Skin care

FYI: You're Showering All Wrong

Tired of unruly hair and dry skin? It's time to give your showering routine a facelift

by Erica Smith | COMMENT

PHOTO 8/10

You're Slacking in the Shaving Department How it's hurting: If you're rushing your shaving routine (it's annoying, we get it), holding onto your razors too long or nonchalantly running them over your legs without prepping your skin first, you're setting yourself up for ingrown hairs, itchy skin and nicks galore.

The fix: The cardinal rule of shaving? "Always use a sharp razor," say Dawn Gardner-Kasper and Sara Sortino, the founders of DermGirls. That means replacing those blades after every five to seven shaves and never storing them in your shower where they stay wet and rust. "If you're prone to ingrown hair, use a single or double blade and shave with the hair growth." Also key: how well you prep your skin in the shower.

According to Gardner-Kasper and Sortino, exfoliating before shaving helps release any ingrown hairs that may be trapped under dead skin, allowing your razor to cut further down the hair shaft for a closer shave. To help lock in moisture, use a moisturizing shaving cream in lieu of a body cleanser, and simply rinse your skin with warm water. And while we all live on different shave schedules, according to the DermGirls, the best time to shave is at night. While you sleep, growth hormones are hard at work regenerating and multiplying cells to compensate for the ones you damaged by running a sharp blade over them multiple times.

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