5 Benefits Of Using A Barber Brush For Shaving
If you’ve spent most of your life squirting shaving foam out of a can and patting it on your face with your hands, a shaving brush might seem like an absurd concept. You’ve never used a tool to apply your shaving products before. Why start now?
The first part might stem from a misconception. It is really easy to apply the stuff from the can to your face with your hands. The trouble is that it isn’t really shaving cream. The stuff in the can is shaving foam, and it doesn’t do a very good job of protecting your skin. It’s foamy bubbles with propane and butane. It won’t moisturize your skin or help to prevent razor burn as well as actual shaving cream.
Real shaving cream comes in a tub or a tube. That stuff is a little harder to apply with your hands. You need to get it out of the container and onto your face in the most efficient way possible. Since hot lather works better than cold shaving cream, you’ll need a way to get it from the hot lather machine to your face. Your hands probably won’t cut it.
A shaving brush serves many important shaving needs. It will improve the quality of your shave, the application of your shaving cream, and cut down the mess in your bathroom.
So, here’s five benefits of a shaving brush that will hopefully sway you to start using one.
#1: It blends the ingredients of your shaving cream better.
Real shaving cream often contains natural oils and butters that work together to moisturize your skin. With time, these ingredients can separate a little bit. That’s completely normal. It’s simply the nature of the product. You might feel the need to mix your tub of shaving cream or massage the tube before you use it.
Your shaving brush can blend the ingredients directly on your face. Everything swirls together, going from a cream to a lather. You’ll get an even distribution of all the skin healthy nutrients in your shaving cream as you continue to swirl them over the surface of your skin.
#2: It does a better job of working the shaving cream into your face and hair.
When you apply shaving cream with your hands, you’re patting it on top of the hair. When you try to rub it in, you might find that it gets everywhere. The fibers of a shaving brush will work to fully encompass every hair on your face, coating each strand with your shaving cream. The excess will sit on the surface of your skin, beneath your stubble and your beard hair.
You want your shaving cream to come into contact with your skin. Not only does well coated skin prevent razor burn, cuts, nicks, and other shaving mishaps associated with friction, it also improves the health of your skin. All of those wonderful ingredients will only work on your skin if they make contact with it.
When you apply shaving cream with a brush, tilt and angle the brush while you apply it in circular motion. Changing your angles will ensure that you’re working your shaving cream both on top of your hair and underneath it, allowing it to soften and moisturize your skin while you shave.
#3: It keeps your hands dry and makes for less mess.
When you apply shaving cream with your hands, you’re making a big mess. It gets all over your hands and arms, working its way underneath your wedding band. Every time your hands come into contact with your shaving cream, you have to rinse them off.
Then, you hold your razor with wet or pruned hands. Letting your razor slip can be dangerous. A dry grip will give you optimal control over the handle of your razor. A steady grip will allow you to shave with optimal precision and reduce the risk of dropping the razor or letting the handle slip.
Your shaving brush will contain the mess. There’s no reason for you to touch your shaving cream during the application process. Your hands can stay dry.
It will also keep you from making a mess in your bathroom. Shaving cream on your hands can easily translate to shaving cream on your counters, faucet handles, and hand towels. If you don’t want to clean it all up, your brush will help to prevent the spread of shaving cream all over the place.
4: It’s easier to be more precise if you need it.
If you’re going for a particular shape, you need to be as precise as possible. If you cover your whole face in shaving cream, it can be difficult to tell if your shape is symmetrical on both sides. Don’t chance it. When your shaving cream application isn’t precise, you risk shaving too much off one side of your face. You’ll then have to shave more off the other side of your face to compensate.
Applying your shaving cream with a brush assures that you’re precisely applying shaving cream only to the spots where you want to shave. It’s easy to paint it directly onto your hair. After you’ve applied your shaving cream, you can easily check to see if your application is symmetrical. If it isn’t, it’s much easier to remove and reapply shaving cream than it is to wait for your beard to grow back.
5: They help with gentle exfoliation.
Exfoliating before you shave is important. Allowing dead skin cells to accumulate on your skin can negatively impact your shave in a number of ways. Dead skin creates a barrier between your razor and your hair. You can’t get a close shave with dead skin in the way.
Your razor will pick up some of this dead skin, but with a few consequences. Your blade will dull faster from scraping off the dead cells. It will also clog up with your skin flakes. You’ll need to rinse your blade more thoroughly than you usually do, and replace your blade after every save or two. Exfoliating completely prevents this problem.
Exfoliation also goes a long way in preventing ingrown hairs. If dead skin blocks hair from being able to emerge through the surface of your skin, that hair will become trapped and ultimately become an ingrown hair. A little exfoliation now can save you a big problem in the future.
Shaving brushes will help to dislodge and remove the remainder of the dead skin that your exfoliator couldn’t quite get. It’s a gentle boost to an exfoliating treatment that makes them just a bit more effective. Exfoliate first, rinse your face, and apply your shaving cream with a brush. The surface of your skin will feel the smoothest it’s ever felt.
How Do I Choose a Shaving Brush?
A quality shaving brush is a small, bushy brush made of natural fibers like boar bristles. The handle is usually made of wood. There are shaving brushes made of synthetic bristles with plastic handles, but they’re usually not built to last.
Virtually every shaving brush made of natural materials will be of decent quality.
Conclusion
A shaving brush isn’t a fad gadget that adds an extra step to your shaving routine. It’s an important tool for shaving correctly and taking proper care of your skin. Your shaving brush will keep your routine neater, cleaner, and easier.
Once you’ve tried it, you’ll never go back.
Sources:
https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care/body-oils-for-dry-skin
https://www.allure.com/story/how-often-should-you-exfoliate
https://empoweredsustenance.com/boar-bristle-brush-benefits/