How to Shave Your Armpits

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Want extra confidence on warmer days or while you’re exercising? You can get that boost in seconds by shaving under your arms.

Less armpit hair means less chance of visible sweat stains on your clothing, as well as less space for bacteria to breed.

Smoother underarms look and feel much better on hot summer days or if you’re playing sports, allowing you to feel more confident in your appearance – especially if you know that unappealing sweat patches and strong body odour are a whole lot less likely.

Shaving Armpits Proven to Reduce Body Odour

Research presented by Gillette at the 23rd World Congress of Dermatology in Vancouver in June 2015 showed that shaving under your arms is proven to significantly reduce body odour.

man with sweaty armpits

Overall, it was found that shaving was 2.5 times more effective than washing with soap alone at reducing underarm odour. After men had washed their armpits with soap, their body odour was found to reduce by 23%. However, after shaving and soap washing, there was a 57% reduction in body odour, showing a clear benefit to removing armpit hair.

In contrast, it was found that trimming armpit hair with scissors only reduced body odour by 27%, making it little more effective than simply washing with soap.

What’s more, the benefits of shaving could be smelt for days; the 57% reduction in body odour was evident after one day, a 40% reduction was evident on day two and a 30% reduction was still there on day three. This means that three days after shaving, the effects were still greater than those on the first day after washing with soap.

This is because using a razor on your underarm skin helps to remove dried sebum, debris and trapped odorants, which can all be responsible for causing an unpleasant odour after exercise or after a hot day.

How to Shave Your Armpits Step-by-Step

Check out our manscaping tips on how to shave your armpits for the perfect finish.

1. Prepare Your Skin

First up, you need to prep your skin to guarantee the smoothest possible finish. Have a hot shower to soften your body hair, as this will lower the risk of any wince-inducing nicks or pulls later.

Exfoliate your skin while you’re in the shower for an extra smooth finish to remove any dead skin cells and prevent painful and unsightly ingrown armpit hairs. Then, you’ll be ready to start removing hair.

2. Begin with a Trim

Long body hair can get stuck in blades, affecting their performance, so you need to start by trimming your armpit hair.

The Gillette All Purpose Styler and Beard Trimmer is the ideal tool – it’s battery-operated and 100% waterproof, so you can use it while you’re still in the shower or at the sink, letting you easily fit a little bit of manscaping into your usual morning routine.

Our All Purpose Styler comes with three interchangeable combs (2mm, 4mm and 6mm), so you can choose how long you’d like your armpit hair to be.

You might be happy enough leaving your underarm grooming at this stage, but if you want a closer shave, move on to the next step.

3. Lather Up : Apply Shaving Gel

Get out of the shower and use your shaving gel to work up a really good lather under your arms to add even more moisture to the hair that’s still there, allowing you to achieve an even smoother finish.

The skin under your arms is super-sensitive, so look for shaving gels with ingredients that will be kinder to your skin. The Gillette Fusion5 Men’s Ultra Sensitive Shaving Gel contains our Ultra Comfort Complex to soothe and protect your skin during shaving, while our SkinGuard Men’s Sensitive Shaving Gel includes a cooling touch of aloe.

4. Master Your Technique

Stick with your All Purpose Styler, attaching the ProGlide Razor Blade it comes with, and position yourself so the skin in your armpit is pulled as taut as possible. Start to remove the rest of the hair using a gentle motion and light strokes for a comfortable finish with no afterburn.

In a clinical study, trained ‘expert noses’ assessed the underarm odour of 30 men:

Before they washed or shaved their armpits;
5 minutes after they’d washed under their arms with soap;
5 minutes after they’ve washed their armpits with soap and shaved their armpits using a
razor.

man with shaved armpits

Glide your razor in the same direction of your hair growth (known as shaving with the grain) to reduce the risk of razor bumps or ingrown hairs – yep, you can get those in your armpits too. Read more about how to prevent ingrown hairs.

Always make sure your blade is sharp before you start shaving. Dull or damaged blades are much more likely to result in nicks and cuts – just the thought of that in the armpit is enough to make us cringe!

You can make sure you never run out of spare ProGlide blades by signing up for a Gillette shaving subscription – after joining, you’ll get regular deliveries of spare blades delivered straight to your door, and you can cancel or delay whenever you need to.

5. Rinse, Dry, Recover

Rinse your skin after every few strokes to stop hair and excess shaving gel clogging up your blade for the smoothest possible glide.

When you’re satisfied you’ve got a clean shave, give your skin a final rinse and either pat it dry or let it dry naturally.

Then, let your skin recover for a few moments before applying deodorant, and always leave at least one day in between shaves to reduce the risk of your skin becoming irritated.

You might want to add one extra step before applying your deodorant and use a soothing post-shave product like our Gillette Aftershave Balm to finish to keep this delicate area of skin even more hydrated.