Thread: My Story - An allergic persons way of shaving.

Hi All,

I don't really know if anyone has ever discussed about allergies on the forum. But if not, I will start right now.

I have been diagnosed with 86 different allergies, including couple different urticarias. The worst when it comes to shaving, Dermatographic urticaria. Actually it's a "skin condition" with 5% of the earths population. Mine's really bad.

The problem really was, that when ever I shaved, how ever I shaved, my face kept bright red at least 6-8 hours after shave. Not only that. It had really bad burning. So bad that you hardly could touch it. I always did the shaving in the evening.

Im only in my mid twenties, so the problem hasn't been for that long. But let's say for almost ten years. About last year/year before that I became so annoyed about it and started searching for help. I can tell you. There's not much help available. But somehow I started reading about different shaving techniques. My that time shaving technique was a Gilette Mach 3 Turbo after shower with the worst available "shaving gel" available. At least that's my opinion about them now.

I was doing wet shaving, even not knowing about it. But there was much to learn. Soon I searched for some reasonable shaving creme. And I can say, it's really hard to get here in Finland. I thought those tiny Palmolive bit's we're easy to get. Nowhere to be found! I found the creme I'm still using, from a junk market, by change. It's some no-name german creme (in a tube) that says "Rasiermesser Creme" on it. Then I bought a cheapo brush from Bodyshop (definetly not badger) and went with that. It actually helped a bit. But still the pulling from Gillette drove my skin nut's. Again I had to google. There was much fuzz about straights but I thought it would be worse with it. Until I got onto this forum.

After that, about a year ago I got my first Straight. It was Solingen Nippes, a brand new one! I got a Dovo Prima Rindleder strop with leather on the other and canvas on the other side. Razor really wasn't shave ready, like you wrote here, and it really wasn't that nice. But workable. I have always been good with my hand's so I searched for a method to put the razor to better shape. I got it to better shape with numerous sheets of newspaper and a thick glass. The shaving wasn't still that confortable. Even after 10-30 on canvas and 50-100 on leather. But in time I have discovered that the problem was mostly on my stropping technique. I have been nowadays looking always for better products for my skin (really hard because of the allergies) but Im pretty good already.

After that I have made my shaving procedure to this;
-10-20 on canvas
-50-80 on leather, ready to go.
-Hot Shower
-Good Facial Wash
-Hair Balsam (mistresses) to whiskers
-After shower I put the hottest water available to fill the sink and wet my face good with it
-Make a good lather from creme to my face
-Shave WTG
-Shave XTG
-Shave ATG (mostly on the moustache and chin)
-Wash the lather away with the hot water
-Apply cool, wet aluna
-Get dressed while aluna makes it's magic
-Gently rinse with cold water
-Apply Nivea Sensitive After Shave Balm.

And I got to tell you. I just got my face shaven. Like 5-15 minutes ago. The redness has gone already (the very little that comes) and the skin really doesn't feel burning or anything. Just a very smooth skin. I really feel a winner after this. Well worth the effort.

I work on an Office enviroment and It really makes a difference on appearance, when having this close shave.

I just got to hand it to you. You guys here at the SRP made my life much better. Especially the guys that have worked with the Wiki section.

And for the newcomers. Please be patient. The shaving and especially stropping will get better in time.

Im not actually not that of an amateur, that i should post this here. But I did because I feel I have a mountain to clime still. Next I will try a shaving soap with a real badger hair brush. And I got my second razor already. A Swedish Edv. Neiström from Eskiltuna. Propably from fourties or fifties. It was in pretty bad shape when it comes to honing. The razor is REALLY overhoned, by some machine I guess. I still want to make it a shaver. Now I have the razor really well cleaned, polished and Im honing it on a double sided stone. I got it from a friend but I don't really know what grit it is. The problem is that there was pretty much spotting on the edge of the razor and I still havent got all of them out. Got most of them though. Propably done thousands of passes this weekend