Steamed towels and shaving mirrors
Hi guys,
It seems from most of the comments I've seen around here that most of you shower and then shave. The benefits of this approach are undeniable, as the hot shower helps soften the beard growth. However, I can't really adopt this approach, unfortunately: once I get out of the shower, the mirror in my bathroom is so fogged up that I can't see anything, and it's basically the only mirror I have access to in the mornings.
Now, from what I understand, there are special anti-fog shaving mirrors available that will not fog up. Do any of you guys use these? Would you recommend one? How much do they run?
Even if that solves my foggy mirror problem, though, there's still the fact that I just don't have much time in the mornings and, being a newbie, the whole shave routine takes up a bit more time than I'd like to commit to every morning before work -- I need to be in the office by 3:30 am so you can imagine that that extra 15 minutes of sleep is near and dear to me.
So I've been thinking that I'd like to shave in the evenings rather than in the mornings, at least initially. This brings me to the steamed towel idea. Besides being very nice, barbers have been using steamed towels to soften clients' beards for centuries now.
So my question is, do any of you incorporate steamed towels into your ritual, and if so, how do you go about it? How does it compare to showering in terms of beard softening?
Tell, tell :)