Professor Flanders's Journal of Nerdy Observations and silly camaraderie

[T Bone]

I'm not sure where to take this, apart from trying some pre-shaves after a face wash/oil removal, but I'm curious about others' thoughts, experiences and processes.

It seems to me that there are 2 reasons for using a preshave: softening, and lubrication.

For the first, if you don’t shower before shaving, a preshave to soften your whiskers is probably a good idea. If you do shower, or spend a couple of minutes washing your face or applying a wet washcloth, it’s probably not necessary.

As for the second reason, I would think that if you need a lubricant (preshave) between your skin and your lubricant (lather), then there’s probably something wrong with the latter lubricant.

 

[Phoenixkh]

It seems to me that there are 2 reasons for using a preshave: softening, and lubrication.

For the first, if you don’t shower before shaving, a preshave to soften your whiskers is probably a good idea. If you do shower, or spend a couple of minutes washing your face or applying a wet washcloth, it’s probably not necessary.

As for the second reason, I would think that if you need a lubricant (preshave) between your skin and your lubricant (lather), then there’s probably something wrong with the latter lubricant.

You would think that... I use what I consider to be excellent soaps. I did experiments with and without a shower... .with and without a good pre-shave in all the combinations, but for my skin and whiskers, the best results I've gotten have been with both a shower before shaving... using pre-shave bars in the shower.. and again before I lather.

I know it sounds extreme... I did try it just the other day... no shower... just pre-shave... and my whiskers were much tougher to cut. It might be my old man, grey, coarse whiskers. Who knows?

 

[APBinNCA]

Just throwing one thing out there: oil based pre-shaves work on the premise of softening the beard in place of water. Obviously the two don't mix. I have used them from the very beginning of wet shaving and still occasionally do, they do work to soften the whiskers. I used to use an expensive oil when I had a beard and there is no denying that they do what they say... at least long term, not so sure about immediately before a shave. They tend to inhibit lathering to some extent and also cause razor drag... remind me why do I still use them!? Grooming Dept shave oil is not exactly an oil in the traditional sense and it uses the same oil like compounds that Baume.be does, but in oil form. There is a correct name for these... hmm.

 

[Galibier_Numero_Un]

Just throwing one thing out there: oil based pre-shaves work on the premise of softening the beard in place of water. Obviously the two don't mix. I have used them from the very beginning of wet shaving and still occasionally do, they do work to soften the whiskers. I used to use an expensive oil when I had a beard and there is no denying that they do what they say... at least long term, not so sure about immediately before a shave. They tend to inhibit lathering to some extent and also cause razor drag... remind me why do I still use them!? Grooming Dept shave oil is not exactly an oil in the traditional sense and it uses the same oil like compounds that Baume.be does, but in oil form. There is a correct name for these... hmm.

Mystery solved ;-)

It seems to me that there are 2 reasons for using a preshave: softening, and lubrication.

For the first, if you don’t shower before shaving, a preshave to soften your whiskers is probably a good idea. If you do shower, or spend a couple of minutes washing your face or applying a wet washcloth, it’s probably not necessary.

As for the second reason, I would think that if you need a lubricant (preshave) between your skin and your lubricant (lather), then there’s probably something wrong with the latter lubricant.

My key area of uncertainty is whether a pre-shave will soften a beard. Aaron sez yes.

I know that hot water as well as washing with soap will do this, since soap washing removes oils and saturates/softens the hairs.

If washing it accomplishes it (softening), then the only benefit I can see from a pre-shave would be lubrication, and yeah ... I thought that's what soap is all about

... Thom

 

[APBinNCA]

I would say that the soap based pre-shaves probably work on the premise that shave soaps do: holding water in suspension(I believe). They should hold water long enough for the water to soften your whiskers vs having to constantly re-wet your face and having most of the water slide off. I could see how more than one round of pre-shave might benefit though I won't be trying that!

