Hi,

I've been shaving with hot water for 9 months now, and shaves are normally irritation free. However, i wanted to try cold water shaving, in part to be able to use it for traveling, with a more light weight setup.

Unfortunately, with my shaves, i'm getting MUCH more irritation. So, i'm wondering if it is my preshave prep, dealing w/face lathering and soap vs cream, during shave process, or other.

With my normal routine, I take a hot shower, wash my beard with soap, and apply hair conditioner. After the shower, I create latter using TOBS cream in a heated shuttle, apply preshave cream to face, apply hot towel for 30-60 seconds, rinse, reapply preshave cream, apply soap, and do a pass with straight razor. I then, reapply preshave cream and soap and do the second pass. Overall, three passes, WTG, XTG, and ATG.

Most of the time, I have very little irritation. If I get anal and do extra touch-ups to get really BBS, I'll have moderate irritation.

For cold water, I just wet my face, apply soap (Arko), face lather (get a pretty good lather, but is new to me), and do the same three passes with my straight, same pressure/technique, and reapply soap in-between passes. I'm seeing that I get considerable irritation, almost rash like. I only try this once a week (done about 3 times), on Sunday, so I'm not rushed.

I'm wondering what I should add back into the process, to alleviate the irritation (or whether it's not going to work for me). I'm trying to stay away from using a scuttle, thinking of the travel aspect (for flying, I'll try to limit liquids and use a disposable).

Any tips/ideas I should try? Any concerns that I should be aware of?

Thanks!