FASHION / FALL IN THE CITY : Things Dad Never Taught You About Shaving

Brad Ketchum’s face is so scarred from swiping a razor across his chin that he shaves only on special occasions. For Tony Lopez, it’s the little dabs of toilet paper covering the nicks that make shaving a sore subject. Edwin Van Ginkel’s problem is razor burn.

“I’ve come in the office some mornings and the guys will ask me, ‘What did you do, run into a barbed wire fence?’ ” says Van Ginkel, a real estate consultant at Arthur Anderson. “I can think of examples where almost every man in the office has walked in with blood on his collar.”

For many men, shaving is a chore that rates right up there with emptying the garbage and mowing the lawn. Necessary but annoying.

Does shaving have to be equated with a leaking trash bag? The experts say no.

The secret to a really great shave is getting the razor to glide over your face, says Linda Silver, a chemist who developed a fragrance- and alcohol-free shaving system known as Roy. The products, which retail for $16 each, are sold at I. Magnin, Sami Dinar in Beverly Hills and Ron Ross in Studio City. This week Roy will debut at Neiman Marcus.

Her products may be pricey, but Silver’s shaving tips are free. She and other experts agree that the best way to achieve the perfect, painless shave is to start with a clean face.

“A good 10 minutes of washing your face with warm water causes hair to expand, making it softer and easier to cut,” says Michele Szynal, a spokeswoman for Gillette.

The next step, says Silver, is to find a shave cream that is free of alcohol, fragrance, preservatives, fillers and waxes.

“They burn your face and cause redness and inflammation,” she notes. Silver says men frequently experience shaving problems because they use foam shave creams “and foams are nothing but puffed up air with a lot of chemical additives. They don’t have enough lubrication, so the razor skips and a man cuts himself.”

Szynal says 92% of American men still use foam--a formula developed in the 1950s that combines water, emollients and some lubrication--not because it provides a great shave but because “they like the puffy cloud, which they believe acts as a cushion between the razor and their face.”

Szynal is not advising customers to stop buying foam shaves, which is the bread-and-butter of Gillette’s business. Instead, she simply agrees with Silver that “if you have sensitive skin you should shave with a product formulated for sensitive skin, which may have additional lubricants that protect the face.”

Gillette makes a sensitive skin shave foam that is available at most supermarkets for less than $2. Other sensitive skin shave formulas--priced about $15 and sold in selected department stores--are available from Aramis Lab Series, Lancombe and Clinique.

Are there really differences in skin types? “Oh yes,” says Dr. Jack Honch, a dermatologist and clinical instructor at USC. “Some people, especially fair-skinned, blue-eyed people, have thinner skin, which tends to get easily irritated.”

Honch says fragrance is the most common cause of skin problems associated with shaving. “Lime is another problem,” he says. “Many shave (products) have lime and the lime reacts with the sun, causing a type of rash known as photo dermatitis.”

Honch says pseudo-folliculitis barbae (also known as shaving bumps) are a frequent problem for black men and are caused by hairs that curl and jam back into the skin. He recommends that men with this problem shave less frequently if possible; as a last resort he will prescribe an anti-biotic that speeds healing.

Adds Silver: “The problem some men have, especially black men, is that their skin is thick and they have curly hair that isn’t always strong enough or straight enough to break through it. An exfoliater--a gentle face scrub with tiny cleansing particles--will take off the top skin layer, freeing the hair to be cut.”

Szynal says a man’s shaving apparatus is just as crucial as his choice of shave creams. Van Ginkel uses a Trac II razor while Ketchum and Lopez prefer Atra. Both those razors, says Szynal, were developed by Gillette in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively, and can’t compare with Sensor, a system introduced in 1990.

“Sensor blades are spring-mounted so they actually move over the terrain of a man’s face, sensing the bumps and contours,” she says.

Silver adds that, in the case of Ketchum and Lopez, they probably cut themselves because they apply too much pressure on the blade. And razor burn, she says, is caused by shaving over the same area more than once.

“After shaving a man should rinse his face with cool water (to close the pores) and apply a thin layer of protective moisturizer,” she says.

But what about men who use electric razors? Is it possible to get a shave as close as a blade? “No,” says Szynal, who insists that men who use electric razors do it for speed and convenience and “sacrifice closeness” in the process.

“They’re the worst,” adds Silver, pointing out that 30% of all men still use electric razors as well as some sort of alcohol-based pre- shave. “Alcohol burns your face and then you put electricity to it. Imagine what that does to your skin.”