Turns out reaching for your shampoo or soap to shave your legs is a huge no-no.

Stop everything because, apparently, we’ve been doing this whole ‘shaving’ thing very wrong.

(Not as wrong as that one time I decided to ‘scratch an itch’ mid-razor stroke and not as wrong as the pressure we all feel as women to even remove said natural, body hair, but still, pretty wrong…)

You see, most of us only remember to shave after lathering ourselves in shower gel and realising that yes, our legs are a little bit prickly. So, we grab the nearest soapy substance to help glide our razors over our skin.

“Yes, that random bar of soap that’s been sitting in the corner of the shower for quite a while will do,” we think.

We grab anything – shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, heck even the hand soap – and continue on our merry (hair-free).

But according to dermatologist Dr. Anita Sturnham, we've got it all wrong, because we should really be using a product designed specifically for shaving.

Anything else, she told Popsugar, is making our hair-removal routine way more difficult than it needs to be.

LISTEN: "Mummy, why are my legs hairy and yours are smooth?" The hair removal question that stumped podcast host Holly Wainwright. Post continues after audio.

"Shaving has a naturally exfoliating mechanism of action, so you need to use products that are designed to work in synergy with your razor and improve glide, reduce friction, and the risk of irritation and cuts," she said.

Shower gel and other non-specific shaving products actually "coat the hairs, making them thicker and more difficult to shave".

And if you think adding one more beauty product to your basket is just a money-making tactic, think about this: using products that aren't designed for shaving can actually blunt your razor, sending you back to the supermarket quicker than you can say "regrowth".

"[These products] will clog your razors, which can ultimately mean using your razor more often for results that aren't as smooth," Dr. Anita Sturnham said.

It is, however, worth replacing your razor at regular intervals, to ensure nasty bacteria doesn't grow and cause those red, sometimes painful, bumps we've all experienced a day or two after shaving.