, we want to emphasize that everyone’s hair is different and if you have extremely thick hair you may need a different razor from what we will recommend.
But in general, we recommend staying away from razors like the razors which we have all grabbed in a moment of desperation at the drugstore because they are inexpensive but they’re just a waste in our opinion they don’t get enough hair when you’re shaving and they are also super abrasive because they don’t have enough of the gel protection thing that most razors have that’s usually at the top of the razor.
We also don’t recommend using men’s razors because they’re just way too sharp.
Our favorite razors to use are the Big Soleil Razors. From our experience, we have just found that these are the legit perfect razors and in general, these are the best overall razor we found on the market.[rotated_ad]
6. Shaving Cream
Next is all about What to use when shaving. Obviously, besides a razor so many of you guys love shaving with conditioner because it softens the hair and makes your skin super smooth.
First of all, we highly recommend that you stay far far away from shaving cream because it will dry out your skin and make you much more prone to cuts.
We have discovered that if you shave with a hair mask that’s even better than shaving with conditioner. And if you think about it a hair mask is intended to deeply hydrate your hair, and that is exactly what you need when shaving.
You just use any hair mask you have lying around and you absolutely can still shave with conditioner but if you want some extra smooth skin especially when spring and summer are approaching then try using a hair mask.
7. The Right Direction
Now we’re going to discuss a hack that is related to the direction in which you shave. For example, if you want the closest shave possible shave against the growth of the hair.
Firstly, feel your legs we know that sounds kind of weird but seriously just feel around on your legs to see which direction your hair grows where.[rotated_ad]
8. Ingrown Hairs
This hack is all about how to prevent ingrown hairs with the direction in which you are shaving. So here is a good visual depiction of what happens to create ingrown hair.
There’s got to be something that blocks the hair follicle and thus prevents the hair from exiting your skin or just growing out of your skin, and thus it grows underneath your skin and that is ingrown hair.
One way that this can happen is if your hair follicle is fully exposed letting in dead skin or oil that can clog the hair follicle and prevent the hair from growing out. To prevent this you can shave in the direction of the hair growth this makes it so that you are not getting a super close shave you’re just shaving off enough hair to make your legs look smooth but not fully expose the hair follicle.
9. Rinse Off Your Razor While Shaving
Another important shaving hack we have is to rinse off your razor not only when you’re done shaving but also while you’re shaving. This can help to prevent ingrown hairs and razor bumps and cuts etc. While also giving you a closer and much more effective or efficient shave.
10. Rinse With Cold Water
This shaving hack is to rinse off the conditioner or hair mask using cold water and the reason why we recommend cold water is that it will rinse your legs of any leftover hair but it will not rinse away the moisturizing properties of the conditioner or hair mask that you used on your legs so this is just gonna help keep your skin extra smooth and hydrated after you get out of the shower.
11. Warm Compress
The second to last hack it’s kind of the opposite of my previous hack and this is to wrap your legs with a warm wet compress like a towel after you are done shaving using a warm compress on your legs will help to soothe any potential irritation that you may have gotten while shaving.
12. Shea Butter
The last hack is our current favorite. This is to use shea butter on your legs when you are done shaving to get the smoothest skin ever so we used to make our whipped shea butter with jojoba oil and shea butter.
It is nice and if you just don’t have time to do this, Instead you can use this pre-packaged shea butter scented with passion fruit extract from a brand called Alafia.
The thing with shea butter is that it can be extremely hard to work with. It can feel gummy at first and it just is hard to get it going but once you start working it through your hands and over your skin yes it may take a few minutes to fully spread it around but the results will be amazing nothing moisturizes your skin better than shea butter.
Also, the good thing with shea butter is that it’s thick so when you’re done shaving if you’ve noticed that you’ve missed some spots then you can easily go back and just shave over the shea butter it’s thick enough where it will protect your skin if you wanted to do a quick dry shave over some areas that you missed.
