My tried and tested Wet Shave Routine

Hey Guys. Today I am going to run through my Wet Shave Routine. 

This is a routine that I have tried and tested over a very prolonged period of time, with different variants of the same routine all leading to these 16 steps which work very well for me.

As we all well know, shaving routines are a "per-person" basis scenario, and some of the steps I present to you may well be what you are familiar with and work for you, and some may not. It all depends on your facial hair growth and your skin sensitivity, among many other things. Traditionally, I like to complete my shaves with 2 shaving passes to avoid the nasty razor burn that I get with my skin, and this routine works with both 2 and 3 shaving passes.

Please note that before the shave, try and learn the direction of the way in which your facial hair grows, moving your fingers with some pre-shave cream or soap over your face to find our the directions with the grain and against the grain. This process is called Face hair mapping, and is important because when shaving, you want to go with the grain on the first shaving pass, with the side of the grain on the second shaving pass, and against the grain on the third and final shaving pass.

Remembering that with a great Wet Shave Routine (Pre-Shave, Wet Shave and Post-Shave), you can avoid some of those very nasty and sometimes dreaded in-grown hairs, razor burn, irritation, cuts and nicks. And so, I thought I would share them with you if in the event that you would like to try these steps as well.

1. Prior to the shower, fill up a lathering bowl with hot water and let your brush and safety razor soak for the duration of your shower. This allows the brush to properly moisten all bristles, and allows the blade to sterilise and become nice and hot before shaving.

2. Whilst your Brush and Razor soak in the lathering bowl, have a shower. While you're having a shower, ensure that your facial hair is cleaned and soaked and hot streaming water. Hot Water Opens the Pores all over the face and gets rid of any dead skin cells prior to the shave.

Remember that when you leave the shower, do not dry your face as you need the hairs on your face nice and moist with water swelling up the stem of the hair to allow for easy slicing with the blade. Very important!

3. Take the brush and safety razor out of the lathering bowl, and empty the bowl's water. Do not dry the bowl as we will use the water on the inner walls as additional water for the lather we will whip up.

4. Shake the brush off lightly, and allow for at least 5 or so drops to fill your shaving soap tub. Swirl the shaving soap tub around so the bloom water touches all over the surface, and then pour the bloom water contents into your hand and start rubbing this all over your wet face.

This process serves as a nice pre-shave routine to keep the bristles of your facial hair moist, locks in the moisture to your face from the shower preparation and also keep the face slick. Add little bits of hot water to your face as you see fit to keep the hairs on your face nice and moist.

5. Start lathering the shaving soap in the shaving soap tub with the brush until you see some rich soapy lather come from the brush. Transfer this soapy lather from the brush to your wet lathering bowl as best you can, and continue the lathering process with your brush, for at least 2 minutes.

In the meantime, let the shaving soap tub dry naturally without washing it off as the remaining thin layer of soap suds will serve as the pre-shave rub for the next shave (Step 4).

6. After your finish your lathering in the lathering bowl after the 2 minutes, you should see some nice peaks of rich lather, that for all intents and purposes, can stand on its own upside down in the bowl without spilling.

If you notice that the lather is drying up or is a bit too thick for your liking, you can add some more drops of hot water into the lathering bowl and swirl around until its at the consistency that you like. Bare in mind that you want to follow the 'no spilling' rule at the beginning of this step.

7. Give your face 1 or 2 more swirls with hot water to keep those face hairs hot and moist, and then start lathering your face with the shaving soap lather. Now traditionally, I found that the best bet is to keep lathering the face with the brush (face lathering) for at least 2 minutes.

This process allows for the face to exfoliate and for the shaving soap to really get underneath the root of the hairs, allowing them to stand stiffly so that the blade can just slice through them with little to no effort at all.

