Thread: Shower shower shower, what happened to.....

Here is a little different take on the entire subject. I shower after the shave. Follow me here.
My pre shave is a bit extreme, Ill agree: I take about five or seven minutes with a wash and fairly intense massage with the pre-shave oil. Then I apply some shave cream - massaging it in the beard for a minute or two. Then the hot towels, a bit more pre shave oil, shave cream and I begin.
When I am done, I clean the razor and jump into a hot shower. The hot water directly on the face does feel great. When I am done in the shower, I apply one more hot towel for a few seconds, then the alum block, followed by ice cold water. Finally the after shave.
You see, I need to make sure all the soap is off my face. It seems a shower is the only way I can make sure it is all gone from the cracks and crevices I cannot always see in the mirror. Plus, the shower after the shave allows the hair to be done before it dries.
Admittedly, the process is a bit different, but as is said so may times on this site ,"Whatever works".
Andy

I follow a similar routine , without the hot towels, I find the shower after shaving the best was to start my day.

Anybody found that a hot towel softens not only the whiskers but your skin as well...? Or even it softens the skin more than the whiskers so that you get irritation more easily? (just asking)

Well in my particular case eventhou I shower in the morning sometimes I just don't have the time to take so long on the shaving process. But at the end of the day I takes a lot of time shaving using the traditional method due to the fact I love it and I just take the time and that it. Anyway, in regards the towel, yes eventhou I shower in the morning I always take a very hot towel two times for a minute and a half before apply castle forbes or proraso. Its very important to do it because the most important thing before shave are the open pores. If you can achive open poresa you will going to be ok I belive. Also another thing is, in between the first hot towel and the second apply either soap or cream to your face and then put another hot towel to the face. That's something that i belive you need to do.

thanks
K

I can shave without showering, but it isn't as comfortable or as close.

I haven't tried a hot towel yet. When I made the trip to AOS last week my wife watched the hot towel / face massage routine and promised to do that for me. I plan to take her up on it this weekend.

I used to do the entire hot water towel prep before my shaves when I first started, but now days do the simple hot shower then shave routine.

I found that as my skill increased it was less necessary for the uber-prep, although using towels etc. is really enjoyable and luxurious. The other reason for cutting down on prep was the amount of time it takes, in the mornings just don't have that kind of time any more.

Where the hot towel prep helps a lot is making sure your whiskers are as soft and wet as possible, and agitating them (like when using a shaving brush).

I love a hot towel, but often just go for it without a shower, too. However, I'm now using Proraso Preshave, which so far is working very well. Using the preshave also gets me that face massage many of you have mentioned.

I like to separate my showers and shaving time.

I find that after a shower there is too much to do to get ready and it infringes on my relaxing shave time. Also my shower is wonky and goes from hot to cold to burning to freezing in the average shower and so I never set it hot enough (for my own protection ha ha) to really get good steam going.

I prefer to do my shave at a different time.

I haven't done a hot towel, simply because I am new and I don't know if I use the microwave for that or whatnot (I will research it). I find that running hot water in the sink and splashing my face for a few minutes and rubbing the hot water in to the beard area work well. Also one of the best tips I have ever received was to soak my brush in very hot water for atleast 2 minutes before lathering.

When things are wet and hot a good shave happens! :-)

I rarely do enough prep for my shaves, so I found a good preshave really makes a difference.

I generally shave at night and do a hot towel prep. For me it seems to work better than shower prep.