You’ve heard it many times... “DO NOT SHAVE IN BETWEEN YOUR SUGARING APPOINTMENTS!” But why? I am sure you have always wondered but couldn’t quite wrap your head around answers that made this clear for you. Well, you are in the right place! Let’s finally get this to make sense! 

1. It Changes your Hair Texture 

     You would have more than likely noticed, if you are an avid sugar-babe, that your hair strands are growing back much thinner and softer than it has been before. This is something that I’m sure you enjoy. Well, deciding to shave your hairs in between your sugaring sessions will surely ruin this up for you. This is because your hairs will grow back with a blunt edge where it had been cut, and feel prickly and coarse to the touch. 

2. Ingrown Hairs Will Be Swarming Back! 

     Wasn’t this one of the reasons you wanted to stop shaving and find another alternative such as sugaring in the first place? Unfortunately, shaving will make sure you remember what all those excessive ingrowns felt like. Those lovely results you were seeing where finally your skin was getting some sort of rest from those ingrowns and unsightly marks is going to get messed up. It will change the look and health of your skin. Not only that, but you can get razor burns and irritation when you shave. 

3. Your Skin Complexion Gets Uneven and Darker

     Now, darkening of the skin after hair removal is due to hyper-friction (excessive rubbing) of the hairless skin. This can happen with any hair removal method. However, while most have seen an improvement in their skin complexion while sugaring, shaving surely doesn’t help in this department. From the marks you may get from ingrowns, to the friction, your skin complexion is surely going to take a turn for the worst and you will ruin the great results your got from your hard work. 

4. It Messes Up Your Hair Growth Cycle

     Your hair grows in different cycles. Sugaring continuously and regularly allows most of the hairs to be removed during the growth (anagen) phase where the hairs are still attached to the root of the hair follicle. This allows the regrowth of the hair to be slower and more synchronized since most of the hairs would have been removed at the same time from the roots. Shaving in between will give your hairs enough time to allow those hairs in the anagen stage (which is the ideal stage to remove hair) to enter into later stages of growth. What’s going to happen? A good bit of the hairs may shed, leading to a lot of new shorter ones popping up in between the longer existing hairs. New hairs below the hairs that have been detached from the hair follicle will be making its way up beneath the surface of the skin. Unfortunately, a lot more hairs will be in these phases and you’re going to probably end up with stubbles after sugaring because the shorter hairs couldn’t be removed. Your hairs will grow back faster than when you are sugaring alone, due to the newer hairs that are springing up just below the surface and the stubbles which are going to get longer and more obvious as it grows.

5. Your Next Sugaring Appointment Will Last Longer 

     The longer you take to sugar because you are shaving in between your sessions...that temporary hairless skin you feel is short lived. While you are prolonging the time between appointments by shaving, you are allowing more hairs (that haven’t popped up yet after sugaring) to grow. The sparseness you once enjoyed is no longer there or possible with shaving. You are going to have more hairs and your service will probably last longer. This factor also leads me to my next point...the one you dread the most! 

6. Your Next Sugaring Appointment is Going to Hurt More! 

   I cry mentally for you guys beforehand because I know what you are going to face and so do you! The more hairs you have the more pain you are going to feel my darlings. I keep repeating this. I want you to enjoy your service as much as you do. Don’t torture yourself by taking shortcuts. Stay on your personal schedule and sugar on time! Also, sugaring continuously weakens the hair follicles making the hair extraction easier going forward. When you decide to shave in between you are making this process of weakening the follicles take longer. There is going to be so much more work to remove the hairs (in most cases) when you return. This is especially true for those who have fallen off their sugaring schedule for a long time and used shaving instead. 

   Keep in mind that these principles and causes are similar for other temporary methods of hair removal such as depilatory creams and unfortunately trimming in some instances. I want you to think back on what it felt like after lockdown to get sugared again. You didn’t particularly like how if felt, did you? Think back to what happened when you couldn’t take the hair growth anymore when spas were closed and decide to shave...or even for the obedient ones who trimmed because they didn’t want to undo their hard work. (I’m honestly proud you, it was the best you could’ve done). But it doesn’t work for you or your skin and you literally had to start over! You saw these pointers I listed happen to you. Now that spas are allowed to open and operate, it is important to do your best to keep up with your sugaring appointments to see the best results and stay away from shaving, hair removal creams...and yes even trimming. For the newbies or the ones who haven't yet tried sugaring, you’ve read this, you can understand. Don’t fall for the traps and the shortcuts. If you absolutely must shave due to emergency, shave in the direction of hair growth on lubricated skin using a sharp razor after having first exfoliated your skin. Otherwise, avoid it like the plague. 

PS. This post is not to demonize shaving. I am quite aware that some people do quite well using razors and that is fine. However, for most of us, this is not the case, hence this blog post.