How to Avoid Removing Facial Hair Incorrectly

My mother was shocked when I revealed my newly purchased Finishing Touch Facial Hair Remover.

“Shaving your face is not the way to go!” she exclaimed. “Why don’t you just use nail scissors like everyone else?”

Let’s take a moment to see if anyone actually uses nail scissors to manage their facial hair. I highly doubt it. It’s an incredibly impractical tool. It’s like going into battle with a chainsaw – you’re more likely to injure yourself than achieve the desired outcome.

“I simply hold the scissors like this,” she said, tilting her head back and raising her chin, “and snip as close to the hair root as possible.”

“You can’t even see where you’re cutting,” I replied, “you might end up removing something important!”

“Well, I use a mirror, of course,” she responded.

My mother’s approach to snipping facial hair is flawed in multiple ways. Firstly, there is a high risk of injury, even when using a mirror. In fact, relying on your reflection for guidance often makes even the simplest tasks challenging.

Moreover, this method doesn’t address the root cause of the problem; it merely trims the visible portion. It’s akin to weeding by cutting off the tops of the plants. Does my mother tackle dandelions in the garden by simply mowing over them? Certainly not. She gets down on her knees and pulls them out entirely.

Lastly (although there are likely many more issues with the scissor method), just how time-consuming must it be to remove hair from the average chin and mustache area? It would take days! I’d be tempted to open the scissor blades and glide them along my skin for the sake of efficiency, like an old-fashioned cut-throat razor.

“I don’t remove hair from my entire face!” my mother exclaimed. “I only target the longest hairs, silly. The ones that are a few centimeters long or very dark.”

This is precisely why we have different methods of hair removal: it all comes down to our attitudes towards facial hair. My mother is content with the typical facial fuzz that most of us have had since a young age. However, with the advent of 4K HD TVs and high-resolution phone cameras, I have become hyper-aware of even the tiniest hair. She only fusses over the longest and darkest strands, considering the rest as normal, just like having eyes or legs.

“You wouldn’t shave those off,” my Mum exclaimed.

The issue I face is that I meticulously examine my face almost every single day. It’s part of my job. I should mention that I’m not particularly hairy and have fair coloring. However, due to testing makeup and skincare products, I spend a lot of time scrutinizing zoomed-in photos and videos of myself. And when it’s not photos and videos, it’s the dreaded magnifying mirror, also known as The Portal of Doom, where I check whether a new foundation I’m testing has settled into fine lines or migrated to oilier areas. Consequently, I not only spot the longest and darkest hairs (although mine tend to be white, like Father Christmas), but I also notice the dense clusters of peach fuzz that feels as soft as velvet.

For a while, I let the peach fuzz be, considering it excessive to remove. I plucked the longer hairs with tweezers (which I highly recommend over nail scissors) and ignored the fuzz. However, I eventually started plucking the slightly longer peach fuzz along with the hairs, particularly in the side mustache area. Before I knew it, I found myself plucking out all the peach fuzz with my tweezers. It was time-consuming and became quite painful after a while…

Hence, the introduction of the new Finishing Touch shaver. I haven’t charged it up and tried it yet, given my mother’s strong reaction. I think she envisions me engaging in a full shaving routine, using a badger brush to lather up my face, leaning towards the mirror like Desperate Dan. She imagines me in a white vest, with a gun belt hanging over the towel rail and a ten-gallon hat resting on the shelf above the sink.

But I’ve already started with mass tweezing, so there’s no turning back now. The mustache hairs grow back slightly sharper, and I catch myself absentmindedly stroking my stubble, for that’s what it feels like, as if I were a wise old sage about to make a profound statement.

The only way forward is to continue with the complete removal technique, but with my new shaver, it will (hopefully) be more akin to using a lawnmower rather than long-handled pruning shears. Quick. Efficient. Painless.

I’ll keep everyone updated, if only to shock my Mum.

The Flawless Touch gadget is available online here (ad-affiliate link) and costs £29.99. I must say, it feels quite lightweight and cheaply made for the price. However, since writing the above, I have properly tested it, and it works well. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know!