I'm recently turned 20, and I wanted to ask about shaving (mostly facial). Some background: I only started needing to shave when I was like 18, and even then it was only like once every 2 weeks. I prefer to have my face/neck totally shaved; I just can't grow decent looking facial hair, and I also look pretty young for my age so no hair suits me better. Recently though I've been needing to shave more and more often, like every few days. Also, after shaving it still leaves like a "shadow" on my skin where the hair was, and if I run my finger along my skin I can still feel the roughness of some hairs. What's the best way to totally get rid of facial hair? I use just disposable razors atm. Should I try a better quality razor or an electric one? Are hair removal products good? Should I wax? It also takes me a decent 10-15 minutes to shave and it's starting to get annoying. Any advice about avoiding ingrown hairs / skin irritation would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks :lol:
I'm not male, but I grow some pretty dark hairs on my neck so I do relate. I was using disposable razors for a while and ended up getting razor rash from doing it daily. It looks really terrible, almost like a deep scar on my neck, and It's lasted a week. The skin is now peeling off. So I don't really recommend disposable razors. I'll probably pluck mine from now on, but as a male, this will be more difficult for you to do. I've been suggested an electric razor so maybe try that on more sensitive areas. You do want better quality razors and you should immediately throw them away if they get too dull. Otherwise, it can become risky.
There are some surgeries that kill the hair follicles but that's pretty pricey and a bit drastic for someone so young. You could try waxing but that won't keep the hair away completely, it'll pull out a part of the hair root and make it take longer to grow back.
I wouldn't suggest waxing your face. Besides being painful, it can be quite "violent" on the skin and leave unsightly red dots wherever a hair has been removed. I've also been told recently by a hair removal professional that it can wreak havoc on the hair follicles so that, in your case, if you ever did want facial hair, it will be a bit of a scraggly mess. You could try a combination of a multi blade disposable razor finishing up with an electric razor. I think that might give you the smoothest finish. And it's easy enough to do touch ups with an electric razor when needed. Or treat yourself to a shave at a barber shop and study how he does it.
Buy a better quality multi blade razor. The more blades it has, the closer it shaves. It's more expensive, especially to keep buying replacement blades, but you'll get less ingrown hairs and you'll be happier with the result. Also exfoliating your face before and after will help with ingrown hairs. I just use one of those mesh type scrubbing gloves and a bit of soap, keeps your face smooth too. I have hair clippers which I can use at grade 0 and that gets a pretty close shave but I'd debate doing your entire face with them, I use them to sharpen up the sides and create straight lines, does a good job. They only cost a tenner through so trying it out wouldn't be the most expensive thing. Then youve got them if you need them.
Yeah, get one of those really good multi-blades and follow Aberrance's advice. If you want it permanently removed, there are laser and electrolysis places. They're pricey and you need to research the potential skin problems, too, and understand those. I'm MtF actually and I hate having hair at all on my face so I use a 5-blade razor and that works pretty well. I have really dark hair so results could be better, but for the most part I can live with it for now.
As Aberrance said, a good multi-blade razor will help immensely. I personally use a double-blade razor, but I know people that like 3-, 4- and even 5-blade razors - although those seem rather unwieldy to me. One key, IMO, is to understand the 'grain' of your facial hair. If you rub your hand up or down or back and forth across your face, in which direction(s) does your facial hair stand up and in which does it lie down flat? If you know that, when you shave, for the closest shave, shave against the grain, i.e. from the direction in which your hair stands up. For me, that means turning the razor over and shaving from the bottom of my face to towards the top. I hope that helps a little.
I used to hate having facial hair, but I got tired of shaving all the time... Now I have a beard... I shave occasionally to keep it trimmed, but I use an electric trimmer... Whoever said try using a disposable and the electric, has it backwards... use the electric to get the thick/long stuff, and disposable to get close. In other words electric will never get a close... I have to do it like that when I have to shavve, electric then disposable I mean.... Otherwise I can shave like a quarter maybe half inch long strip before having to rinse the blade of hair... In other words, the more you shave, the more you will have to shave... I suppose that is the moral here... You might consider growing your hair a bit and seeing if you like how it looks not, assuming it has been a while since you have... shaving makes it grow thicker in both number of hairs and thickness of those hairs...
I don't think that there much can be done, maybe only buying a new better razor I agree that using wax isn't a good idea at all, the process is very painful, especially in the face area! :eusa_doh: The idea with a special surgery sounds more realistic but I suppose that it's rather expensive and I don't know how effective such procedures are In my case I use the old schools, double edge razors, like on these examples from StyleMann, they're rather good in quality for me, especially comparing with the electric ones For example, here's one of my favourite models
I've heard laser hair removal last for 6 to 12 months but I don't know how expensive it is or anything like that
I agree with what ABeautifuMind said: an electric razor for the majority of the work, and the disposable one for places you want really smooth. Since I went over to electric, I have never gone back. My impression is that the straight-in-line ones work better than the ones with the rotating things.
I always use an electric razor but then again my skin is pretty sensitive and I don't mind the stubble left over. So it's not a very close shave, I've used a multiblade razor for that and go against the grain but it always results in razor rash for the first day or two.
Don't wax your face. I've been waxing my super hairy upper lip since I was 14, and it's a living hell. I'm finally getting laser on my face, and have had very good luck with affordable Groupons. As far as a really smooth shave nothing beats a merkur razor. And you can change to a new blade every other day for pennies. BUT it is not a safety razor! Read about it and appropriate blades for your face, then go really slow at first. I do my legs with a merkur, and it's so sharp that it's cut shaving time in half. (I used to have to go over areas twice but no more!)