 

[T Bone]

You would think that... I use what I consider to be excellent soaps. I did experiments with and without a shower... .with and without a good pre-shave in all the combinations, but for my skin and whiskers, the best results I've gotten have been with both a shower before shaving... using pre-shave bars in the shower.. and again before I lather.

I know it sounds extreme... I did try it just the other day... no shower... just pre-shave... and my whiskers were much tougher to cut. It might be my old man, grey, coarse whiskers. Who knows?

It sounds like you use preshave to soften your whiskers though, not for lubrication. I'm not sure at what point whiskers become "soft enough", and no doubt that varies from person to person anyway. Sounds like you've figured out what you need to get your whiskers soft enough though, so that's good.

My key area of uncertainty is whether a pre-shave will soften a beard. Aaron sez yes.

I know that hot water as well as washing with soap will do this, since soap washing removes oils and saturates/softens the hairs.

Showers, preshave, water (hot or cold), washing with soap,... any of these will soften the hairs. I think you just need to find what works to get yours soft enough. I shower first 95% of the time and that's enough for me. The rare occasions I don't shower, I wash my face and/or apply a wet washcloth for a couple of minutes. I feel like a shower works better, but I can't say for sure. I also probably don't wash my face or apply the washcloth for long enough, but I'm too impatient. If I'm going to stand there with a wet washcloth on my face for as long as I'd be showering for, I might as well just jump in the shower!

 

[APBinNCA]

I shower first 95% of the time and that's enough for me.

I really wish I could get back to shaving at night, but I am not presentable enough the next day. That may be the missing piece of why my best shaves were in the past. I come home and shower and wash my face, but in the morning I know I am not doing the best with the pre-shave routine and I am not washing my face again. As mentioned above, I don't much stubble to hydrate anyway. I think the shower might be the key, but I have always used pre-shave as well.

 

[Phoenixkh]

I would say that the soap based pre-shaves probably work on the premise that shave soaps do: holding water in suspension(I believe). They should hold water long enough for the water to soften your whiskers vs having to constantly re-wet your face and having most of the water slide off. I could see how more than one round of pre-shave might benefit though I won't be trying that!

LOL... I know I'm a moron... That's established fact... but since I use a brush to apply my pre-shaves, it already has pre-shave lather suspended in it.. why not use it for additional passes? I've been doing just that. I'm not sure if it has added benefit, but I'm not washing the pre-shave already in the brush down the drain.... or so I keep telling myself. <eg>

 

[huck1680]

I've been using the Cube before lathering up. I rub it on my face first. Does it help? I dunno. I was just curious because others had been using it and I wanted to see what might happen. I have been getting really good shaves with my Shield predator but that might just be from good soaps, razor to begin with. Once the Cube is gone I doubt I'd order another one.

 

[Darth Scandalous]

I'll admit that I have only used a couple of preshave products: Stirling's glycerin based bar and Proraso red preshave creme. I almost always shower first and I use a mild shampoo as a facewash in the shower. This definitely strips the natural oils from my whiskers and lets the water in. If I don't shower first, I use the Stirling bar as a thorough facewash, it seems to work almost as well and the glycerin helps draw moisture into the skin and beard.

However, the Stirling bar doesn't play nice with every soap, some of them feel a bit gummy on top of it, so I usually end up rinsing it off completely which sort of negates the slickness it imparts. As far as whisker softening, I can't tell that it does much more than a quality shave soap does, but it definitely helps hydrate the whiskers.

Proraso preshave, on the other hand, seems to work best after a facewash with something else. By itself it doesn't seem to penetrate the hair as much. It does seem to impart some lasting slickness to the skin, though. I find that MdC can be a bit drying on its own, but when I use Proraso preshave it is just about perfect. Now, in terms of whisker softening, whatever is in Proraso does seem to work, as long as the whiskers are pre-stripped of their natural oils. I can feel this effect pretty immediately with my fingers on the coarsest hairs around the bottom of my chin and the shaves bear it out. It's not a huge effect but it's enough of an advantage that I still use it.

