Every year, more than a thousand dudes go to the emergency room with manscaping injuries. Cases range from scrotal lacerations to infected razor burn—all collateral damage from the mission to achieve a smooth scrotum.

Before you shame these victims, let’s acknowledge that shaving your balls is a herculean task. It requires surgical precision to navigate your scrotum’s crevices with a razor and not draw at least a little blood. Not to mention you’re doing it while standing naked in a slippery shower holding a sharp blade. 

What could go wrong?

In this article, we’ll teach you how to shave your balls without getting cuts so you can bask in the glory of a ballsack that’s silky smooth.

How to Shave Your Balls

When it comes to hair removal on your testicles, your options are rather limited. Waxing is out of the question for obvious reasons, and trimming can leave you with stubble that causes itchy balls. 

If you’re going for bare balls, follow these six steps to prep, shave, and pamper your family jewels without a trip to the emergency room.

1. Get the Proper Supplies

If you thought you could slap on some shave cream and go to town, think again. Here’s what you’ll need for a safe and pleasant ball shaving session:

• Clippers or an electric trimmer (there’s plenty of options on Amazon)
• Safety razor
• Pre-shave oil
• Post-shave balm or aftershave
• Talc-free body powder

2. Trim Down Your Pubic Hair

If you have a full-blown bush below your belt, you need to clean up with a hair trimmer before you attempt to shave. Ideally, your ball hair should be a centimeter or less to make shaving more manageable.

Once you’re trimmed down, hop in a steamy shower and lather up your sack with warm water and a moisturizing body wash. This will open your hair follicles and soften your pubes so your razor can glide through them like butter.

3. Lather Your Balls with Shave Oil

A common manscaping mistake is using the same shaving cream you use on your face. The key is using a clear pre-shave oil so you can see exactly where your razor is going and to make sure not a single pube goes unscathed.

4. Pull Your Scrotum Skin Tight

You need a flat surface area to get a close, smooth shave. If you’re right handed, use your left hand and pull your scrotum skin taut. This will prevent nicks and ensure no hairs are hidden in the crevices. 

Pro tip: some guys find it’s easier to shave their balls when they have a boner, since your dong isn’t flopping around.

5. Use Slow Strokes

With your dominant hand, slowly guide your razor blade downward towards the floor using short, gentle strokes. After each stroke, rinse the razor under warm water to remove the debris. 

Once you’ve shaved your whole sack, rinse with cold water to minimize the risk of ingrown hairs. Feel around for any stragglers and take care of them.

6. Apply a Post-Shave Balm

Your testicles are enclosed by some of the most sensitive skin on your body, so don’t just leave them hanging. Immediately after you pat your balls dry, apply a layer of aftershave balm to cool the sensitive area and prevent razor bumps and razor burn. 

3 Benefits of Shaving Your Balls

Roughly half of dudes manscape regularly, but only a small subset of guys completely remove the pubic hair from their scrotum. If you’re on the fence, here are a few reasons to consider shaving your nuts.

1. Most Women Prefer It

When it comes to the bedroom, women overwhelmingly prefer their man’s nether regions to be manscaped. It makes sense: Who in the right mind would enjoy sifting through a tumbleweed of pubes, much less stick their face into it?

2. It’s More Hygienic

Coarse body hair is a breeding ground for smelly bacteria—especially in cramped quarters like your crotch. But with a shaved sack, those germs that cause pubic lice and crabs have nowhere to hide.

3. Your Balls Will Smell Better

The most common culprit of sweaty balls is your pubic hair, which collects sweat throughout the day (especially in the summer months). As the sweat festers, it emits a horrific stench that may even waft through your underwear. Shaving your balls will help your balls breathe and keep them smelling fresh.

2 Risks of Shaving Your Balls

Having a smooth ball sack is undeniably luxurious, but the process of getting there entails two risks.

1. You Might Cut Yourself

We’ve heard countless horror stories about bloody balls from guys who got overzealous while manscaping. This is unfortunate, but understandable. Your scrotum isn’t easy to shave, and if you don’t follow the proper technique you’re one false move away from a trip to the ER.

2. Potentially Higher Risk for STIs

An open cut on your scrotum can increase your risk for an STI.

“If you groom before sex, you might disrupt your epithelial barrier [skin that protects the body from damage], and you might be more susceptible to things transmitted via the epithelial barrier,” says Dr. Thomas Gaither, a resident physician at UCLA. “So that’s all the sexually transmitted infections that are cutaneous—HPV, genital warts, syphilis.”

What a tragedy: even if you’re wearing a condom, you can contract an STI through open wounds on your ballsack.

Keep Your Boys Breezy

Whether your balls are bare or full-bush, you gotta prevent chafing. That’s where DUDE Powder comes in. This talc-free, deodorizing, cornstarch-based body powder is infused with natural ingredients like aloe and vitamin E to keep swass and stank at bay.

Just dust your boys after the shower and you’ll be ready to conquer the day, hairless or not.