Today you will discover How to Deal with Irritated Skin After Shaving.
This post is courtesy of Paul Agelidis, the Founder and Owner at Revolucion, a cigar, tobacco and men’s gift shop.
Human skin can be annoyingly sensitive even when it seems like nothing is happening to it, but anyone who’s ever shaved knows it’s even worse when you introduce some kind of razor to it.
Red skin, ingrown hairs, acne, general itchiness, and rashes are common forms of irritated skin that can happen after shaving, and it can be frustrating to deal with this time and time again.
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Thankfully, there are a few easy treatments and remedies you can use to help make the irritation go away. If nothing works, it’s a good idea to consult your doctor or a dermatologist. Here are some of the common ways to deal with irritated skin after shaving.
Stop Shaving
Even if you do everything right when you shave, you can still wind up with irritated skin. At the end of the day you’re still dragging sharp blades across your skin in order to cut the hairs as close to the skin as possible. It might not happen every time, but you’re going to get cuts, ingrown hairs, acne, or general dry and itchy skin.
However, it is important that you do not shave again while your skin is still irritated — that’s a good way to make an existing problem even worse. If you have acne or ingrown hairs that are raised from your skin, the blades are likely to cut them and potentially cause them to be infected. If you have a rash, or general red and dry skin, the blades will likely exacerbate the problem.
Depending on how serious or widespread the irritation is, you might need to wait a few days or even up to a week until you are fully clear of any signs of irritation. In general, however, it should only take a day or two. Using the other tips below to treat irritation will help speed up the process.
Use Aftershave
Aftershave exists for a reason, and it is specifically to help treat your skin immediately after you finish shaving to prevent irritation from happening. There are different types of aftershave that help prevent or treat different types and causes of irritated skin. You can get aftershave in a cream, gel, or liquid balm.
The first types of aftershave all used alcohol for its antiseptic and antibacterial properties, but that tends to dry out your skin and potentially cause its own irritation. Now, the best aftershaves you can find will use soothing ingredients such as naturally occurring oils, vitamins, minerals, and so on.
Ingredients such as aloe vera help calm your skin, tea tree oil kills any bacteria on your skin or in your pores to prevent infections or acne, and witch hazel helps nourish dry skin after shaving.
When using aftershave, splash your face with cold water first to clear away any dead skin cells or debris caused by shaving. The cold temperature also closes up the pores in your skin that shaving can open. Dry your face by softly pressing it with a towel, and then gently massage your aftershave into your skin. Make sure you spread it evenly and completely over the areas you shaved.
Use Moisturizing Lotions
Aftershave is good to use immediately after shaving to help soothe, hydrate and clean your skin of any irritation and bacteria to prevent irritated skin. However, if you wind up with patches of irritated skin anyways you should switch to lotions that are better at repairing and moisturizing your skin to treat the irritation after the fact.
Any of the natural oils and ingredients listed above are also good in these lotions. You can also look for these ingredients in any good quality lotion:
- Coconut oil — strengthens your epidermal skin layer, protects against sun damage, cleanses and moisturizes your skin
- Avocados — contains fatty acids and vitamins A, D and E that soothe the skin, and improves collagen production to create new and healthy skin cells
- Shea butter — contains fatty acids and vitamins A, E and F, protects against sun damage, reduces inflammation, and moisturizes your skin
- Jojoba oil — great at moisturizing and used in many products to treat burns, sores, psoriasis, and so on
With this lotion, you can use it twice a day — when you wake up and before you go to bed — and apply it in the same manner as the aftershave described above. Keep using it until the irritation goes away.
Clean or Replace Your Old Blades
If you keep getting irritated skin after shaving, you should look into the blades you use in your electric or standard razor. The blades will get dirty after using them as they accumulate bits of hair, dead skin, and any dirt in the hair and skin pores the blades scrape away.
If you think you keep your blades well maintained but still have irritated skin all the time, try washing them with hot water a few times in the middle of shaving.
With proper maintenance, you can keep them clean and sharp like new for as many as 10 or 12 shaves without needing to replace them. However, if you want to be extra careful and can stomach the extra cost, you can replace them every 3 to 5 shaves just in case. If you use an electric razor, you will need to replace the blades or foils every 6 to 18 months, depending on the quality of the blades and how well you maintain them.
Use a Cold Compress
Irritated skin involves dryness, inflammation, and redness. If you’re having a flare-up of the symptoms and just want to do something that will provide immediate relief, you can try doing a cold compress. The cold temperature and moisture help reduce inflammation and redness, as well as provide basic moisturizing to reduce dryness and itchiness.
You can do a cold compress by taking a clean cloth and running it under cold water. You can also dip it in a bowl of ice water, but if the temperature is too cold you might cause a different kind of irritation. You can also add things like tea tree oil or aloe vera to the cloth.
Take the cloth when it is wet and apply it to the irritated area.
You can either lightly press it to the skin or drape it over the area so gravity does it for you. Keep it on the area for up to 10 minutes and remove it. Do not scrub your skin with it, as that will only aggravate the irritated area.
Author Bio: Paul Agelidis has been the founder and owner of Revolucion, a 
Canadian cigar, tobacco and men’s gift shop in Vancouver, since 2005.
For the last decade Paul has worked very hard to become an expert in tobacco products, men’s care, travel & accessories, body & bath, and gifts & home.
Prior to 2005, from 1997 – 2005 Paul worked in the wholesale cigar industry and travelled to the annual cigar trade show (Habanos Festival every February). He loves to share his tips with others who are looking to achieve a complete lifestyle with the finer things in life.
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