Things like oils and hair conditioner, which some people use, do soften the hair as long as it's still moist-- once they dry into the hair they actually tend to make the cuticle stronger but also more pliable. This may or may not be a problem for shaving, but I generally avoid it as I've already gone to the trouble to de-oil my whiskers. The right oil would probably work very well though, because while oil and water don't mix, they can be emulsified, and that can make for a very slick surface as long as the emulsion lasts.

The other part of this is that some shave soaps soften whiskers better on their own than others. MdC and Southern Witchcrafts stand out a little from others I've tried. Proraso red, if you have the patience to do a ten-minute Italian barber style face lather, does well too, although I almost always use their preshave with it because it seems like the right thing to do. Stirling doesn't do it as well on its own for me, so I usually use either their preshave bar or Proraso with that one.

Thing is, we're talking about pretty subtle differences here, but shaving is an art of subtlety, after all.

 

[cajunrph]

I've been using the Cube before lathering up. I rub it on my face first. Does it help? I dunno. I was just curious because others had been using it and I wanted to see what might happen. I have been getting really good shaves with my Shield predator but that might just be from good soaps, razor to begin with. Once the Cube is gone I doubt I'd order another one.

I picked up the Cube and Razor Emporium Pre-Shave while I was falling down the rabbit hole of shave soaps. I have 3017ed the Cube so far and I am working on the RE Pre-Shave soap, after those are gone I'll go to a Neutragena Facial cleansing bar. My routine is to shower first, wet my face with warm water, and then apply the soap to the face, I rub the soap into my beard and make a semi-lather, then I go about loading my brush with soap from the tub, and after that I face lather. Does the preshave make a difference? Dunno We could delve into the science of softening the whiskers and just what steps need to be taken to accomplish this. Or we can just shave and enjoy the process. I may get some Proasco preshave in the future or I may just stay with the Neutragena. For those on the fence about the use of Pre-shave, try the Neutrogena facial bar soap, it's cheap and readily available, and if it helps great, if not I'm sure the LOTH will be glad to take it off your hands. Part of the enjoyment of wet shaving is fingering out what works best for you, and what works for me may not work for someone else. Experiment and enjoy the process.

 

[blethenstrom]

I picked up the Cube and Razor Emporium Pre-Shave while I was falling down the rabbit hole of shave soaps. I have 3017ed the Cube so far and I am working on the RE Pre-Shave soap, after those are gone I'll go to a Neutragena Facial cleansing bar. My routine is to shower first, wet my face with warm water, and then apply the soap to the face, I rub the soap into my beard and make a semi-lather, then I go about loading my brush with soap from the tub, and after that I face lather. Does the preshave make a difference? Dunno We could delve into the science of softening the whiskers and just what steps need to be taken to accomplish this. Or we can just shave and enjoy the process. I may get some Proasco preshave in the future or I may just stay with the Neutragena. For those on the fence about the use of Pre-shave, try the Neutrogena facial bar soap, it's cheap and readily available, and if it helps great, if not I'm sure the LOTH will be glad to take it off your hands. Part of the enjoyment of wet shaving is fingering out what works best for you, and what works for me may not work for someone else. Experiment and enjoy the process.

I guess I have been "lucky" so far to not need any pre shave treatment. I shower normally and wash my face in the shower with whatever bar I have there, finish up and then straight to lather up.

 

[huck1680]

I guess I have been "lucky" so far to not need any pre shave treatment. I shower normally and wash my face in the shower with whatever bar I have there, finish up and then straight to lather up.

Yeah me too. I bought the Cube out of curiosity and once it's gone, if I use it that much, I doubt I'll replace it. A face wash and then lather seems to work just fine.

 

[Galibier_Numero_Un]

Yer all gonna laugh at this one.

I have oily Mediterranean skin. I have a pump bottle filled with ... (wait for it) ... Dawn dish soap that I de-grease my whiskers with. I follow up with multiple splashes of hot water before beginning to face lather.

At the end of this assault on my face (shaving), I finish up with a witch hazel splash and re-lubricate with Weleda Skin Food while the witch hazel is still wet (thins out the Weleda). As much as I'm not a fan of oily things on my face, I find the Weleda to be fine.

