Shaving Tips For Women

Legs, Arms & Bikini Shaving Tips For Women

Shaving properly with the right items will ensure that your skin will feel smooth and free from ingrown hairs, razor bump and redness. These irritations are often associated with wet shaving legs, underarms and the bikini area.

Wet shaving gives you closer/smoother shaves and better-looking skin compared to waxing and heaven forbid electric razor shaving. For the bikini area, wet shave first then finish off with a Cleancut Personal Shaver for a completely smooth Brazilian finish.

Why choose to wet shave with a safety razor?

Given all the different products available today why should you choose to wet shave with a safety razor?
There are numerous reasons:

it’s better for your skin
it’s better for the environment
it’s more cost effective

However, don’t take our word for it. We interviewed Christine Peek, a mum of three and a personal trainer about why she made the change to using a safety razor.
You can find the whole interview with Christine in our Wet Shaving for Women: An Interview with Christine blog post.

SHOP WOMEN'S BODY SHAVING

Our Step-By-Step Guide To Get The Best Results

Preparation

To obtain the best results from wet shaving it is important to make sure the area you are about to shave is well prepared. Trim long hair with scissors before shaving. If you don’t the razor will ‘clog’ and soon become blunt making the shave painful as it will pull and snatch at the hair.
Shave after a hot bath or shower, the heat will soften the hairs leading to a comfortable shave. Apply a rich creamy shaving lather using a good quality shaving cream or shaving soap.
For best results use a shaving brush, using your fingers merely smears the lather over your skin. A shaving brush will lift the hairs off the surface of the skin and ensure a rich creamy, protective layer of lather is applied evenly. The lather ensures the blade glides on the surface of the skin instead of dragging and pulling on it, which can cause razor burn, shave bumps and other irritations.

Equipment

The Razor - The best preparation will amount to nothing if you do not use a good razor. There is now a huge market for women’s razors but we recommend you use a safety razor. A safety razor has one, sharp blade which cuts the hairs cleanly at skin level. A safety razor will last many years, decades even. We sell vintage safety razors that are over a hundred years old. If you want to stop binning plastic, a safety razor is an obvious choice. Moreover, the replacement blades are ridiculously cheap at only 35p each.

If you prefer a cartridge type razor opt for the Feather Neo FII Razor as they do give good results providing the blade is sharp. If you use any type of cartridge razor, such as a Feather Neo, Fusion, Venus, etc. then we strongly recommend that you use a RazorPit Blade Sharpener. The unique technology used in the RazorPit allows you to always have a sharp blade which can extend the life of one blade to a remarkable 150 shaves.

The Shaving Brush - Let's keep this simple, a shaving brush is essential for creating and spreading a protective layer of lather. Opt for a synthetic brush, no animal had to die so you can have a shaving brush, synthetic brushes are easy to maintain, they don't smell and the never shed hair.
After use, rinse your shaving brush in warm water, squeeze the head of the brush gently and then flick it a few times to get rid of excess water.

The Shave

Shave with the grain of the hair as shaving against the grain can cause ingrown hairs, redness, razor burn and rashes. (Shaving with the grain means shaving in the direction the hair grows in).

Gently pull the skin tight while you shave.
Rinse or swish the head of your razor in warm water frequently.
All razor strokes should be slow and deliberate.
A razor does not need to be pressed hard onto the skin in order to provide a close shave, so don’t apply too much pressure, try to let the razor glide over the skin. Applying too much pressure can result in cuts and or ingrowing hairs.
Lift your arm up while shaving underarm to pull your skin tight and then shave from the bottom up, allowing the razor to glide over the skin.
For the bikini area shave horizontally, from the outside to the inside of the upper thigh and groin area, using smooth even strokes.
Shave frequently to keep the area free of irritation and ingrown hairs.

When shaving the bikini area, wet shave as described above then dry the area with Wakodo Dusting Powder, leave some on the skin and then shave with a Japanese made Cleancut Pubic Hair Shaver. This razor will give you a Brazilian smooth finish.

After Shaving

Remember that your skin is at its most sensitive after the shaving, so dry your skin by gently by patting it with a soft towel. Rubbing will cause friction and will make the area hot and more sensitive.

Apply Shaveworks Cool Women's Aftershave Balm to soothe and moisturise shaved skin. Do not apply any lotion that is alcohol based or use underarm deodorants or anti-perspirants immediately after shaving, as this may result in irritation and stinging.

How to video guides

To demonstrate just how easy and enjoyable it is it get smooth, soft skin by using a traditional safety razor check out these two guest videos from The Shave Queen at Ritual Shave. We stock the Martin de Candre Fougere (fern) shaving soap used in the first video, it is a great, long lasting luxurious shaving soap.