August 19th, 2026
A lot of my nonblack brethren don't know this, but for us, shaving can suck. Our curly, coarse hair texture makes us absurdly susceptible to pseudofolliculitis barbae, the fancy term for razor bumps caused by ingrown hairs. Until somewhat recently, the U.S. military freely offered waivers for black men that didn't require them to be fully clean shaven just because the issue is so terrible and affects us so disproportionately. Without very careful and thoughtful shaving technique, our necks and chins will look all kinds of pebble-y and hurt like fuck. Couple that with being prone to post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (a lovely little condition where your body overcorrects on melanin when you get injured, leading things like acne and other blemishes and wounds to become dark spots), and some of us have a real recipe for not looking too pretty.
When I was a kid, I absolutely couldn't wait to get a beard. I saw everyone who was "manly" had beards, there was a lady at the airport who (I thought rather rudely) kept pointing out my baby face. I kept asking my old man when it'd grow in, and he said he got his late, and I was disheartened
Of course, by the time I felt those baby hairs grow in, I realized that I never actually wanted them; it was that I let the world make me think I did. Being social creatures, this feels like a pretty common human experience. It feels as if we hope to best understand ourselves through others, in one way or another, and then we look inward and go "actually, this is what I really want". We do that again and again until we have an existence we can be okay with. And I'll tell you one thing: I'm not okay with this beard.
But y'know! It wasn't just realizing I didn't feel comfortable with it; it was also that dealing with it sucked, and still sucks! Feeling it grow in itches. All that scruff under your chin just feels terrible. So of course the answer is to just shave it, right? Less so when you're me!
Multi-bladed razors hurt like fuck and become a nightmare that makes the underside of my chin look like the moon, and the common suggestion by many is to get a double-edged safety razor. No doubt an improvement that I still use today (when I feel like it), but even with the best technique, all the warm showers and exfoliation and shaving cream I could manage, I still get ingrowns with just enough frequency and quantity to make me want to do a backflip into the garbage. What this ends up meaning is I can't shave as frequently as I'd like— you risk damaging the skin if shaving already-damaged skin, and ingrowns can often take weeks to vanish, so the end result is I get to shave and enjoy a clean face for about one day, maybe two, before the stubble drives me mad, forms ingrowns, and then I have no choice but to let my face heal while my beard grows back in. And at that point why shave at all! Ohhh...
On top of my coarse, curly hair, I have some pretty frustratingly reactive skin, so it feels especially cruel to make it so prone to damage when I just want to feel comfortable wearing it. I've tried chemical depilatories (there's a nice brand called Magic Shave that was designed for black people, and while it was very effective and painless it still left me with ingrowns) and at least 5 different razors/shavers... I get closer, but it seems I'll never be able to shave for a smooth, consistently bump-free face. Sigh.
If there are any other black folk with a word or two I'd sure love to hear it. Knowing how completely doomed I am, I've since decided that, while expensive, lazer hair removal is the only option that can save me right now. Be careful what you wish for, I guess!