Once we get out of the dedicated shaving world into the broader skin care universe, there's a host of good products. I'll check out the Neutrogena (thanks, @blethenstrom).

... Thom

 

[blethenstrom]

Yer all gonna laugh at this one.

I have oily Mediterranean skin. I have a pump bottle filled with ... (wait for it) ... Dawn dish soap that I de-grease my whiskers with. I follow up with multiple splashes of hot water before beginning to face lather.

At the end of this assault on my face (shaving), I finish up with a witch hazel splash and re-lubricate with Weleda Skin Food while the witch hazel is still wet (thins out the Weleda). As much as I'm not a fan of oily things on my face, I find the Weleda to be fine.

Once we get out of the dedicated shaving world into the broader skin care universe, there's a host of good products. I'll check out the Neutrogena (thanks, @blethenstrom).

... Thom

That is a different regiment! Hey whatever works, do that........ as long as you do not use break cleaner as a de-greaser. I do recommend against that.

 

[blethenstrom]

Once we get out of the dedicated shaving world into the broader skin care universe, there's a host of good products. I'll check out the Neutrogena (thanks, @blethenstrom).

I cannot take any credit for recommending Neutrogena.

 

[BigAlVista]

It sounds like you use preshave to soften your whiskers though, not for lubrication. I'm not sure at what point whiskers become "soft enough", and no doubt that varies from person to person anyway. Sounds like you've figured out what you need to get your whiskers soft enough though, so that's good.


Showers, preshave, water (hot or cold), washing with soap,... any of these will soften the hairs. I think you just need to find what works to get yours soft enough. I shower first 95% of the time and that's enough for me. The rare occasions I don't shower, I wash my face and/or apply a wet washcloth for a couple of minutes. I feel like a shower works better, but I can't say for sure. I also probably don't wash my face or apply the washcloth for long enough, but I'm too impatient. If I'm going to stand there with a wet washcloth on my face for as long as I'd be showering for, I might as well just jump in the shower!

About a year ago, I started experimenting with hot water/long showers or bathes, pre-shave oils, and pre-shave creams. With no prep, my shave was rougher than with a shower or bath. No surprise. Add a minute under a hot, wet washcloth after the shower, and the results were better still. Shave oil over the wet hot face was a marginal improvement - at best, but absent the hot water prep, the oils with some warm water splashed on first did ok as an alternative.

At some point I got a jar of Grooming department pre-shave cream. No matter what else I did, I always got a better shave when I used it. Other pre-shave creams (Proraso, Jack Black) did nothing; the oils were generally more effective (I tried 3 different ones) than the Proraso and Jack Black.

Finally, I experimented with PAA cube. Also great stuff, but more like a really good soap for exfoliating and cleaning.

I finally settled onto an easy, relatively quick ritual:
1) I put a bit of water onto my soap puck or put some soap and water into a scuttle so that the soap softens up a bit.
2) I warm a large shaving cloth in hot water (as hot as I am comfortable with) and wrap that around my face for a minute.
3) I lather up and do a bit of light scrubbing with a PAA cube (menthol)
4) I re-wet the towel with hot water, apply to face, and wipe away the soap. Rinse with warm water.
5) I apply a pea-sized amount of Grooming Dept. Pre-shave to each cheek and massage in with warm wet hands for a minute.
6) While the pre-shave sinks in, I build the lather. Then, apply and shave.
7) I post-shave with Alum, followed by a rinse, then a splash of Thayres, a bit of nut butter (my own concoction), some aftershave balm, and finally, cologne.
8) At the end of the day, I apply a bit of nut butter (a couple of dabs rubbed in) to pre-treat my face for the next day.

It's all probably overkill, but I've been getting great shaves and my face feels nice all the time.

My wife has her mani-petti sessions; I have my morning shave.

 

[APBinNCA]

Well, I mangled my face yesterday and finished it off this morning! Darn. I may have learned something though.

