how to shave

29 Jun, 2024

I thought I knew how to shave. I mean, I've been doing it for the past like 8 years. I thought there was some amount of inherent skin irritation.

Nah. I was just doing it wrong.

I knew you should shave with the grain, but it turns out I didn't actually know which way that is.

This was my understanding of how my facial hair grows:

A line-drawn face, blue arrows pointing from the ears to the mouth/chin

Please appreciate my beautiful art.

So I shaved downwards and inwards on my face, and likewise on my neck. If you know what I'm about to say next, you probably just grimaced.

Turns out, this is how hair grows on my neck:

Added to the previous image are red arrows on the neck. They go up from the base of the neck and down from the chin, meeting in the middle, and continuing outward towards the sides of the neck.

Yeah, I had to make the brush smaller to fit all the arrows.

No wonder my neck was always so irritated after shaving.

Other tips:

Wash your face right before and after shaving.
Use hot water.
Use "sensitive" shaving products - for me, Nivea Sensitive Shaving Gel and a Gillette SkinGuard razor.
Moisturize everywhere you just shaved.

If you post a reply on another blog or social media, or just want to chat, email me! christopher@cg505.com