I tried face-shaving for girls

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I tried face-shaving for girls

Braving the de-fuzz for that Hadid worthy glow

I’m sure I’m not the only one who did a double take from my contouring, strobing and striping when I saw beauty blogger after beauty blogger take a Bic razor to their face. I thought as girls, the one blessing we had body-hair wise was it typically didn’t grow in dark on our faces and we could just let it do its thing.

But apparently, the peach fuzz we’ve been holding in such high regard has turned against us. The idea of face shaving is that those little blonde hairs are actually causing our primer/ foundation to come off more easily. A bald face = a smooth life, with make up artists now raving about shaving giving you the most flawless finish they’ve ever seen.

I obviously had to give it a go.

After watching a few tutorials, I thought the best approach would to be to take this as seriously as a regular body shave: exfoliate and moisturiser as prep were essential. This wasn’t clearly recommended in the more professional videos but I thought it would make the whole ‘shaving my actual face for the first time’ easier.

This was me pre-shave, pre make up:

Tutorials suggest the best de-fuzz method is to take the smallest razor you have, ideally with a single blade and simply dry shave all the areas you can physically feel the little blonde hairs on your face, paying particular attention to your jawline (super feminine) and the areas you blend the most make up on to.

Before I even start shaving, this feels weird. Standing about to take a razor to your face for the sake of a dewy glow is weird. But I got on with it.

The first thing I realised is that even if you’re adamant you don’t have facial fuzz, you do. You’re naturally platinum blonde with minimal leg hair? You have a teeny tiny lady beard. I had already accepted the fact I’d been coated with the little hairs, with my sister often referring to me as ‘peach face.’  After what seemed like half an hour, I was finally satisfied that the only hair left on my face was my eyebrows and SHOCKINGLY, my razor looked like this:

From my actual face.

I wasn’t immediately hit with the thought ‘wow, I do feel smoother than a baby’s bum’ more so than I was the thought ‘GOD DAMN I FEEL BALD. I FEEL SOOOOO BALD.’ I remembered back to when I first shaved my legs as a kid, and that weird exposed feeling was now on my face. Also, nothing will strike fear into you quite like the prospect of shaving your own eye brow off, so concentration and precision was key.

A lot of bloggers had also said that shaving was a handy way of scraping off all the little bits of old dry skin that  could be missed with regular face scrubs, so in that sense I did feel sort of really, really clean. And I couldn’t argue with the claims: my face had never been more bare or ready to be made up.

I thought the best way to put this preparation method to the test was to put my make up on as if I was going on a night out, as in the most I would normally wear. If all those layers could stand the test of time simply because I was fuzz free, I’d be a full on beauty convert. The photos below show how well each layer sat, from primer, to foundation, to powder and end result.

So here I am… and as much as I kind of wanted this to be a fad I’ve never had a more even coverage. Because the hairs are so small and presumably untouched, they’re reported to not grow back for weeks so there’s no fear of them coming back thicker or darker and developing a full on problem.

In terms of recommendation, I’d say face shaving for girls is so easy for such a good result, it’s worth trying at least once. You’ll have to up your moisturisation game around your neck and jaw, but other than that, ditch the fuzz and you’re guaranteed to get the glow.

@d_laurenrae