Thread: Anyone here make their own aftershave?

Just curious?

I had a go at Bay Rum, the results were underwhelming.

Poke around this forum. There are some threads with decent recipies and advice. I found a decent Bay Rum on here that my wife loves and I am playing with a whiskey based AS. It's kind of fun and not that hard.

I made a Rubbing alc, dark rum, aloe, cinnamon, vanilla mixture that came out pretty nice. Not too harsh not underpowered. Curious to see how many others were making vs. buying.

I'm fortunate enough to actually own a Pimenta racemosa tree. It's small, (3 1/2') in a pot on my balcony. I've harvested a handful of leaves and macerated them in rum. It turned out well enough that I realize that essential oils are not absolutely necessary if you have the fresh leaves. It did not make a powerfully strong solution but one that was very pleasant to use and aromatic enough to please me with the results.

Pimenta racemosa - is bay rum not one of the best smelling things on the planet! Must be a guy thing.. You're lucky you live in sunnyville... we're still down to 9 hours of light around here.

Easier to make witch hazel balm-like things for me. I've got some eucalyptus, mint, menthol and some straight up pine (pinus silvestris). Diluted some Aqua Velva "Musk" with witch hazel, came out to be a very viscous, pearly balm-like consistency, mixed with menthol that's pretty good (the "Musk" from AV definitely needed to be toned down).

Seems you can make alcohol solvent extracts with powdered spices or whole, as long as you strain them properly (I would probably use a coffee filter). Haven't gotten that far yet.

I made a simple attempt once that went horribly wrong. Used some drug store witch hazel and added some menthol crystal. Actually I added way too many menthol crystals. Left me with a physical burn thats lasted close to two weeks.

Wow. Reminds me of the time someone used too much of a mint extract and I think there were methyl salicylates in it or somethin' because he wound up hurt, too. Yes, there are many paths to pain in our traditional wetshaving endeavors... muah ha ha ha ha ha! You may have put the blade down but are you ever really safe?

I just infused some Corn Huskers with a sampler vial of GFT sandalwood. Does that count? Poor man's GFT skin food.