Everyone has that friend who seems to have intuitive knowledge of the latest beauty trends. She can effortlessly apply a smoky eye (whereas I just end up looking like I lost a fistfight), her skin glows, she knows what products work and which ones are a waste of time and money.
Just for clarification, I am not that person, but I am eternally grateful that I know someone who is. When she tells me something about skincare, I listen — like the day she went to Sephora and called me as soon as she got back into the car.
“OMG, I am so excited,” she shrieked into the phone.
“What is it?!” I stopped what I was doing to listen.
“Sephora has those tiny razors!”
“What tiny razors?”
“The ones people use to do at-home dermaplaning!”
Now, let me just say that I had only recently learned what dermaplaning was, and she’s the one who told me about it. All I knew was that it was pricey and had to be done by a professional; and now, I was learning that for just a couple of bucks I could pick up my own razor blade and do it myself in the comfort of my own home. WINNING.
At first, I was dubious. I’m pretty fair, and the fuzz on my face is light blonde and — I think? — relatively unnoticeable. But my friend knows what she’s talking about, so I agreed to try it.
“Just wait,” she said. “I got a ton of sh*t off my face the first time I did it.”
The face-shaving trend has been around for ages. Marilyn Monroe famously shaved her face every day, according to the internet articles I found on the subject. Supposedly, the reason why men don’t age as quickly as women do is that they shave their faces. The idea of scraping off the top layer of dead skin appealed to me. Feeling convinced that this was the next right thing to add to my beauty regimen, I bought myself a pack of tiny razors.
“What are those for?” my husband asked.
“I’m going to shave my face,” I answered proudly, not prepared for the look of concern that he directed my way. Apparently, my husband was more wary of the idea than I was, and gently told me he didn’t think I should do it.
“Your hair will grow back weird,” he warned.
Considering this, I let the razors sit for a couple of days while I conducted more research. I watched YouTube videos until I was certain that I could do it correctly, and as far as the hair growing back weird? The internet told me it was a myth. Bolstered with new knowledge and a super-bright light, I leaned into the bathroom mirror and began scraping at my skin with a razor blade at a 45-degree angle.
I was delighted and amazed at the crud that fell off my face, and after I was done, I wiped my skin down with astringent, just like I saw the YouTubers do. My face looked brighter and felt smoother. Based on my experience thus far, I would highly recommend trying it … but wait. I’m not done telling you what happened.
I planned poorly. The next night I attended an event which required me to put on makeup, and I am guessing that my newly-scraped pores soaked up every bit of it because I woke up the next morning with a horrible breakout. After a few days of battling pimples, I decided the obvious answer was to shave my face again — right?
NO. That was a horrible decision. Not only did my breakouts get worse (hindsight tells me I probably smeared bacteria all over my face), but my skin was red and irritated.
Fast-forward a few more weeks and honestly, my skin looks worse than it ever has. Needless to say, I ditched my razors. I’m pretty sure it’s a user error on my part, but from now on, I’m leaving the dermaplaning to the professionals.
Photo: Getty
