4 Shaving Tips For Summer

Goodbye razor burn, hello smooth legs 👋🏼

In April, I had back to back beach vacations and it was such a dream come true.  Winter had only just ended, so my skin hadn’t had sun exposure for at least 6 months.  And though it was wonderful to live in a bikini for 3 weeks and feel the heat of the sun, I came home with painful razor burn, in-grown hairs, and tan, but extremely dry and flaky skin.  It’s a lot for your skin to handle increased shaving, the chemicals in pool water, and daily sunscreen application, and truthfully, I didn’t do much at the time to help combat the effects of that.

There were some tough lessons to learn, but I have since implemented really subtle changes to my shaving regime and my skin has never looked or felt better post-shave!

In partnership with Schick and AVEENO, I’m sharing a few of these newly discovered tips and tricks, as well as my favourite tools to achieve a better shave and healthier skin.  All just in time for summer!

Pick A Quality Razor

Your razor has a lot to do with the ability to achieve a closer shave.  It was really fun to test out a variety of Schick razors, especially their new Schick Intuition f.a.b that can shave forwards and backward safely, which is bananas!  My current favourites?  The Schick Quattro is a classic and has been my go-to for many,  many years. With a pivoting head and 4 blades, it also has a lubricating strip to help reduce irritation, as well as vitamin E.  I’m also loving the Schick Intuition, which lathers AND shaves for a magical 2-in-1 combo.  Also has 4 blades and a pivoting head that glides with the curves of your body, and it conditions to moisturize while you shave, which feels absolutely heavenly on your legs!

Don’t forget to change the razors out as needed.  Blunt blades increase your chances of cuts and make a close shave incredibly tough to achieve!

Take Care During The Process

This might seem a tad obvious but are we really all that careful when we’re quickly shaving our legs in the shower?  It’s part of my daily routine and yet, I am definitely guilty of rushing through it some days.  Concentration is the best way to avoid nicks, even on those half awake mornings just going through the motions.  Be sure to go against the direction of hair growth, unless you are sensitive and prone to in-growns in the area, in which case it is okay to go in the same direction.  Also, slow down and aim for shorter shaving strokes around tricky areas like ankles and knees (or specifically to me, the psoriasis patch on my knee that you might have noticed).  Those are definitely the spots that I can end up with painful cuts just because I rushed through!

Exfoliate

Hope this isn’t TMI, but when I was on those beach vacations, I was shaving my bikini line every single day and it resulted in some embarrassing and painful razor burn.  What I didn’t know, is that a little exfoliation before shaving gets rid of dead skin and helps alleviate potential razor burn.  As soon as I got home, I exfoliated, and the next day the bumps were gone!  I’ve since implemented this regime with my legs and armpits and it has been amazing!!  My go-to is the AVEENO POSITIVELY RADIANT Exfoliating Body Wash, which I will forever now pack in a travel-friendly container and bring with me on beach trips!  It’s gentle as well as moisturizing and is great if applied with your hands as you would with any body wash.  It works really well, I highly recommend!

Moisturize Often

I started making it part of my shower routine to moisturize right after drying off.  It was initially because my skin was so dry and peeling from sun exposure, but it’s really something that I will try to keep up year-round.  The AVEENO POSITIVELY RADIANT Body Lotion now lives on our bathroom counter to help promote consistent use and it has definitely been working.  No more scaly legs for this lady!

All products mentioned are available at Shoppers Drug Mart.  If there are any shaving tips that I’ve missed, or if you have any questions, be sure to let me know in the comments below!

This post is in partnership with Schick, AVEENO, and Shoppers Drug Mart.  As always, all opinions are my own.