Shaving your head in the shower is going to save you a bunch of time each morning. You will never have to walk around with a fuzzy looking head since you be able to quickly shave it.
If you wish to have a shiny dome, you need to shave it at least every two days. Personally, I find that my scalp is too sensitive for daily shaving. It dries out too quickly and it seems to be slightly sore if I shave my skull too often.
The set-up is important for shaving your head in the shower. If you get this down pat, shaving in a hot steamy environment will be a piece of cake. You will never have to deal with the sloppy mess around your minuscule bathroom sink.
I notice that when I shave my head at my sink, that I get shaving cream on the mirror. Also, once you add water to the shaving cream, it will drip onto your bathroom counter and also all over the water sprout and faucets.
Here are the 8 easy steps that will steer you in the right direction for enjoyable head shavings.
1. Wash your Body First
Before you even start to think about shaving your head, you need to wash your body first. The humid warm air will relax your scalp and open up your pores and distress your follicles. Also, running hot water over your scalp will relax the muscles in the scalp.
Before conducting my research on the scalp, I had assumed that there will just perhaps a minor muscle in the temple that helped to control the jaw while chewing. There is actually a large muscle runs down the sides of your skull.
You need to relax the muscles in the scalp so that there is less chance of cutting into the skin while shaving your head. If you are tense, you will contract the muscles in your scalp creating ridges that the blades will cut into while you are shaving. The surface needs to remain as flat as possible.
Make sure that when you are showering and washing your body that the temperature of the water is not too high. Experts state that 110 degrees Fahrenheit about the highest that your hot water heater should be heating your water.
If you are showering at a temperature that is too high, the skin on your scalp will turn red and it will begin to swell. A scalp that is even slightly inflamed will be much harder to shave. A swollen scalp will not be as smooth as a scalp that is non-swollen.
There is no need to shower for a long period of time. Three to four minutes is usually long enough for someone to wash completely there body. That amount of time will relax your scalp.
2. Adjust Water Flow to Conserve Water
I have read a lot of messages in forums about how we all need to conserve water. An article by Standford University states that a shower uses 10-25 gallons of water for a 5-minute shower. On the other hand, a bathtub requires 70 gallons to be filled.
I was shocked, I had been assuming that I was using 2-3 times more water by taking a shower versus submerging my tall body into a bathtub. Of course, if you are taking 20-minute showers several times a day, you will be using a lot more water than a daily bath would use up.
Nevertheless, you should be using a shower head that allows you to reduce or even turn off the flow of water. When you are lathering up your body, it is actually more productive to reduce the flow of water so that the soap can work its way into your skin crevices.
I have noticed that there are showerheads that can be purchased online on Amazon that are low flow showerheads. Make sure to purchase one that has a flow rate of 1.5 gpm (gallons per minute). If you were to use a low-flow type, you will automatically cut your usage by over fifty percent!
3. Apply Shaving Cream
After washing your body completing, enough time has passed, your scalp is well-relaxed and your pores are open. Now you start to add shaving cream to your head.
The first step, of course, is to rinse your body completely of any soap residue. Especially ensure that you have rinsed your hands if you are using shaving cream that comes in a can. If your hands are slippery, you could drop the can easily.
I would suggest that you buy shaving cream that comes in a tube. This type of product is gel-like but you can hold onto the tube even if you are in a rush and you have fully rinsed off your body yet. Just simply squeeze a line of the gel into one of your hands. Now, rub your hands together until the gel has foamed up somewhat.
Apply the cream to the top of your head and then spread it down over to the back of your head right down to the bottom of your neck. I have a lot of hair that grows on the back of my neck, and I just shave off my neck while shaving my head.
4. Have in Hand a Razor that has 5 Blades
You need to add some water to your razor before you start to glide it over your head. The water alone will lubricate the blades and once they touch the shaving cream, they will be ready to safely cut away your head hairs. If you do not add some water to the razor blades, you increase the risk of razor burn which can look nasty on your head.
I was using a three blade Gillette razor called Mach 3 for years. The problem with that razor is that does not have a head that can pivot to follow the contours of your head. Since your head is full of hills and valleys, you need to have a razor that can change its blade position on its own instead of the need of becoming a contortionist while shaving.
The Gillette ProGlide Fusion 5 Razor (link to Amazon) has a head that pivots from side to side. This technology is called the flexball and it is unique to Gillette. This razor can pivot as much as 24 degrees to each side.
I was able to follow the contours of my head with their 3 blade system, but it took a lot of practice in order to avoid cutting into my scalp. The scalp is full of veins and even a tiny nick can cause blood to leak down your head.
I have noticed that I use a razor for more than a week, the sharpness is no longer there and I have to push slightly harder into my scalp to remove the hairs down to their roots. That is a tactic that you avoid at all costs. When you shave, you should not be applying pressure, just let the razor glide over the surface of your scalp.
