Preshave oil bottle for cheapos

I went to walmart today to get castor and olive oil to try out a homemade preshave oil recipe I found online (1/4 olive oil, 3/4 castor oil, little EO/FO "left that out"). And I was going to buy an empty bottle to put it in, but what there was, was a four pack variety thing which I had no use for the three other bottles plus I figured I was aready spending too much money. I just left thinking I'll find some little bottle at home and use that til I find out that I like the homemade preshave oil recipe and find a nice bottle to put it in. Anyways I got home and could not find a little bottle to save my life. Everything was either too big or too full to throw away. I had settled on a dial liquid soap dispencer which was wrong for various reasons but it was the best there was. And as I was making my final clean up/prep to start mixing, I made one last ditch effort to find a semi proper bottle and I found it. Routing through my drawer I found this little bottle of MIO I had put aside. They call it a liquid water enhancer, its a liquid zero calorie sweetner that comes in diffrent flavors. Anyways the interesting thing about it is it has this pretty nice one way valve type spout by which you "pour" out the product, it actually spits it out. It's nice because you really have a nice way to easily use exactly what you want, which is great when using the preshave oil because as I said you can use exactly what you need without any mess. The preshave oil I've been using from art of shaving is cumbersome by comparison. No twist cap or pump that gets all over, just thumb open the flip top and squeeze, no mess. Happy how that came out, wanted to share. And the recipe worked out to boot.

Pre-shave oil is useless IMO, you are better off without it. Your post is just a wall of text, please hit "enter" once in a while to make it easier to read.

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Originally Posted by Blix

Pre-shave oil is useless IMO, you are better off without it. Your post is just a wall of text, please hit "enter" once in a while to make it easier to read.

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I don't think it is useless at all. Matter of fact the least it will do is moisturize your skin and hold in whatever moisture is already there.The best it can do is saturate the whiskers to make them softer and provide a bit of glide over your skin.

Knife, I add some Almond oil to mine also, makes it smell really nice. I like almond scent, but you can by other extracts to place into the oil also.

It is all about personal taste and preference.

Enjoy your day.

Pre-shave oil works for me! However, I don't believe you found a bottle that works for you.... Prove it to me with pictures :)

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Originally Posted by Mvcrash

It is all about personal taste and preference.

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Yup, that's why I threw in the "IMO" in my post Jeff. :)

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Originally Posted by Blix

Yup, that's why I threw in the "IMO" in my post Jeff. :)

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Quick Hijack.

We both agree you custom is simply beautiful!!!

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Originally Posted by Mvcrash

Quick Hijack.

We both agree you custom is simply beautiful!!!

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:tu Can't argue with that!

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Originally Posted by Blix

...Pre-shave oil is useless IMO, you are better off without it...

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What is your opinion on pre-shave creams, Blix?

I do believe I've found the pre-shave oil (first one) I'm using (Oscar, Australian) 'interferes' with the cream, in that it seems to make it dissapate a little (I think). OTOH I really like Proraso pre-shave cream...

I'd actually be more inclined to apply some of this rather nice smelling pre shave oil (it's like 9 different oils incl Meadowfoam, Rosehip, Bisabolol, Jojoba, Sandalwood, etc; with a Ylang Ylang scent) AFTER the shave rather than before and then put AS (T&H Trafalgar?) over the top to mix the spicy fragrances...

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Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

What is your opinion on pre-shave creams, Blix?

I do believe I've found the pre-shave oil (first one) I'm using (Oscar, Australian) 'interferes' with the cream, in that it seems to make it dissapate a little (I think). OTOH I really like Proraso pre-shave cream...

I'd actually be more inclined to apply some of this rather nice smelling pre shave oil (it's like 9 different oils incl Meadowfoam, Rosehip, Bisabolol, Jojoba, Sandalwood, etc; with a Ylang Ylang scent)) AFTER the shave rather than before and then put AS (T&H Trafalgar?) over the top to mix the spicy fragrances)...

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I like the Proraso cream as well. I find oils just mess up my grip on the skin. I didn't use anything but lather as a "pre" today, worked fine as well. :)

Sorry about the write up. I wrote it on my smartphone and you don't get a sence of how your write up is looking when you only see two lines of text at a time.

As far as preshave oil goes, I guess everyone is different, but I've put it on before where I got that sence that it was just dissipating my shave lather. My error was in putting it on heavy. You need to just put enough to make your face shinny (work it in), not a layer of oil almost dripping off your face. You'll see even after your first pass your face will be oily, so its there as this extra layer of protection. All you need is a dime sized drop of oil for you whole face.

Finally, quarter for scale. I can't get a clear pic of the spout which is like I said a one way valve type of "spout". So it needs to be squeezed, if you tip over the bottle nothing will come out. So nothing sort of stays on the tip, pretty clean setup.
Attachment 76846

Great looking bottle and I really like the idea of a one-way valve. I have mixed emotions about shaving oils. When I do use them, I always use them as a pre-shave oil and put shaving cream on top of them.

I started with Pacific Shaving oil and loved the scent and the lightness. Next I tried two different bottles of King of Shaves oil that I grew to hate. The scent made me feel like I was putting 10W-30 Quaker State Motor oil on my face. I gave these as a PIF to a friend. My third attempt was filling my empty Pacific bottle with Astroglide, which worked quite well as a pre-shave oil.

This past week, I tried the AOS unscented and Sandalwood pre-shave oils. While they seemed a bit heavy in texture, they did provide a smooth shave and the Sandalwood smelled great. The two negatives were (1) the oil made my shaving cream stick to the blade of my straight razor and (2) the oil seemed to gum up my Silvertip brush. I wound up washing my brush with shampoo to get the stickiness and clumping out of the brush. I did find the AOS cream and balm to be outstanding, albeit a little pricy.

