Best Aftershave Balms to Stop Razor Burn

The best aftershave balm for razor burn is whichever one has no alcohol in it. That is most of the answer. You want alcohol-free, light on fragrance, with something calming in it like chamomile, aloe or oatmeal, and you want it patted onto skin that is still slightly damp. Nivea Men Sensitive Post Shave Balm does that job for very little money. Proraso Sensitive and Bulldog Original do it a bit better. The rest of this is why, and what to fix about the shave itself.

Razor burn and razor bumps are not the same thing

Men use the two names for each other constantly, and the fix is different, so it is worth thirty seconds.

Razor burn turns up fast. Within the hour, usually within minutes. It covers the whole area you shaved rather than picking spots, and it feels hot and raw rather than lumpy. That is irritation: the blade has dragged across the skin and taken more of the surface than it should have.

Razor bumps arrive two or three days later, and they are individual raised spots, sometimes with a dark dot in the middle. Those are ingrown hairs, and the medical name is pseudofolliculitis barbae. They are far more common on coarse or curly beard hair, because a curved hair that has been cut below the surface grows back into the skin instead of out of it.

A balm helps with the first one a great deal and the second one very little. If your neck is genuinely inflamed week after week, no bottle on this page is the answer and a pharmacist or a GP is a better use of your money.

What actually stops razor burn

Alcohol is the thing to look for, and to avoid.

Classic splash aftershave is largely alcohol and fragrance, the alcohol there to disinfect nicks and to carry the scent. On a face you have just shaved, it evaporates fast, pulls water with it and lands on skin whose top layer you have partly removed. That is what the sting is. Plenty of men grew up thinking the sting meant it was working. It means the opposite.

What you want instead is a balm built to put something back:

• Glycerin, high in the ingredient list, which holds water in the skin
• Panthenol and allantoin, both there to calm things down
• Chamomile, aloe, oatmeal or green tea, the soothing plant end of the list
• A light oil or shea, enough to seal it without leaving your face shiny at work

Then apply it properly, which almost nobody does. Rinse the last of the lather off with cool water, pat your face with a towel until it is damp rather than dry, and put the balm on then. Balm on a bone-dry face has nothing to hold in.

The best aftershave balm for razor burn

Three we are happy to name, and one category to be careful with.

Nivea Men Sensitive Post Shave Balm. The one we name most often across the chair, because it is cheap, it is in every supermarket, and it works. The label says 0% alcohol and the formula is built round glycerin, panthenol, vitamin E and chamomile extract. It sinks in quickly and does not leave a sheen. If you have never used a balm and you want to know whether your problem is the product or the shave, start here.

Proraso After Shave Balm for Sensitive Skin. The Italian one in the white packaging, and a fixture in barbershops for a reason. Alcohol-free, with oatmeal and green tea doing the soothing and sweet almond oil and shea doing the moisturising. It is richer than the Nivea, which makes it the better pick for dry skin and for winter, and slightly too much for an oily face in August.

Bulldog Original Aftershave Balm. Aloe vera juice sits second in the ingredient list, straight after water, with camelina oil, allantoin and green tea behind it, and there is no alcohol anywhere in it. Easy to find in Boots and the supermarkets. A sensible middle option if the Nivea feels too light and the Proraso too heavy.

Anything built on salicylic or glycolic acid is a different tool. Tend Skin and Bump Patrol are the ones men ask us about, and they are aimed at ingrown hairs rather than at raw skin. They can sting on a face that is already sore, so they are not a razor burn product and using them as one usually makes a bad morning worse.

One honest note. A plain unfragranced sensitive-skin moisturiser does most of what a post shave balm does, and the word men on the bottle is worth nothing. If you already own something bland and unscented, try that first. We take the same line on what to put in your hair: buy the cheap thing that works before the expensive thing that markets.

What to leave on the shelf

High-alcohol splash aftershave, if your face reacts. If it has never bothered you, carry on, some men genuinely have skin like a saddle. But do not buy one to treat a problem it causes.

Heavy fragrance in general. Perfume oils are one of the more common irritants in the whole aisle, and there is no reason to put them on skin you just took a blade to. If you like smelling of something, put the scent on your neck an hour later.

The menthol ones need a small warning. That cold feeling is pleasant for about four minutes and it is not treatment. On a face that is already burning, menthol often makes it worse.

No balm will save a bad shave

This is the part men do not want to hear, because a bottle is easier to change than a habit. Most of the razor burn that walks in here is technique.

Your blade is old. A dull blade does not glide, it drags, and dragging is the injury. Most men get a fortnight past the point where a cartridge should have gone in the bin. If you have to go over the same patch twice, the blade is finished.

You are shaving a cold, dry face. Hair softens in heat and takes several minutes to do it. A hot shower first, or a hot towel held on the face for a minute, changes how hard the blade has to work more than any product will.

You are pressing. Let the weight of the razor do it. Pressure does not get you closer, it gets you into the skin.

You are going against the grain on the first pass. Go with the grain first, always. If you need it closer, reduce and go across the grain, not straight up the neck. Against the grain on a neck that grows in swirls is where both the burn and the bumps come from.

Your razor might be wrong for you. A five-blade cartridge cuts the hair below the surface of the skin, which is exactly what makes it feel so close and exactly what feeds ingrown hairs. If you are prone to those, a single blade or an electric foil shaver gives you a slightly less close shave and a much better week.

What to do next

Change one thing at a time. New blade this week, balm on damp skin, with the grain only. If the redness goes, you have found it. If it does not, change the razor next.

And if you want to feel what a shave is supposed to feel like, a clean shave here is £11 and takes twenty minutes, taken down with a straight edge and hot towels by someone who does it all day. Men who are prone to burn often find their skin is calmer after ours than after their own, and the reason is not mysterious. It is the preparation and the fact that nobody is rushing at 7:40am.

If you are fighting a beard as well as the shave, the seven rules for summer cover the rest of it. Otherwise bring the tube in and let whoever is on your chair read the back of it. Thirty years on Harrow Road, and we can usually tell in one look whether it is the bottle or the blade. Walk in, or book a chair.