Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Anita Bhagwandas

Cut leg shaving time by swiping the razor up and down

Shaving legs in bath

The hack
Cutting down on the time it takes to shave (and water usage) by shaving up and down the leg, rather than rinsing hairs out of the razor after every swipe.

The test
If you shave your legs (reminder: any body hair removal is entirely optional) then removing the hairs normally requires a razor rinse in between upstrokes, to remove the hairs lodged in the blades. This means you are often running the water needlessly – and it takes a while to unclog the razor after each pass.

But this hack, popularised by @charmakeupnz, cuts down your shaving time by using a simple switch in technique.

Once you have jumped into the shower, wet your skin and completed the first upswipe of your leg hair, run the razor down the leg again to the starting position: this removes the hairs from the razor and leaves them on the shaven stripe of leg. Then move to the next section and repeat. It’s basically like swiping up and down with a paintbrush.

It doesn’t nick your skin, which is what you might expect. And it does indeed make things quicker.

Verdict
This works – but using a razor with a moisturising strip definitely helps the glide. And a word of warning: dry shaving is pretty brutal on the skin, so do this only on wet skin.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.