So, you’ve decided to shave, whether its your daily grooming routine or you have realised that your beard might be collecting dirt, bacteria or even fecal matter overtime and needs a quick trim. You decide to hold that shaving tool and a slight jerk of the hand gives you that dreaded line of red. You might be rethinking your life decisions then, right? Oops, your grooming routine only.
No problem, nicks happen to all of us. According to shaving injury statistics from JAMA dermatology, 61% of shavers cut themselves, while 23% get razor burns. So you decide to update your grooming routine, and are thinking the common question: Should I shave before or after the shower?
Key to Perfect Shaving
For an ideal shave, you need your shaving tool to glide smoothly across the skin, removing hair effortlessly, without tugging on them. You don’t want to cause skin irritation, which happens when the hair is pulled out, or razor burns, when a layer of the skin is scraped off.
We’ll go by the pros and cons of shaving before or after the shower, keeping the key to shaving in mind.
Shaving Before the Shower
Shaving before the shower seems the easy and clean way out. You save time as you can wash your face and clean all the fallen hair and shaving cream from your neck and shoulders in the shower – no extra steps needed. It can also be called hygienic, as the shower cleans out dirt from potential cuts and nicks. But it is necessary to prep your skin using the either warm water or a pre-shave gel, that opens your pores, to make the hair more accessible.
If you shave with just a shaving cream on dry skin you risk getting skin irritation, nicks or razor burns. This is because when hair isn’t soft, it is resistant to blades, which is why it pulls on the razor, or hair beneath the surface of skin is removed, or even hair follicles could be removed that exposes the skin to bacterial contact.
But if you have soft skin, with open pores, you don’t need a pre-shave gel, rather a towel soaked with warm water will do the job.
If you are one of those who shave before the shower, you need to make sure your skin isn’t dried out after the hot shower. You need to use a moisturizer after the shower, to ensure that squeaky soft look.
How About Trimming the Beard?
As for trimming beard before or after the shower, there’s no question that you should trim beard before the shower. With trimming the beard, it’s important to judge the length and shape of your hair, which is best done when they are drier. When hair is standing up and stiff, it is best to trim it with an electric razor.
Also, if you trim your beard after you shower, long, prickly hair might get into your clothes, which is an unpleasant experience. The best way to avoid that is to shower after trimming your beard.
Shaving After the Shower
Most of us are not blessed with super soft hair, and our hair is rather dry – and gets drier as we age. For these, hair types, it is better to shave after the shower, instead of investing in multiple pre shave shower products.
There’s a lot of benefits to shaving after the shower. Some might even say a shower suffices for a pre-shave skin prep. Shaving tool injury caused by dry hair is minimized, as hair is moistened and soft. To explain, the hair follicle absorbs water and the hair shaft swells, which makes the hair softer as well as protruding, which is why in fewer passes, a razor blade can remove it. This effortless maneuver eliminates the worries of hair being tugged improperly.
Showering also exfoliates your skin from dead cells, excess oil, and dust, leaving a smoother surface under the hair. When a razor glides on this surface, it further eliminates risks of razor burns and skin irritation
Conclusion
Choosing to shave before or after the shower depends on you. Shaving before you shower saves time and is cleaner whereas Shaving after you shower is better for your skin. And, shaving during the shower seems like a nice compromise but let’s shed some more light here.
To shave, you might need a mist-free mirror hanging in your shower, and a ‘wet’ electric shaver which means adding more accessories to your grooming kit. If you add it though, you get to enjoy the exfoliating benefits of a post-shower-shave while avoiding the messy cleanup it asks for.