Shave your Face

• TASK: Shave your face in order to have a well groomed appearance.
• CONDITIONS: Given a can of shaving cream, a safety razor, a sink, and a hand towel.
• STANDARD: You must be able to shave your face with a minimum of cuts and scratches.

​Shaving, like many other tasks, is a skill that is relatively easy to learn, but can take a long time to master depending on how deep you want to go. You can learn the skills necessary to scrape the hair off of your face in about 10 minutes. If, however, you want to take the time to learn how to handle a straight razor and sculpt your jawline, you can easily work to refine your technique for your entire life.

The instruction offered here is aimed more at the man who just needs to be clean-shaven every morning with a minimum of maintenance and effort. It’s a good starting point for the young man who has just started sprouting facial hair and is trying to learn the basics of the skill.

Lather Up
Spray a small dollop of shaving cream into the palm of your hand. If you use a gel, spray a somewhat smaller dollop and the rub your hands together to work it up into a cream. Once you have a handful of white foamy cream, just start rubbing it on your face. It’s not important where you start or end, just as long as the outline of where your beard and mustache grow is covered.

Don’t worry too much about making a mess. Shaving cream is easy to clean up with your hand towel or a damp rag.

Shave
Once your face is covered in shaving cream, the next step is to use the safety razor to scrape the hair and shaving cream off your face. There are three basic directions that you can pull the razor along your face:

• With the grain
• Beside the grain
• Against the grain

The direction that you shave relative to the “grain” is determined by which direction the your whiskers are growing. For example, the whiskers on the side of a man’s face tend to grow downward towards his neck while the hairs on his neck tend to grow upwards towards his chin. Take the time to learn your facial topography before you start shaving.

With every stroke of the razor, it will collect an amount of shaving cream and whiskers. Rinse the blade after each stroke to ensure that you’re using a clean blade every time.

With the Grain
If you pull the razor in the same direction as the hair grows, then you are shaving with the grain. Shaving with the grain is a great place to start learning as it has the least likelihood of causing nicks and cuts and still produces a clean shave that will last most men through a workday.

Beside the Grain
If you pull the razor sideways across the direction that the hair grows, then you are shaving beside the grain. This is also a good way to get a close shave and is only slightly more prone to causing nicks and cuts.

Against the Grain
Finally, if you shave in the opposite direction that the hair grows, you’re shaving against the grain. This will give you the closest shave, but is also prone to causing nicks and cuts if your blades aren’t sharp. Shaving against the grain with a dull razor is bound to cause all kinds of unpleasantness.

Nicks and Cuts
At some point, you are going to cut yourself. It’s going to happen and it’s ok. The easiest way to deal with this is to take a small piece of wadded up toilet paper and press it onto the cut with your finger for at least 10 seconds to stop the bleeding. After the bleeding has stopped, leave the toilet paper bandage in place until you’re done shaving and then throw it away.

Wrapping Up
After you’ve shaved your face, it’s time to clean up and get ready to face the day. Splash warm water on your face to rinse off any remaining shaving cream or just use the towel to clean it away. Also, be sure to rinse out the sink. It’s a simple thing to do and will show respect for the other people that use the sink.

Pay attention to how your face feels throughout the day. Pay particular attention to the relationship between ingrown whiskers and the direction that you used to shave with. You can greatly influence the development of ingrown whiskers by learning how quickly your whiskers grow and the direction you shave.

If your whiskers grow slowly and you shave against the grain, you’ll likely end up with a lot of ingrown hairs as your skin will heal up over the follicle before it has a chance to grow out. If you notice ingrown hairs, try shaving with the grain so that you end up without such a close shave and your whiskers have a chance to regrow before your skin heals over them.

If you still have trouble with ingrown hairs even when you shave with the grain, try shaving with a set of electric clippers or a beard trimmer that will leave a stubble in place. You won’t get a smooth shave, but you also won’t get ingrown hairs.