Personally, I love the mach 3 razor. They are expensive but worth it. I’ll also back up the Nivea. I love it and wouldn’t shave without it. Use their Exfoliating face scrub before you shave. After you shave, use some aloe vera gel. It helps razor burn and with the ingrown hairs.
Um…woman chiming in here.
Thanks to some funky genetics, I have some facial hair. I don’t like using chemicals on my face, so bleaching it is out out out.
Perhaps for men this is true, but as I have less facial hair than most guys, I find disposables to be just the thing I need to get rid of that icky and annoying chin and cheek hair, as well as the unibrow.
CJ
Guy here…
Yes, I may appal Kyan, but I’m a speed-shaver too. I use soap and warm water, and get it over with.
I’ve had two seperate electrics and never really got a good shave with them. Both of them regularly left patches of uncut hair that I’d have to shave with a manual anyway after a few days.
Mach 3. Bargain brand shaving cream. Once with the grain, twice against.
I guess I just have lucky skin. I rarely cut myself, even if I’m in a hurry.
I love my Braun Synchro…face daily and head every other day (with the HeadBlade once weekly and on special occasions…)
I had an old room mate who would use the same disposable razor for months …
It wasn’t the sight of so much blood that disturbed me as compared to that horrible sound …
This may sound like overkill, but it’s the only system that’s ever worked for me, in 30+ years of shaving. My beard isn’t unusually heavy, but it grows at weird angles, none of which are perpendicular to my skin. That plus thin, sensitive skin makes for uncomfortable shaving.
First, the advice about slowing down and shaving in (or after) the shower is good. I shave before my shower (mostly because to trim my goatee well, I need my reading glasses, and they don’t work in the shower), but I use a warm wet washcloth for a good minute or two first, to moisten the beard. Wet isn’t enough; it has to be really soaked.
Next, I lather up with gel. I like Gillette gel for sensitive skin, but any gel works better than foam for me. Then I use a rechargeable wet-dry electric (no good if the growth is more than a couple of days, though). Can’t get too close to the sideburns or goatee, of couse. I can’t stand it dry, but with gel, it works okay. It doesn’t give a close shave, but it eliminates most of the need for scraping with the blade that I follow it up with.
For the blade stage, I use a Schick Slim Twin. (Not available where I live, so I buy a year’s supply every Christmas when I visit my hometown.) There’s still some gel left on my face, so I just rub a little water into it to get my skin nice and slick. I then go against the grain with the blade–my skin is almost transparent, so if I don’t get it really close, I look unshaven even if it feels smooth. The blade lets me get close, plus it’s necessary for trimming close to the facial hair that I leave growing. One blade is good for 5 or 6 shaves, so I usually take a break from shaving on Sunday and change blades once a week. I rinse the blade often, but not with hot water.
Finally, after a shower, I add a little unscented, alcohol-free aftershave gel. I get mine from the Body Shop.
All this takes 15 minutes or so, less if I don’t have the goatee to trim around. I’ve tried dry electrics, blades, and straight razors, and this is the only way I’ve found that lets me consistently get a good shave without razor burns or lacerations.
Oh, just to add, I’ve tried various shaving creams/gels, but they never seemed to do much more than make a mess. The shave wasn’t any better than with soap and warm water.
In that order? Am I right in assuming that you re-lather before each pass (i.e., three times per shave)?
I’ve tried various ways of shaving with little success, although I’ve just learned from this thread that one of my problems is rinsing the razor with hot water.
I recently started shaving in the shower at around the same time I switched from foam to shaving gel and it’s working really well for me, cutting my shaving time down to around seven minutes. I’ve only cut myself thrice in the past five months (Yea, I keep a tally).
Really? I was always taught first to wet face with hot water (to soften the beard), but then to also rinse the razor with hot water.
Anyone else use cold water to rinse also? Maybe I’ll try it tomorrow…
I tried an electric for a little over one month, I returned it (close as a blade or your money back)
I use a Sensor blade in the shower. Most of the time I use normal soap on my face. Works just fine for me.
I shave slow though. I used to hate shaving but I’ve learned it makes for a nice excuse to hang out in the shower.
Oh GOD no!! Not Nair, not Neet, not none of them things!! Your facial skin is really sensitive, and those products use some not un-harsh chemicals. If I remember correctly, they list on the bottles the places on your body where you shouldnt use it, and the face is right there - or at least the area around the mouth and eyes (and where else does one usually try to remove facial hair from?).
The last time I tried that stuff I got a rash on my legs that lasted for nearly three weeks. If your skin is at all sensitive it’s a bad idea to use it even where youre supposed to use it.
[/hijack]
I meant to add that my beard hairs are quite dark and grow very flat to the skin; this results in me still having a ‘blue’ chin after even a very good shave. I’ve been shaving for twenty years now and many people have told me that I need to shave upwards (i.e. against the grain), but no matter how carefully I do this, no matter which razor I use and no matter how much prior preparation/pre-shaving, it ALWAYS ends up looking like a scene from Silence of the Lambs.
Meh - redundancy - ‘prior preparation’
Another woman who had her hormons do crazy and nasty thing to her checking in here. (I feel like such a freak !)
I do my shaving in the shower and I use hair conditioner instead of gels or whatever. I use disposible razors, which ever is on sale.
(Excuse me while I go crawl back into my freak hole now)
hormones too.
I use a Venus razor to shave my legs (I don’t shave my face)
The young men in my house piss and moan that they don’t get a good shave with that razor. I tell them BUY YOUR OWN!!!
I did buy them a Mach 3 awhile back and they seemed to be content with that. Don’t know what happened to it.
On another note I know two women that need to shave their faces! They have hair all under their chin and it is gross!
Yes, in that order. But no, I don’t re-lather. Residual shaving cream and the strip on the Mach 3 keep things nice and smooth.
I rinse the blade in the shower stream, which is hot, but not uncomfortably slow.
Slow? So.
Bleh.