Grooming and Hygiene Products for Men

In recent years, awareness about the importance of managing male body hair, especially below the beltline, has been on more people's radar. Many companies, new and old, are offering products specifically for the task of manscaping, which means there is a huge selection of beauty and hygiene brands to choose from.

Your genital care

Before you begin grooming, make sure you wash your hands and sanitize your tools. You may also want to take a warm shower to soften the hairs, which helps keep your skin from getting irritated. Do your grooming in the shower or over the toilet or a trash can to make cleanup easier. Disinfect the tools when you're done and place them in a clean case.

Shaving can have side effects if you're not careful. It can accidentally slice some skin and expose you to bacteria, and it can potentially block your follicles and cause ingrown hairs. You can minimize irritation by shaving in the direction that your hair grows. Go slowly and carefully, as a nick could lead to an infection.

Just to note: If you suffer from ingrown hairs, try tea tree oil; it can heal the skin where the ingrown hairs are, allowing them to grow out naturally.

Additionally, be careful if you're planning on some DIY waxing. When you wax, you create trauma when you rip the hairs out. Waxing can also burn you, irritate your skin or cause issues like ingrown hairs. These are the good reasons why many men decide to have waxing done by a professional.

Your skincare routine 

In order to take care of the skin in the male nether regions, there are all kinds of products available, including lotions, pre-shave oil, and gels and creams for the foreskin. 

Lotions

While you can use talc-filled powders to address the sweatier areas of your body, the results can often be messy. Companies have developed lotions that are applied as a soothing cream to the pubic area, drying as a cooling powder and preventing chafing and wetness.

Pre-shave oil

Before you manscape, it's important to protect your skin. Prepping the skin with a pre-shave oil will soften the hair and help the razor glide across your skin easier. Using a pre-shave oil typically leads to a smoother shave with fewer nicks. 

Foreskin wash gels and creams

To address smegma, also known as "penis cheese"—a substance composed of oil and dead skin cells that accumulates under the foreskin in uncircumcised men—there is a range of products specifically designed to clean this important body part. Although smegma is a natural lubricant, it can also breed harmful bacteria. Many men prefer to use creams to clean their foreskin and remove any smegma trapped under it. The more popular creams are enriched with essential oils and vitamins that not only keep the skin lubricated but also help prevent inflammation in the glands.

Your grooming routine

The following grooming tools are going to prove essential for your manscaping needs, so do some research and invest in the best you can afford.

Grooming trimmers

Before you remove your pubic hair completely, the first part of the process is to trim the hair. Because the initial goal is not to completely remove all pubic hair, trim so that most of the hair is at a more manageable length. Most good grooming trimmers allow you to trim your pubic hair to whatever length you like, but less is best so you don't leave too much of a job for the razor.

Many men prefer to glide over the skin and trim pubic hair to a short, uniform length: You can also gather long tufts of hair and trim them at the same time. It's advisable to use a trimmer specially designed for your pubic area, and you want that to be separate from the one you use on your facial hair.

Some companies sell grooming trimmers that have ceramic blades, allowing them to comfortably cut through pubic hairs while remaining gentle. These trimmers are often created with three blades.

Razor

A special grooming razor is preferable to an old-fashioned razor. However, if you must use a razor, proceed with caution. Many men find that shaving pubic hair with a razor is best done in the shower because the water naturally softens the skin and pubic hair. Apply a natural shaving cream and use small strokes with the razor to begin removing the hair. Wash the blade every two or three strokes, so you keep the blade free of stray hairs that can clog it. Be sure to shave with the grain of your hair and clean up only areas that need it.

Over time, you'll likely develop a technique that works best for you. When you get out of the shower, dry your skin and apply a soothing aftershave lotion.

Haircutting scissors and comb

Facial hair scissors have rounded protective tips and work well for trimming pubic hair. To use the comb-and-scissor method, start at the highest region of your pubic area that you want to trim. Put the comb at the hair root, flat against the skin. This creates a protective barrier between your skin and the scissors, and it offers a guide for an even cut. You should only cut the hair that sticks above the teeth of the comb. Do one section at a time and gradually make your way down.

Hair-removal creams

Fast becoming a popular grooming product for men, hair removal creams work by dissolving the protein that grows the hairs. Once dissolved, the hair can be easily wiped away.

Some things you shouldn't do

We're talking about an extremely sensitive area of the male anatomy here, so let's make sure we stick to what works and ignore any of the tales you may have heard on the internet.

Do not put any household cleaning products—such as toilet cleaners, floor cleaners and other corrosive substances—on your private parts. Please. Soap and water do a fine job of cleaning your penis, and there's a huge selection of cleaning products specifically designed for the genital region in another section of the store.

There are all kinds of claims online that putting toothpaste on your penis can increase your stamina during sex. This is a myth. Putting toothpaste on your penis can lead to burning and scarring, and it won't do anything at all to combat premature ejaculation. The oils and chemicals in toothpaste can be extremely irritating to sensitive skin. And before you ask your follow-up question, please don't use toothpaste as a lubricant either—same reasons.

Don’t put anything inside the penis. The opening at the head of the penis is not designed to allow objects inside it. Do not attempt to put anything inside the urethra—the tube that transports urine and semen out of the body. And don't do anything that would obstruct this opening.

Don't believe any of the hype about supplements that claim to make your penis bigger. There are all kinds of different pills, herbal supplements and other products that make the claim that they will increase the length and girth of your penis. The short explanation is that none of these products actually work. A majority of these supplements are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, so there is no guarantee of what exactly they will do to your penis.

As an aside, if there really was a supplement that could make your penis bigger, don't you think you'd have heard of it and that the inventor would be one of the richest people in the world?

Manscaping is something you should probably do, not only to enhance your relationship with your partner—there's a chance that person would probably like you to be clean down there—but also for your own health. When you have a lot of pubic hair, it could lead to yeast and bacterial infections.