Men's Aftershave & Post Shave Care (Shaving & Grooming)

A shave does two things at once. It cuts hair, and it scrapes off a share of the dead surface cells that hold water in the skin. Post shave care answers the second half. Something to discourage bacteria in freshly opened follicles, something to replace the water and lipids that came off, and something to stop a nick bleeding.

Splashes and tonics are mostly alcohol, water and fragrance, so they flash off, disinfect and sting hard, which many people misread as evidence of working. Balms are emulsions built on glycerin, aloe and light oils with little or no alcohol, and they suit dry, sensitive and cold weather skin. Gels sit between the two, cooling without leaving a film. An alum block is potassium alum pressed into a bar: rubbed wet across the face it tightens skin, mildly disinfects, and stings precisely where you pressed too hard. This makes it a free lesson in technique. A styptic pencil is aluminum sulfate and belongs only on a nick that keeps bleeding, held wet against the spot for about 10 seconds.

Ingrown hairs answer to chemical exfoliation rather than to digging. A salicylic or glycolic acid product two or three times a week keeps follicle openings clear. An Exfoliant used the night before a shave does more than anything applied afterward. Never lift a buried hair with a sewing needle, and use a pointed pair from Tweezers & Precision Tools only on a loop already visible above the skin. Freshly shaved skin also burns faster with its top cell layer thinned, so Sunscreen matters more on shaving days rather than less.

Moisturizer covers most of what a balm does, and on dry skin a plain fragrance free one is often the cheaper and better choice. Heavily scented splashes overlap with Cologne, and wearing both puts two competing scents on one face. Drop one old idea while you are here: cold water does not close pores, since pores have no muscle to close with. Cool water briefly narrows blood vessels and takes the heat out of a sting, and that is the whole effect.

Read the first five ingredients rather than the claim on the front. Alcohol denat high on the list means a splash and a dry finish. By comparison, glycerin and an oil high on the list mean a balm. Fragrance free beats every soothing claim on reactive skin, because fragrance causes more cosmetic reactions than any other ingredient. Keep bottles off a sunny windowsill, and stop using anything that stings skin it never used to sting, since that is a damaged barrier asking for a week of plain moisturizer and nothing else.