There are times I feel like oil really add smoothness to my shave and other times I feel that I get just as fine a shave without oil. I guess I am going to have to do some controlled experiments. I think I will apply oil only to one side of my face, lather up the whole face with cream, and see which side shaves better. Using the same mixture of shaving cream should eliminate the shaving cream as a variable factor. I do believe it is worth further exploration.

Thanks for your post. I am not sure why anyone should care whether someone else uses pre-shave oil nor not. If it works for you, use it. If it doesn't work for you, don't use it. Certainly the world of shaving is big enough to include all our preferences.

Happy Shaving,
:)

Yeah, Knife, I agree about the feeling of dissipation, I got that thought before too. TODAY, however, I did one side of my face with oil (Oscar; it's really nice) and one without.

Actually, to tell you the truth, I didn't notice any difference.

There are SO many variables, it's got to just come down to what works on the day, and learning from each interaction we have with each cream, soap, oil, brush, razor, bowl, strop, hone, mood, light, person, thing that enters our sphere of perception...

Isn't it?

"I am not sure why anyone should care whether someone else uses pre-shave oil nor not."

The reason to care is that anyone reading these posts is looking for information, so caring about what other
shavers do and why they do it is part of the learning experience. It's not just personal preference. It's about
learning what works for others, why they do what they do and learning from experimentation.

I've tried three pre-shave oils. One was the Shave Secret found at Walmart. I've also tried one called Lab Series,
and I even tried Astroglide. The Lab Series immediately destroyed the lather, and it dropped off my face onto my
chest. The Astroglide seemed to work best, was water soluble and washed off the hands easily.

I saw little shaving difference in any of them, and just use them for the fun of it sometimes. My pre-shave prep has
dropped off to 30 seconds of lathering then applied to a dry face. I've seen no difference in the shaves at all. When
I do any extended prep these days, it's just to play around, not because of any difference in the shaves.

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Originally Posted by ace

"I am not sure why anyone should care whether someone else uses pre-shave oil nor not."

The reason to care is that anyone reading these posts is looking for information, so caring about what other shavers do and why they do it is part of the learning experience. It's not just personal preference. It's about learning what works for others, why they what they do and learning from experimentation...

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Ace,

I totally agree. My sentence did not express what I was trying to say. On many of these posts, I get the feeling that some people feel a lack of validation if others don't agree with what they do. I should have said, "I am not sure that anyone should feel a lack of validation if someone else uses pre-shave oil or not." I apologize for the lack of clarity in my post.

I strongly agree about caring about all aspects of shaving. That is why SRP is so useful. We can learn a lot from each other. That is why I posted my experiences with shaving oil.

Thanks for your post. It made me realize that what I wrote totally miscommunicated what I was trying to express.

Happy Shaving.

Proraso pre shave worked for me pretty well.
Use it now and sometimes, love the chilling effect they leave behind after each stroke.
try it, cheap and good

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Originally Posted by DLB

Ace,

I totally agree. My sentence did not express what I was trying to say. On many of these posts, I get the feeling that some people feel a lack of validation if others don't agree with what they do. I should have said, "I am not sure that anyone should feel a lack of validation if someone else uses pre-shave oil or not." I apologize for the lack of clarity in my post.

I strongly agree about caring about all aspects of shaving. That is why SRP is so useful. We can learn a lot from each other. That is why I posted my experiences with shaving oil.

Thanks for your post. It made me realize that what I wrote totally miscommunicated what I was trying to express.

Happy Shaving.

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And happy shaving to you as well. Maybe I need to switch to decaf, eh? :)

Well, I stated this thread to talk about a bottle and it turned into a discussion about preshave oil, which is just one of the many things that can be put into this. Next I'm going to try my aftershave conditioner, it has a twist off cap which is annoying.

Anyways the bottle was an afterthought from trying out the preshave oil recipe. I've wet shaved like eight times now so I don't really know what I'm doing. There are so many variables its hard to pinpoint what is what made the shave good or bad. I originally gave preshave oils a shot because it was part of a starter kit I bought in AOS, where I really wanted to try out there cream and figured lets try everything. After using the preshave oil I found I didn't get as much of a sting feeling after shaving and putting on my old spice. I wouldn't call it razor burn because it stung for like an hour and then went away and was not red or anything. Or maybe I did get razor burn. But again theres the variables did the preshave oil work or did I just shave more gingerly?

Right now I don't know and I have a love hate relationship with preshave oils. On the one hand I feel it protects my face but on the other I do find it tugs at my skin more than if I just shaved without it. Also I almost feel as though the extra "film" of oil isn't allowing me to cut as deep (theoretically what its supposed to do to protect the skin), but I don't feel I'm getting as close a shave with the preshave oil.

My theory now is to get as good a lather that provides for me the best glide, so I can gingerly shave without resistance and just get a really close shave with multiple passes.

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Originally Posted by kalerolf

Proraso pre shave worked for me pretty well.
Use it now and sometimes, love the chilling effect they leave behind after each stroke.
try it, cheap and good

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kalerolf, how does that preshave cream work. Do you "clean" your face before you lather or do you lather on top of the cream? I like the chilling effect idea!

I dont clean my face after rubbing the creme into my beard. Wash your face,rub it in make lather and lather up and shave.

I'm digging the MIO bottle for preshave oil. I mix my own and use a small bottle of shampoo that I jacked while staying at a hotel. It has a twist top and holds maybe an ounce but lasts for about 2 months once I make it. I have to clean the bottle after I shave because no matter how much I try, some oil always covers the outside. haha

Does the MIO bottle make the oil shoot out too fast and splatter though?