Get your shave right

Use a new razor head once every eight shaves. A thick brush and shaving paste will make the tiniest hidden hair soft, says Hector Choksi

LET us say that the average man shaves every day, and takes 10 minutes to do it. We will subtract a few days for those Saturdays he gets up, looks in the mirror, and says: "Oh, to hell with it today—it is Saturday." So, 10 minutes a day times 313 days (365 minus 52 Saturdays), equals 52 hours a year the average man spends shaving—more than two full days. If he starts shaving when he is 15, and lives to be 80, he will have spent roughly 141 days of his life shaving.

If you are a stickler for fashion and insist on shaving on Saturdays, too, you can add 24 days more per year, making the shaving chore take up nearly half a year of your life.

In India the market for shaving blades has been pegged at Rs 550 crore, with twin blades accounting for 4 per cent of the overall market for blades, while the good old double-edge blades account for 96 per cent. And the use of shaving soaps/ gels/aftershave lotions etc is valued at Rs 250 crore. Roughly, you can say that the annual market for men’s shaving product in India is estimated at Rs 800 crore, based on the fact that the men who shave everyday are from the just 18 million households.

Gillette surveys over the years have shown that 80 per cent of women prefer clean-shaven men. About 75 per cent said a beard or moustache was unpleasantly itchy for kissing, and 70 per cent of women said scented after-shave was a turn on. While women love well-groomed men, shaving can result in some not-so-pretty consequences. You need to identify any problem you suffer from and arm yourself with knowledge that will assist you in both preventing and curing a number of common aggravations.

First, junk off any cheap, disposable razors you may have lying around, and invest in one with a swivel head designed to accommodate the contours of your face, and replace the blades often. A good rule of thumb is to use a new razor head once every eight shaves. Also, you can decrease your chances of having a shaving related accident by having selected a shaving tool whose blades are spaced close together, to reduce the amount of pressure you are putting on your skin.

Forget the gel and the mousse. Only a thick shaving brush and shaving paste will do. By applying the paste with a shaving brush, even the tiniest hidden hair is made soft and loose from the root to the tip. The friction that the brush generates also numbs the epidermis, further preparing it for the blade.

Before shaving, spend two or three minutes in a steamy environment, like the shower, making sure your skin is very wet and has time to absorb a lot of moisture. Be sure to rinse your razor after each stroke. For those times when a bloody slip-up occurs, keep an antiseptic on hand and dab with a cotton swab or apply an ice cube, as the cold will constrict your blood vessels and help stop the bleeding. Once your cut has healed slightly, use an aftershave that has a mild antiseptic in it and continue using the cotton swab to dab the damaged area.

The main problem while shaving are the ingrown hair. Ingrown hair are unsightly and painful. They result when the shaved hair gets trapped inside the follicle or grows back into the skin. It can cause scarring, redness and swelling. You will need to follow all four of the steps in this regimen for several weeks.

Exfoliating (removing the upper layers of dead skin) is indispensable to manage ingrown hair. Daily use of a gentle face scrub with glycolic and salicylic acid is particularly effective. Use a soft-bristle face brush and liquid cleanser in a circular motion on your beard to dislodge the tips of ingrown hair, thus eliminating dead skin cells and clearing follicles.

Shaving too closely is one of the triggers for razor bumps. Hair stubs cut too closely will get trapped inside the hair follicle and dig inward
or sideways.

To avoid shaving too close, don’t pull the skin when you shave; don’t put too much pressure on the blades; shave with the grain.

You will need to maintain this approach over time, as one extra close shave will be enough to cause a recurrence of ingrown hair that will take weeks to heal. — MF

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