Also, once you have nicked your scalp, it sometimes can take days for your body to repair the cut. During that time, the chance of opening up the nick numerous time is quite high.
5. Shave the Front Portion of your Head
The first shaving step to shave the front part of your head. I am assuming that you have already lathered up your head and that you had wet your razor with warm water.
We are going to do two passes while shaving your head. The first pass will be with the grain of hair growth. In a later step, I will explain how to complete the second pass. We are going with the grain so that there will less chance of getting nicks and cuts. If you were to shave with the grain right away, you would be pulling on your scalp skin that will make the surface less flat.
Starting at the very top of your head, pull the razor gently along your scalp up until you have reached the top of your forehead. Some men will not have any hair at all in this region, but it still good for your skin because it will remain the dead skin cells and it will ensure that even the tiniest hairs will be removed.
Redo this procedure until you have covered the complete front portion of your head. Also, after every 3 lines that you have shaved, rinse the razor under warm water for a few seconds and then tap the razor lightly against your sink in order to dislodge a large portion of the whisker fragments. If you do not clean off the razor from time to time, it will clog and its performance will be hindered.
Make sure that you have a small towel handy, because from time to time, streaks of foam filled water may roll into your eyes which is not terribly pleasant.
You should also shave the sides of your head during this step. Again, starting from the top of your head, pull the razor through your scalp down to the level of the bottom of your ears. For the area that is just above your ear, bent down the top of your ear so that you will not accidentally cut into it.
You should use small strokes around the ear because the skin is quite sensitive in this portion of your scalp.
6. Shave the Back of your Head and also the Top of your Head
Now you will be shaving the back your head. This is the portion that I find to be the hardest to shave because of its rounded shape. Also, there is a bone that creates a small bump at the back of your skull. This bone is called the external occipital protuberance. It comes to a point. The spinal cord attaches to the skull via this bone. It also has muscle tissue attached to it that helps to stabilize your head.
The structure of this bone makes it very hard to shave cleanly. It starts off as a hard surface and then once you have reached just below it, the tissue is more flexible since it has muscle underneath it.
To shave this area, you start from the top of your head and pull the razor gently down to the bottom of your neck. Complete a few extra passes close to the protruding bone in the middle of the back of your skull.
I like to shave my neck during this step because my neck hair tends to grow very quickly. Nevertheless, I have noticed that the hair on the back of my neck is very fine and easy to shave.
You should also shave the top of your head at this point. For most people, the grain will be going towards the forehead. This the direction that you will need to pull the razor.
If you have two large ridges on the very top of your head as I do, you need to shave from the very top of your head towards the sides of your head so that you can deal adequately with the ridges that are creating slight obstacles for you.
7. Redo the above steps against the Grain and Run your Hand over your Head to Feel for Portions that you had Missed
I wanted to explain why the hair is usually not growing straight up and down. It is all based on genetics. If you have wavy hair, one reason is that your follicle enters into demis at a slight angle. The shape of the follicle can also cause a wave in a hair. A follicle that is oval in shape will produce wavy hair. Nevertheless, we are more concerned with the angle of the follicle when it comes to shaving.
Since a lot of Caucasians or people of African descent have non-straight hair, the likelihood of follicles forming at an angle is quite high. With follicles that enter the dermis at an angle, there is a grain or a direction of hair growth.
By following the above steps, you have completed a full pass over your head with the grain of hair growth. We did this because if your hair is longer, there is more of a chance that you will pull away at the hair if you were to shave it right away against the grain which could irritate the skin.
Now you need to allow shower water to rinse off the shaving cream that remains and then lather up your head again.
For the front of your head, start at top of your forehead and shave to the top of your head. This direction is going against the grain of your hair. It will provide with a super close shave.
For the sides of your head, the grain goes from the neck up to the top of your head. This is the direction that you need to take for the sides of your head for this step.
Now, you need to shave the back of your head. First of all, you need to start at the bottom of your neck and pull the razor to the top of your head. After you have shaved with the grain of growth for the back of your head, you need to shave the top of your head.
The top of your head will almost already be shaved smooth because you were started near the top of the head when shaving the other portions of your scalp. The grain direction will vary on the top of your head. Use your non-dominant hand to feel the direction of the grain and shave against the grain.
The next step is to use the bathroom mirror to verify that you have completed shaved your head. Rinse the remaining shaving cream from your head and dry off your body.
8. The last step, check the Back of your Head
Hold a small handheld mirror behind your head and look into your bathroom mirror. You need to verify that you had adequately shaved the back of your head. Because of the acute angle in the back of your skull, this area can be easily missed when shaving in the shower. I recommend the unbreakable hand mirror by Deatti (link to Amazon).
If you have noticed that you had missed a spot, add a tiny amount of shaving cream and add it onto the small patch that has stubble on it. Now, run some warm over your razor and shave off the patch in an upward direction.
Congratulations, you have completely shaved your head in the shower and you have saved yourself a ton of time!
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