My Shaving Experience and an #OOTD from Coorg!

We’ve come to the end of our month long shaving experiment and I felt like I should do a quick round up of all the things I’ve learnt to do and not to do while shaving.

But first let me tell you about my quick weekend trip to Coorg. If you din’t know, Coorg is a small city in Karnataka, India and is famous for all the coffee estates it houses. The coffee there is something you have to try to believe. I went there with a group of friends to celebrate my husband’s 30th birthday over a long weekend.

We stayed at a coffee estate called Java Mane, and it was so much fun. 3 days of great food, drunken board games with friends and quite possibly the best coffee ever! A much needed break from the unrelenting crazy heat of Bangalore. Seriously what is up with the weather? Its been the hottest summer recorded in 30 years this year. Gives a whole new meaning to Indian Summers.

Dress, hat and gladiator sandals from Forever 21, sun glasses from Fab Alley.

So now back to our recently gathered knowledge about shaving. To summarize, this whole month I’ve been only sticking to shaving. I have not waxed even once to completely understand what, if any is the difference between the two methods of hair removal. Here’s what I’ve learned.

1. Shaving is very convenient but you have to be careful – You are using a sharp blade and you have to keep that in mind. Especially if you are using something like the Gillette Venus which has 3 extremely sharp blades put together to give you the closest shave possible. Like me if you are used to going over the same area a couple of times while shaving you will cut yourself, like me:( I learnt the hard way not to do that, its completely unnecessary especially if you’re using a good razor.
2. Shaving tools – A shaving cream or coconut oil before shaving, and a lotion or a moisturizer after shaving for best effect. If you use soap and water your skin will get dry and patchy increasing your chances of cutting yourself.
3. Do it as often as you like – It’s been the hottest summer ever,  and even the thought of wearing jeans or pants made me sweat. As a result I pretty much spent the whole month in summer dresses, shorts and skirts. That meant hair free legs everyday and I shaved as many times as I needed to. And no my hair didn’t grow back like thorns on a cactus, and my skin is as smooth as it was before. In fact even more as the all the coconut oil I’ve been slathering on is really making a difference on my skin.
4. Treat cuts with care – If you do cut yourself treat it immediately with some aloe vera gel or an antiseptic cream. I have a bunch of Aloe plants growing in the house and I always dab some gel from the plant and the cut or nick immediately stops hurting and doesn’t leave a mark. Then I apply moisturizer as usual. To be honest I’m quite clumsy and I’ve been known to randomly trip and fall down even when theres absolutely nothing to trip on. So I kinda get a lot of catches and cuts randomly, the fact that I have 2 cats might also have something to do with it. So the Aloe plant is a life saver. Not only does it soothe instantly but I feel like it prevents scarring as well.
5. Exfoliate your skin : If you feel that you have ingrown hair or slightly bumpy skin that makes you prone to cuts while shaving, try to exfoliate your skin regularly. Incorporating a scrub in your shower routine is the best way to do this. Raw sugar and coffee are great natural scrubs for your skin. Not the instant coffee like Nescafe, but the leftover coffee powder after you make filter coffee or regular coffee. Don’t throw it away, use it as a scrub instead! Its also know to be a great defense against cellulite.

So those are my final tips on shaving. Not anything revolutionary, but simple steps that has made such a big difference to my skin in less than a month. But as usual the catch is that you have to be consistent. No skipping steps and no skipping days! Hope this has helped and as usual do let us know if you have any questions 🙂 Also do follow us on Instagram to see more pictures and videos, we’ll follow back! You can also subscribe for our emails – you can choose to receive them daily, weekly, monthly – whatever you want.

–Satarupa

This post has been written in collaboration with Gillette Venus.