Trends come and go in both sports and men’s grooming, but sometimes they intersect in intriguing ways. Consider the unusual Venn diagram that includes some overlap between full-body trimming, manscaping, and leg shaving, which don’t seem to fit together at all.
There is some intriguing logic at work here, though. Elite endurance athletes have been shaving their legs for decades, and a growing number of men are also shaving their legs. At least one company, BOLT Skin + Shave, is trying to capitalize on this trend with a niche product. Can they succeed?
Leg shaving as a trend
To break down the trend behind the product, let’s start with some numbers. According to a study conducted by JAMA Dermatology, 67 percent of men aged 18-65 have engaged in some kind of body grooming, and many are even willing to risk serious injury to do it. Dangerous or not, though, companies like MANSCAPED have successfully capitalized on this trend to establish an entire men’s grooming niche, and many mainstream grooming and beauty firms now offer trimming products to compete.
Add in the influence of “experts” like Aaron Marino, aka Alpha M., and it’s not hard to make the leap from manscaping as a trend to creating a growing market for leg shaving. Especially when you enlist a world-class endurance athlete who’s been doing it for years as your spokesperson.
An elite athlete speaks out about leg shaving
World-class cyclist Keegan Swenson is the right person to advocate for leg shaving. While he’s not nearly as well known as cyclists like Lance Armstrong back in the day, he started leg shaving for elite performance long before BOLT recruited him, so for him, leg shaving is part of the drill when it comes to grooming to shave a few seconds off his time here and there.
“They’ve done aero testing in wind tunnels and found that shaved legs can save you minutes over the course of an hour,” Swenson says of his regimen. “And clean legs just feel better on the bike. It makes post-ride recovery easier, too. When you’re doing a massage, using recovery tools, or dealing with crashes, it’s just cleaner and more comfortable.”
Obviously, Swenson received some financial incentive to advocate for BOLT, but he also believes in the product based on his experience with other approaches.
“I’ve tried trimmers and even regular razors, but they’re not made for what I need,” he explains. “Trimmers leave stubble and miss spots, and most razors are designed for your face — not your legs after a week of training and racing.
“BOLT is different. It’s built specifically for body shaving, so it handles bigger surface areas, curves, and beat-up skin without clogging or tearing you up. It gives a clean, smooth shave that actually lasts — and it holds up way better than anything else I’ve used.”
Can BOLT use leg shaving to become the next MANSCAPED?
Not surprisingly, BOLT founder Adam Barker thinks the answer to this question is a resounding yes. After launching the company and its products last year without much fanfare, he’s hoping the second time is the charm now that he has Swenson on board to help.
“[Leg shaving is] most common in cycling, swimming and triathlon, but it was primarily limited to just top-tier athletes looking for marginal gains at elite levels,” he said. “The evolution is that now it exists as much as a cultural part of these sports within the amateur ranks as it does a performance advantage for the pros and elite-level athletes.
“Whether you’re aware of the actual performance benefits or not doesn’t really matter,” Barker adds. “It’s part of it. Enthusiasts and aspiring cyclists, swimmers, etc., look at what everyone else is doing and they see smooth legs and say to themselves, ‘hmm…I guess this is what you do.’ And it is.”
In the simplest terms, the athletic equation is fairly basic: No leg hair equals less wind resistance, which in turn means less energy expended while maintaining higher power output, and the same fundamental advantage applies to swimmers.
Can that advantage combine with the comfort factor to sustain the company and its products? The odds are against it, but lightning does strike occasionally and create a unique kind of good fortune. Just ask the good folks at MANSCAPED.
