Know your…
1. Water
Water temperature and moisture is key to getting a great shave. Warm water softens the beard and skin allowing the blade to do its job better. The moisture produced is what is needed to make your shaving products work to their maximum potential.
2. Skin
Everyone’s skin reacts to shaving differently. Knowing how your skin reacts to different ingredients in creams and pre-shave products is important.
3. Beard
The more curl your beard hair has, the more susceptible you are to in-grown hairs. So, knowing the direction in which your beard grows will limit the risk of irritation. (See Post: Know your Beard!)
4. Blade
You’ve seen me write about this many times. The more blades, the closer the shave. However, the closer the shave, the more risk there is of your beard hair retreating below the skin line, causing in-grown hairs. Limit the number of blades if you are prone to irritation. (See Post: Multiple razor blades…gimmick?)
5. Cream
So many creams, which one should you use? Aim to find a cream that consistently produces a well balanced amount of moisture on your skin without allowing razor drag or irritation. When you find it, you’ll know it’s a keeper!
boo for number 4, I currently only use one blade and my shaves have gotten better than using the ‘new 15 blade gillette with a vibrator on the end’ Double Edge shaving or straight shaving is the way to go.
Luis, thank you for the comment. It looks like you figured it out! The less blades the better and without irritation. Your comment is exactly my point, see link in #4 – (See Post: Multiple razor blades…gimmick?)
Luis, you are correct to see through the marketing hype of the multi-blade empire!
The bottom line with the shaving process is that every time we shave we are scraping a sharpened piece if metal across our skin – we are going to cause damage. Following that line of reason, the more ‘sharpened pieces of metal’ we scrape across the face, the more damage we will do!
The key to a great wet shave is to minimise any damage and then to quickly repair it.
Therefore, multi-blade razors not only risk the problem of in-grown hair, as Craig points out, they also considerably increase the chances of red, sore, irritated skin after shaving which is exactly why the vast majority of men hate shaving!!
Single blade is definately the best, and kindest, way to shave!
Great comment, thanks Village Barber!