Thread: Heating a towel at home

Originally Posted by str8rzrshvr

My question is this...is it really necessary to put towels in a microwave, or a crock pot to heat them up? What is the advantage of putting towels in the microwave, crock pot, or even an oven over simply applying hot water soaked towels/washclothes to prep your beard?

Someone, please inform this newbie of the benefits of these methods. Thanks,

Jeff

Ok, Being a newbie here I'll probably solicit a few laughs for trying but here's my 2 cents .

Basically it was economics. The faster you get one bloke out of a chair the faster you get another in and the more pence you have at the end of the day. the hotter the towel you can get a patron to tolerate, the faster you get him shaved. Especailly when the bloke was a cow poke off the trail with sometimes weeks or months of growth on his face

The barbers of old used hot/steamed towels basically to speed up a process of softening the beard and conditioning the face, breaking up oils, etc. Where warm water and lather softens it after a bit, a good hot towel speeds it up considerably.

The towel acts as an insulator, keeping the wet heat on the facial hair longer than just warm/hot water. the thicker the material the longer it holds the heat. the more material, the longer it holds the heat. The longer it stays hotter than water alone the faster the beard softens and oils/dirt loosen and the quicker you can get a good shave easily.

FUD

Originally Posted by mgraepel

I went to the local barber to get some pointers on shaving properly with a straight. It turns out he had a really excellent suggestion on how to heat up a towel for your face. He suggested getting the towel wet, wringing it out moderately, then put it in a crock pot for 20 minutes. That should leave you with a very moist and very hot towel for your face. This would be even more effective if you haven't showered before-hand and just did a facial scrub. Also, he tore out his entire section on shaving and handed it to me on my way out of his shop. He told me he had three more of these books at home, so it wasn't a big deal. I'll be scanning these and uploading them some time this week.

Old barbers have a wealth of info. I have one down the street who is almost 80. He doesn't shave anymore because of a stroke but he has really helped me. He can answer any question that comes up.
This might be an idea for anyone new to this. I would think it would be fairly easy to find old barbers.