AlbaTherapies

1) Cleanse your face:

The first and most important step to obtaining the best shave is to wet your face with warm to hot water. This ensures that the hairs of your beard are as soft as possible as well as opening up your pores and helping to lift the hairs upward. Soak a facecloth in warm water, and hold it to your beard for 30 seconds. This will help soften and loosen the hair and skin. Give your face a quick towel dry.

2) Apply Shaving Oil:

This next step is a little trick that we picked up from reading old school shaving adverts. It is optional, but definitely helps for an even better shave. Try applying a little shaving oil to the face prior to lathering up as it will ensure that the blades glide extra smoothly across the skin while cutting the beard and help reduce razor burn. Apply a few drops of ScruF shaving oil to your hand and in a circular motion rub it into your beard. This helps lift the hair away from the skin, and exfoliate the skin at the same time, again reducing the chance of skin irritation.

3) Pretend to Lather Up:

Next, using your hand or a badger hair brush, apply the shaving balm up and down over all of the areas that you are going to shave. The up and down motion of your hand will exfoliate your skin and help soften your beard even more. Continue applying the shaving balm evenly across your beard for about a minute until you’ve got a thin layer of having balm that covers the areas that you will be shaving. ScruF shaving balm is a non foaming shave balm, and therefore does NOT need extra water to be added for shaving. We suggest using a “LOADED RAZOR” which means, dipping the razor into a sink filled with hot water, which cleans any clogged blades as well as LOADING the razor with water.

4) Shaving:

Begin by shaving one side of your face while you work slowly towards the other side. Be sure to hold your razor at a 90 degree angle, use downward strokes, going from up to down, so that you are shaving with the direction that your hair grows. You DO NOT want to shave against the grain of your hairs, from down to up, because it can cause irritation, redness, razor burn, and ingrown hairs. Also, remember not to press too hard against your face when using a double edged razor. All you will be doing is scraping off your skin and getting razor burn. Rinse your razor as you go. Regularly rinsing your razor in hot water. If necessary, tap it on the sink to dislodge clogged hair and cream or oil (but avoid tapping the blade directly, as this will obviously dull it). A clogged blade will not perform well.

Rinse with the coolest water that is comfortable and pat dry with a clean towel. (DON’T RUB JUST PAT DRY)

5) Moisturize:

After shaving, use ScruF cooling cream which contains soothing vitamin E and Aloe Butter to replace any nutrients that may have been lost in the shaving process. After shaving, is when your skin is most vulnerable, shaving can remove up to two layers of skin. There is no other regular activity that does this, which is why it is so important to use a good quality moisturizer after shaving.