HELP : Should I straight shave ? Or shouldn't I ...

[gringo84]

Hi folks,

First, sorry for this too long story, but I cannot make it shorter, if I really want you to help me I have to tell you the whole story ... So I will :

I'm a dark haired 26yo guy, military. So I HAVE to be clean shaved, every other day.

I first began shaving with an electric, but aiming for a better shave, and when I became a military, I started wet shaving with a M3 and canned goo. With normal acne, as a lot of teen have, shaving bumps and others were almost transparent. Until the day I cleared up my acne with some antibiotics.

The only remaining trouble areas were my cheeks, and my neck. I have a SO HARD beard, and hair growing flat against the skin, that my derm said I had folliculitis, the kind of sick that black men often suffer from !!
He adviced me for doing some laser hair removal, to see if it improves.

I chose IPL, and a device I could buy to make it by myself at home, and finally, it makes the thing a lot cheaper !!!

Currently, I have done about one year of IPL :
- The moustache and the chin are terribly difficult to treat, but it improves from a session to another
- The cheeks are "almost clear" ( *We 'll see below )
- The neck is clear, and there is no trouble.

So, you should wonder " What does he post here, if he does not shave anymore ?? "

Here is the answer :
On the cheeks, hair need a lot of time and IPL sessions to definitely disappear. That does mean that they become thinner and thinner, at the point that they have a lot of pain to get through the skin as they regrow, 5 or 6 weeks after the IPL.

So, as you can imagine : Bumps, zits, redness ... And logically : Scars.

However, I have a good routine : I clean my face up every night with a glycolic face cleaner, I even bought the Anthony Logistics ingrown hair treatment, but this does not make the trick ...

So, I tried DE shaving, with a badger brush and a ToBS cream.
But I have never had as smooth a shave than with my M3 and a gillette gel ... And I find that the creams let my skin a bit greasy too, which tends to confirm with the hours passing by !!

When a visit my doctor for another reason, I had the occasion to show him the spots, he told me about acne. BUT, I m pretty sure it's not, but it's some kind of ingrown. ( I have also the problem, minor, on the chest and the legs when I wax them ). On the rest of the face, it's clear, with not any pimple !!

So, FINALLY, I come to the end :
I wonder if I should continue the IPL, with the goal to eliminate every hair, which is, I'm pretty sure, the only solution I could get to definitely get free of this issue,

OR

Try to get a better shave, with a straight for example ( I can get one in my family if needed ) and give up IPL ...

Please guys, help me, because ths is progressively ruining my life and of course, my confidence ...