Do not shave your beard daily

“Should you shave your beard every day or not?” is a question that has a number of answers without any solid conclusion. Daily shaving can be an everyday routine for some and might be a waste of time and inconvenience for others. Here is our take on why you shouldn’t shave your beard every day. This article will discuss why you shouldn’t shave every day and how often you actually need to shave.

Reasons to not shave your beard daily

Here are some reasons why you should not shave your beard every day.

Natural oil

If you shave daily, it removes all of your natural oils from the skin and makes the skin dry.

Healing Time

Giving your skin a day or two to heal in between shaving sessions can help keep skin healthy, smooth, clear, and well-nourished.

Protection

Beards protect the skin underneath it from all the pollution, dirt, and harsh conditions. Beards lock moisture and prevent skin from drying out.

Age

You might look younger than you are. It would be good if you are in your late thirties or forties, but if you are in your twenties and shave every day, you might look way younger than you are, which might not give the authoritative feeling.

Sensitivity

Shaving every day irritates your skin every day and thus might damage your skin over the long term. It could cause redness, spots, ingrown hair, and many more skin problems.

Ingrown hair

Pseudofolliculitis barbae occurs in the beard region due to close shaving, which causes the beard to retract beneath the skin surface. It occurs due to the inflammatory reaction around ingrown facial hair. When an ingrown beard grows, the sharp pointed end of a recently shaved hair comes out from the skin and re-enters the skin close by, causing a foreign body inflammatory reaction. Ingrown can become acne-like red bumps which can be itchy and tender.

Read our take on how to prevent ingrown hair on your face.

Skin peel

Razors cut your facial hair and also run the blade across your skin and peel it. It can cause too much exfoliation and complicate your skin problems.

Darken skin

Too much shaving can irritate skin and exfoliate too much, which together cause pigmentation or darkening of the beard skin.

How often should you shave?

There is no hard-and-fast rule on how often you should shave. It is dependent upon you and what beard type you want. You might not want to shave for six months or more if you are growing medium to a longer beard style. But then also you need to decide when you don’t want any beard and want to shave your beard.

You can skip at least two or three days after every shave to make sure your skin recovers a little, and there is a little beard or stubble to shave off.

It also largely depends on how fast your beard grows. Some might need five to eight days, while some might need just two days to get a light stubble.

Side effects of shaving

Here are some common and frequent side effects that almost everyone experiences after a shave:

Razor burns
Itching.
Nicks/cuts.
Blisters/acne
Ingrown hairs (pseudofolliculitis)
Inflamed hair follicles (folliculitis)
Irritant contact dermatitis.

Tips for shaving your beard

Wet your beard with warm water before shaving, and make sure to use shaving cream every time you shave to hydrate your beard.
Shave in the direction of beard or hair growth to cut down the irritation on your skin.
Do not apply too many strokes. Use 1-2 strokes of the razor to decrease the risk of hair slipping into your skin.
Don’t shave too closely with the skin. The shorter the hair, the more the chance of getting ingrown hair.
Wash your face with cold water after shaving and apply a moisturizing aftershave to soothe skin.
Always use a new sharp safety razor. Change blades as soon as they become blunt or get nicks in them.
Do not use a double-blade razor as they are more harmful than good. Always use good old single-blade razors for shaving.
Do not shave over wounds, cuts, sores, acne, or rashes. It makes the skin healing very slow and also leads to hyperpigmentation. It can also introduce many microbes and cause infection.
Never share your razors with anyone. Razors glide across the skin and pick up bacteria or fungi from the skin. This could be transmitted to anyone who uses the razor.

Take Away

You should not shave your beard every day due to numerous reasons. It does more harm than good. It causes hyperpigmentation, removes protection to the skin, gets rid of natural oils, and too much exfoliation. All these damages are caused due to a lack of beard or skin irritation. So you need to remove the thought or even habit of shaving your beard daily.

You also need to delay the shaving sessions by two or three days to let your skin heal. This article discusses the reasons for not shaving every day and how often you should actually shave your beard.