How to Shave Your Head With a Safety Razor
Shaving your own head can be pretty tricky. When you’re shaving your face, the mirror gives you all the perspective you need. Shaving your head requires a little bit more confidence. You need to be sure that you’re removing every hair evenly, and without causing unnecessary irritation to your scalp.
Safety razors will give you much better results than cartridge razors, but they’re also trickier to use. Cartridge razors are designed to make it a little more difficult to mess up. Safety razors, like the name implies, are a little more accident-proof than straight razors. That doesn’t mean they’re completely foolproof.
Prepping your head correctly and going in with an effective strategy will help you achieve a shave just as smooth and flawless as The Rock. Practice certainly helps.
Buzz Your Head First
If you currently have hair on your head that’s longer than 1/8th of an inch, don’t go in there with the razor. You’re going to make a mess and miss a bunch of spots, clogging up your safety razor and dulling the blade rapidly. Use electric clippers to buzz your head first, getting it as short as possible. The shorter your hair is, the easier it will be to shave.
Buzzing first also helps to prevent remorse. If you aren’t sure how you’ll look with a bald head, buzz it shorter and shorter. If you feel like you want to stop, you still have time to change your mind before all your hair is gone. If you’re still into the idea before you’ve gotten to the shaving process, proceed.
Shampoo Your Head
Before you begin shaving, you need to have a clean head. Shampooing your head will rinse away the hair clippings from buzzing your head and help to slough off any dandruff or flakes that accumulated under your hair. Take a hot shower and give yourself a scalp massage to prepare your head.
You should continue shampooing your head, even when it’s fully bald. Your scalp produces and accumulates a lot of oils that need to be routinely washed away, just like any other part of your body.
Lather Up
Keeping your head warm and moisturized throughout your shave will minimize the risk for irritation.
Using hot lather with a coconut oil enriched shaving cream will protect your head and help your safety razor glide. That’s why barbers use hot lather and superior shaving cream when they shave your head at the barber shop.
You may want to have a mirror behind you and a mirror in front of you. Positioning a mirror behind you can reflect the reflection of your head into the mirror in front of you, allowing you to see what you’re doing without climbing onto the bathroom counter or awkwardly contorting yourself.
If you don’t have a way to set up two mirrors, it should be relatively easy to feel where you’ve placed the lather. Liberally applying it in gentle circular motions will prevent dry spots.
Shaving Your Head
When shaving your head with a safety razor, you want to start from the center of your head and shave downwards, following the grain. Going against the grain will only increase the risk for razor burn, razor bumps, and other kinds of shaving irritation.
Use a new safety razor blade to shave your head. You want it to be as sharp as possible. Even if you’ve only shaved your face with the blade, it’s still going to be dull from the coarser hair of your beard.
Safety razor blades only cost a few pennies, so if you feel as though the blade is dulling a little bit as you continue to shave, you might as well swap it out again. A scalp free from irritation is certainly worth a dime.
Hold the safety razor at a 45 degree angle to your head. Depending on how comfortable you are with your safety razor, you can hold your head still and gradually adjust the angle with your wrist as you make your way down. Some men prefer to slightly move their heads. Do what feels most comfortable and intuitive to you.
The skin on your head is going to move around a lot more than the skin on your face, and this is something you need to keep in mind while you’re shaving. It’s easier to shave your head when the skin is taut, and holding it still with your free hand is the easiest way to achieve that problem.
Pressing two fingers to your temple and gently tugging down can help you achieve a smooth shave in a single pass around your ear. When it comes time to shave the back of your head, holding your chin to your chest will naturally stretch the skin a little tighter.
After every pass, thoroughly rinse your safety razor with warm running water to dislodge trapped hairs and remove excess shaving cream.
When you’re done, rinse your head off and towel it dry. Feel and look for any patches that you may have missed. Apply more hot lather to those spots and go again. Don’t reshave your entire head just because you’ve missed a few patches. Keep your second pass localized.
Rinse again and moisturize your head. Don’t forget to apply sunscreen to your head. It can and will develop sunburn very easily. A UV blocking hat is helpful for sunny days where you’ll be outside a lot.
The Takeaway
A safety razor will give you the smoothest possible shave for both your head and your face. It just takes a little bit of patience, time, and maneuvering to work out the perfect technique.
LTHR’s countertop hot lather machine will dispense the perfect lather to moisturize and protect your face and scalp while softening your beard and hair to help you achieve the perfect shave every time.
Sources:
How to Care for a Shaved Head: 6 Tips from the Pros | St Baldrick's Foundation
Pseudofolliculitis Barbae | American Osteopathic College of Dermatology
Ask the Expert: How Can I Protect My Scalp Better? | Skin Cancer Foundation