I Discovered I've Been Shaving Wrong My Entire Life – Here's Why You Probably Have Been Too

If you’re like most men, you’ll define your shave by how you looked before compared to what you look like after. But there’s a lot more to a successful shave than just the removal of facial hair

Without wanting to sound like a spiritual hippie, the quote “it’s all about the journey, not the destination” also rings true in the bathroom. Sure, you want a good result – but everything that happens between when you pick up the razor and when you put it down is just as important.

Related: 4 Grooming Hacks Every Guy Should Know

Skin irritation, bumps, redness – and if you’re like me, cuts – probably all feature regularly in your shaving routine. But what if we said you could eliminate all of these annoyances once and for all?

While these might sound like the words of a classy uptown barber, trust me – I am no shaving connoisseur. I couldn’t grow facial hair until my late teens, and any attempt at growing a beard was met with suspicious, concerned looks from members of the public.

Long story short, my grooming game was embarrassing. That bum-fluff I’d hesitantly call a beard had to go. Not that I minded, but one thing I did notice, however, was how damn long it was taking me to get rid of the little facial hair I was blessed with.

Thankfully, since those days, my facial hair has caught up with my shoulder hair and I now grace the streets with a respectable – yet rugged – beard. But only a few weeks ago was when everything changed forever.

Having already decided I was going to shave later that week, it was all the more surprising when my email pinged. It was from Gillette. I don’t throw the term ‘fate’ around lightly, but if that wasn’t fate, I don’t know what is.

The team from Gillette wanted to offer everyone at Men’s Health HQ the chance to be the first people in Australia to trial their new revolutionary razor, the Gillette Fusion ProShield.

Related: 5 Grooming Essentials to Avoid a Dating Disaster

According to recent studies, most guys take about 170 strokes every time they shave, and 120 of them are re- strokes over the same area of the face after the initial strokes have wiped away most of the protective shave gel. Despite all of the advances in blade technology, many guys still experience some irritation, largely due to these re-strokes.

After doing the hard yards and crunching some numbers, this is what you need to know: 70.6 per cent of the 170 strokes you make every time you shave are over areas you’ve already tried shaving. Shaving rash, anyone?

So there I was, standing in front of the mirror with my new Gillette ProShield in hand. Memories of my teenage shaving days came flooding back. I even got a bit emotional when I recalled just how long I used to spend shaving, let alone the time spent trying to pick my beard hairs out of the blades.

I bit the bullet and went to town. And you know what? This was the first time in my life I was happy to be proven wrong. I couldn’t believe it. Not only did I have my entire beard removed to precision in under five minutes, but my face was still intact.

No cuts, no bumps, no redness and no irritation. While you’re still paying the price for hacking away with your rusty razor, the Gillette Fusion ProShield has lubrication before and after the blades to help shield from irritation during the shave.

If you feel like you’re spending way longer then necessary shaving, you’re leaving the bathroom with cuts and bumps all over your cheeks or you simply think it’s time to upgrade from your trusty 1990’s blade, look no further than Gillette Fusion ProShield.

Gillette showed me I was shaving wrong my whole life, and without a high quality razor like the Fusion ProShield, that shaving is a long, strenuous task.

But hey – if I can get my cheeks this smooth every single shave, I don’t want to be right.