Men often wear their pride and confidence in their beards. Growing a beard is a classic way to show your style and personality, along with making a fashion statement. Aside from its visual value, beards also provide UV protection, acne prevention, and filtering protection, as long as wearers keep them clean and well-groomed.
Proper Shaving Tools and Products: The Secret To A Clean Cut
If you’re someone who wants to start growing their beard or planning to shift from professional grooming and shaving services, the secret recipe to achieving a clean cut is using the right shaving tools and products.
With this in mind, check out this short guide to find out more about the best shaving products for at home use, which focuses on trimmers and lathers.
Choosing The Right Trimmer
Hair trimmers are an umbrella term for equipment used for cutting, trimming, and shaving various types of hair. To achieve your desired results, you should choose the right trimmer that can accommodate your type of hair, as well as your purpose―whether you’re trimming, cutting, or shaving your beard.
Here are your top considerations when choosing a good beard trimmer:
- Build Quality: Pick trimmers that are built to last for a few years. You’ll be getting the most value from your money with a stainless steel blade that might be costly, but they’re durable and effective in doing their job, especially blades made of chromium and titanium.
- Beard Length: The comb size of the trimmer will help in achieving your desired beard length. Ideally, it would be more advantageous to buy a trimmer with different comb length options. Also, make sure that the comb is made of high-quality materials that can keep your beard tangle-free.
- Corded vs. Cordless: Traditional trimmers run like beasts once you plug them in, allowing you to take your precious time when shaving without worrying about its battery life. However, if you’re looking for a portable shaving companion, cordless trimmers are a must.
- Versatility: Many hair trimmers are designed only for beard clipping, trimming, and shaving, but if you want to achieve a complete, professional-like manscaping experience, choose trimmers with versatility in mind.
- Consumer vs. Professional: Essentially, consumer beard trimmer models will suffice for most users as they possess sufficient power and durability even for daily use. However, if you’re fine with splurging, sharing the trimmer with other individuals, or giving it as a gift, professional models are worth investing in. They’re more durable, more powerful, and have available replacement parts.
Choosing The Best Lather
One’s shaving experience wouldn’t be complete without a luscious, moisturizing lather. Shaving foams are the most popular pick when it comes to shaving lathers, but did you know that they’re not for everyone? Regardless of your shaving lather, the product should contain moisturizing, soothing, and anti-inflammatory ingredients such as aloe vera, shea butter, glycerin, stearic acid, colloidal oatmeal, jojoba oil, and argan oil, to name a few.
There are different types of shaving lathers that you can incorporate into your shaving regimen:
- Foam Shaving Cream: As its name implies, this shaving cream creates plenty of lightweight foam in an aerosol can. Use this type of shaving cream sparingly as they have a high alcohol content that is quite drying to the skin.
- Lather Shaving Cream: This shaving lather is used with a shaving brush. Its creamy consistency allows the lifting of hair then coating them with a velvety lather before they meet the blade.
- Brushless Shaving Cream: On the other hand, brushless shaving creams don’t foam, are packaged in a non-aerosol container, and aren’t supposed to be used with brushes. It only creates a thin lather that makes a comfortable shaving experience because of its soothing and moisturizing ingredients.
- Shaving Gel: Gels have fuller lather than creams and offer smoother movement and better lubrication. Most gels are transparent which is perfect for navigating with sharper blades.
- Shaving Soap: Soaps are more common in barbershops than in homes. Like lather shaving creams, shaving soaps are used along with a shaving brush through rubbing and swirling the brush to build up the lather. They tend to last longer than creams and are a great travelling companion because of its spill-proof advantage.
- Shaving Oil: Typically, shaving oils serve as a primer before shaving creams with harsh, drying ingredients. It provides excellent moisturization and lubrication that reduces your possibility of getting a razor burn and glide. However, shaving oils aren’t a good match for acne-prone individuals as they can clog your pores.
Takeaways
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach in curating men’s shaving regimen because of their varying hair and skin types, preferences, budget, and shaving experience. Therefore, before purchasing any shaving product for home use, make sure that you research thoroughly about which trimmers and lathers will suit your needs and preferences best.
