Thread: Cold water shave

I've found that shaves with extreme water temperatures (really hot or really frickin' cold) are not comfortable for my skin. I prefer to use warm water (not so hot it steams) to lather, wash and rinse. My skin likes it, and I get a pretty decent shave out of it. I tried the straight cold, but it made my skin too brittle and made the hair lay down. I also tried the near-boiling hot and it left too much hair and blood behind from skin swelling. I found that warm tap water works best for me. As always, though, your mileage may vary.

So I've been experimenting a little and maybe ya'll can chime in with your thoughts. Like I said above I use the cold water method, however I read an interesting thread on pre shave oils/face wash with oils. I have an oily face with wide open pours so I thought I would give washing my face with oils only a try. I found it to be great for my skin; my face doesn't feel overly oily and also doesn't get dried out like it did with other chemical facial cleansers. My ingrediants are 30% casterol oil, 70% olive oil, and about 4 drops of tea trea oil (mixed in a small purell hand sanitizer bottle).

So here's what I've been doing. I wash my face with the oil and step in the hot shower to open the pours and let the oil soak in and I know the oil is also softening the bristles at the same time. I wipe off all the oil at the end of the shower and when I step out to begin the shave I splash my face with alot of cold water to tighten up the face and make the bristles stand a little more straight and rigid. I think it's a nice combination of giving the blade a little resistence to allow better cutting and softening the bristles with the oil so their not hard as steele. I do not know if I'm getting any benifit from this or not but I really like it so far.

So am I crazy? Is this counter productive?

interesting
do you guys still think a preshave whisker softening product is required?

I didn't really start using it as a pre shave but rather as a face cleanser. It still softens the whiskers but don't know if it is counter active to a cold water shave.

Originally Posted by CaliforniaCajun

Maybe you can't answer this, but after reading Pages 50-55 of this book I'm wondering why cold water shaving isn't common knowledge.

I never heard of such a thing until you discussed it earlier this year. When I was a kid in the 60s, barbers used to apply hot lather around the ears and shave with a straight. Naturally I thought shaves were supposed to be hot.

Now I have to try it. Before jumping in the cold water I don't know whether to thank you () or thank you () becuase I sure enjoy that warm lather.

I've known about cold water shaves since the 80's. An older guy who'd been to Vietnam told me that's what they did in the tropical climate to avoid razor rash. I still shave cold in hot, humid weather, but generally enjoy a nice hot towel and warm lather!

I have been doing cold water shaves for a couple of weeks now and love them. Thank you to all who inspired me to try.

Just tried this for the first time. I did my usual routine, but used cold water throughout, rubbed in first lathering and relathered, and skipped the face rinses as per advice.

0. Soaked brush and DE (for now -- waiting for straight to arrive) in cold water whilst showering.
1. Washed face in cold water. Pat dry with wringed-out flannel
2. Apply proraso pre/post cream
3. Mixed up TOBS lavendar cream in bowl with cold water
4. Without cleaning off proraso or rinsing, lathered up, rubbed in.
5. Re-applied lather. WTG pass.
6. Without rinsing, re-applied lather. XTG pass.
7. Again, relathered. ATG pass.
8. Cold water rinse, flannel-dried, apply alum.
9. Cold water rinse, flannel-dried, apply bay rum.

Not so keen on the cold water washes. I don't really mind the cold lather or cold blade on my face though.

Because (I presume) the hairs weren't softened as much as usual, and the coldness making my face tighter meant that it wasn't as supple, the shave was rougher-going than usual.

The shave wasn't any closer than usual, but I did manage to tidy up a tricky bit (for me) to the RHS of my Adam's apple. Normally, I give up on this after a couple of goes due to irritation.

My face felt much tighter afterwards than usual (not in a good way).

Next time I think I will put back in the missing rinses inbetween passes. It just didn't feel right without.

I'll persevere until I switch blades and rotate again, but I haven't experienced anything so far that will make me give up the hot water.

I will say the this is meant for straight shaving not de shaving. I can't imagine a DE blade on a face with cold water, ouch!

Ah. Hadn't thought of that. Will come back to you soon then. (Hopefully within the week, depending on the post!)

Asa matter of fact I did a cold water shave with a DE last week (my hand-eye coordination was off and didn't feel like nicking my strop...or my face, for that matter ) with a feather stainless steel, and I must say the feel of ice-cold steel on the face wasn't unpleasant. It felt like it sealed the pores along the way as the blade passed over the skin. An interesting experience to try out, I would say!