PLEASE NOTE: If you start to see small floating bubbles of shave cream in the air whilst you're face lathering, add 3 drops of hot water to the brush and apply this to your face lather to moisten the soap more. This occurs because the soap is starting to dry up on your face (This took me months to master) 

8. Once you see a nice very nice rich, creamy lather on your face that is moist, thick but not dry, you may then begin your first shaving pass. Before we start this process though, ensure that you have a nice bowl or sink of hot water to clean / dip your blade in once the soap and hair fills up the blade.

9. The First Shaving Pass traditionally involves the navigation of the Safety razor with the grain of the hair, that is, with the direction of growth; NEVER against! This is so the razor can slice the facial hair down to the surface of the face with no tugging of the hair and no skin irritation when the face hair is long. This process also limits the chance of hair being cut below the skin on the face, avoiding in-grown hairs!

Never go over the same surface of the face with the razor more than once in order to limit razor burn and nicks. Also apply light pressure with the safety razor to the face, letting the weight of the razor head do all the work. Keep repeating Step 9 all over the face with your Face hair mapping.

10. After your first shaving pass, wet your face with some hot water to get rid of that loose sliced hair and excess shaving soap. This process also soothes the face, allows to keep the pores open and face sterilised.

Note: Remember to keep a very thin layer of soap mixed with the hot water on the face to keep the slickness of the shaving soap on the face.

11. Repeat Step 9 for the Second Shaving Pass, navigating the safety razor to the side of the grain (That is from your side-burn across your cheek to the mid-moustache area). This goes for both sides of the face. With the neck, I like to go with the grain on the second pass to get a closer shave from the first pass, as my neck gets really sensitive.

For me, this would be the end of my shave, but for others, Step 10 would repeat afterwards and then a further Third Shaving Pass that is completely against the grain for an extra BBS shave.

12. I now rinse my entire face with hot water, and then with a hot and damp face wash cloth, apply to my face for 1 minute to sterilise the face. I then apply a nice cold rinse on my face with very cold water, and repeat the face wash cloth process with cold water for another minute. This process closes off all the pores.

13. Without drying off my face, I get a pea sized amount of Proraso Green Pre and Post Shave cream, rub this all over my hands and the apply to my face with the dampness of the cold water.

This dissolves into my face, allowing for a nice eucalyptus menthol and scent to penetrate my skin for around 5 minutes or so. I got this trick from a local barber, and I swear by this process as it worked for me time and time again. You can buy 103 grams of this for around 10 bucks at your local shaving supplier, and it lasts around a year.

14. Once the face is dry, I then apply a damp face wash cloth to my face again for 20 seconds, and then gently rub a wet Alum Block to my face. Alum is a natural astringent, and tightens the facial skin and naturally seals off any nicks or cuts, along with giving you some additional feedback via stinging sensation to areas that you have cut or pushed with the razor.

15. Once you have let the Alum on your face dry, apply an Aftershave Balm and Lotion to the face. Most aftershave balms come with Witch Hazel (an astringent), Alum, Alcohol and Menthol. Yes, this will sting on most occasions, but a stinging sensation means it is doing its work, re-applying moisture back onto the face after a shave, and killing bacteria as well. 

I love using the Dr Jon's Range of Aftershave lotions, as I find that when applied with any type of aftershave balm, they act as an additional barrier of all the free-radicals in the air throughout the day the your face is exposed to, and the scent is everlasting as well.

16. The clean up - Yes, the dreaded clean up of tools used for the shave, but this is very important. Keeping the blade clean with a nice soap or isopropyl after a shave is paramount, killing bacteria if you want to use the blade for multiple shaves.

I also like to clean the Safety Razor with soapy hot water to take off all of the soap scum and prevent additional soap scum buildup.

I also like to let my brush rinse off within the lathering bowl soap with some running hot water to clean the bristles, and shake off any excess water, and allowing both of these tools to drip dry on my razor and brush stand.

That is it guys. 16 steps to an overall perfect shave, every time. Again, this is on a per-person basis, and some or all of these steps may not be right for you and your facial hair, but if you have received at least one or two tid-bits of useful information from this post, I am happy.