I am not sure if I used the wrong tuck of Dorco Primes or what, but it was bad. As a refresher, I ordered 300 several months ago and upon receiving them, I found a tuck that was not behaving. After trying another, I felt like it was a fluke and set that other tuck aside. But I may have accidentally picked it back up, or not. These things require a pretty tame razor for me so I may have pushed my luck.

I am not sure why I chose this blade when I decided to pull out the Blackbird, but I can usually make any blade work for one shave and then, if it's a bit much, move it to a different razor. I admit that everything is user error to some degree or another, but in this case using this blade may have been the only real error. Everything was going fine for the first pass, pretty high efficiency, but all I did was make an ear to chin pass with my usual combination of bull frogging and lightly pulling the opposite direction of the shave and I might as well have used a napped flint(aka broken glass)! By this I mean that I had immediate red dots following along right after where the blade passed, yikes. Literally no pressure and I have visible damage after the shave. Then today, it decided to finish me off by digging in and producing a nicely visible slice into my chin. I waited a bit to see if I was having a problem day so I could blame it on myself, but there was no sign of sleep deprivation or intestinal distress that usually causes me to be off my game without knowing it until after the shave so I am calling this a bad blade. Normally I would try it in another razor, but I am certain that that won't go any better. The one thing that I realised is that I think the Blackbird's pointy safety bar is acting more like an OC plate and not displacing the skin ahead of the blade and that my ultra light hovering might be exacerbating this. There is a certain feeling OC razors have when they aren't really working as safety bars, it's one reason some people like them even if they don't have long growth. I just hadn't realised this previously until I felt that familiar feeling. So what I think is going on is two fold: one, I am using the wrong technique with Blackbird and two, the Blackbird is not as forgiving as I thought. Using milder blades that I prefer, I have taken huge swipes just like the one I did yesterday and today without any consequences and was left with the sea lions run right off the dock in one swipe(HT Cajun). The Blackbird is a confidence inspiring razor for me, it feels like it's got some sort of super power to it. However, not stretching with an OC razor and a sharp enough blade is a recipe for what I got. Some people have higher tolerance than I do, but I am pretty sure by Bull Frogging I put my skin right in front of the blade and these blades are sharp enough to dig right in. And this might be a particularly bad one too.

So in contrast to the actual damage, the condition of the rest of my face is worse. My skin has that freshly scrapped look and feel to it and just putting water on it is uncomfortable. I was making a great recovery from the last time this happened and then, like somebody pulled the rug out from under me, I am back to where I was a few months ago! So, put away all the aggressive razors and pull out the milder Tatara combinations along with the Aylsworth. Maybe I will use the Timeless again already, it was surprisingly mild. I don't have many choices on the milder side of medium. I guess I will put off any razor purchases so that's a plus. Sometimes I wish I didn't need to be clean shaven and could go back to evening shaving, my face would be a lot happier.

Please ignore me and continue with the pre-shave discussion!

 

[APBinNCA]

I finally settled onto an easy, relatively quick ritual:

This sounds like a pretty well thought out and effective pre-shave routine. It might be overkill, but not doing this much might be underkill just as likely. I have been using the Grooming Dept. pre-shave for several years and although I use others for some time, I usually return to it. The reason that I know it works is because it actually inhibits the closeness of my shave, I have proven this over and over again. It's the reason that I either skip pre-shave or pull out one of the others. I use Furbo during the summer, it's alcohol based and leaves a dry film on the face that doesn't have any effect on the soap lather or cause razor drag. The protection is good enough, but it doesn't do much to condition the whiskers and I don't really care. I have been using Baume.be for as long as I have been wet shaving it's slightly greasier applying it than anything short of oil based products, but once wet and worked in it's a great product for me. I use it Spring and Fall mostly and will probably pull it out now that I think about it. I agree about the Cube, I use it and it's really a hard form of PAA soap for the most part. Now that I think about some of the posts above, I think I might pull out the Glyce actually! It has some interesting properties and I like the scent.

 

[thombrogan]

Please heal quickly, Aaron.