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A message to the new guys: If your AS burns like heck you're doing it wrong

This is really a post for new members that are new to traditional wet shaving. If your after shave is burning so bad that you can barely take it you are putting way too much pressure on your razor. When shaving with a DE, SR or SE razor you should be putting very little if any pressure on your face with the razor, let the weight of the razor do all the work for you. I've been reading older posts where members have been on the verge of quitting because DE shaving was too painful for them. You don't want to shave off the first layer of skin, you just want to shave the hair. My aftershave never burns my face and if it does it's only in an area that I have shorned myself and taken that first layer of skin off. I just don't want new guys to think this is normal. Again there should be no pain, shaving should be an enjoyable experience. It's one of my favorite things to do and always seems to put me in a better mood after I do it...but technique is key. Slow down and enjoy yourself.
 

Ad Astra

The Instigator
It is a light touch that does it ... sometimes the weight of the razor throws people off. Other times, if the razor is too mild, you might feel yourself using pressure (me, with a Tech or a Feather Popular).

With an OLD, if I can feel the teeth, I'm using too much pressure- a very bad thing with an aggressive OLD.


AA
 
I think people are used to pressing in like they would with a cheap, disposable razor. Considering they aren't as sharp, they are more forgiving.

If you were to put in a new blade in a safety razor, you're going to have a little rubbing and chaffing to say the least.
 
Great point, Merkuryrisng. After shave always gives me valuable feedback. Too much burn = too much pressure and/or too steep an angle of attack. A nice mellow heat = a great shave.
 
Hmmm, I dunno. There are some youtube dudes who love the burn. Either their technique sucks because they keep scraping their skin or some people will just feel a burn no matter what.
 
+3! Burning with an alcohol-based splash shows where your technique can use some attention IMO.
 
I have some doubts about it. I shaved 11 hours ago, without a single weeper or irritation. I just applied alcohol aftershave just now and i got burn sensation. My theory is, you have been doing it for so long, that your skin has thickened and doesn't feel it as much anymore or you have different skin type. Alcohol isn't the best thing for the skin. It's one of the 2 most mundane substances that can pass directly through the stomach barrier to the bloodstream (the other being aspirin). Which is why both it and aspirin with long use, can cause stomach irritation. Something similar happens to the skin. Alcohol manages to penetrate the hydrolipidic barrier of the skin and penetrate deeper, irritating skin nerves. What i do with alcohol aftershaves and i get no burn is simple: Wash my face with cold water and immediately apply the aftershave over it. It practically dilutes the alcohol and possibly delays the alcohol penetration and gives also time to glycerin to act on the skin. This way i get 0 burn, no matter what the shave.

P.S: I wasn't using alcohol aftershaves for almost 20 years. So my skin is "new" to the "alcohol treatment".

EDIT: Some more hints:
- A home remedy against toothache, is do mouthwash with some high alcohol beverage. It numbs the nerve (aka the nerve loses sensibility due to the alcohol attack).
- If you give a glass of whiskey to a teenager that hasn't had high alcohol drinks before, he will burn his throat. Give it to someone who has been drinking for 10 years, he won't feel a thing.
 
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For the record, modern aftershaves have almost always glycerin and allantoin, to counteract the action of alcohol, that not only penetrates deeply, but also disturbing the normal skin barrier, exposes the skin to dehydration. Which is the last thing you want after a shave. So aftershaves include soothing and moisturizing ingredients, to lessen the impact of alcohol. And if we want to be brutally honest, the main purpose of putting so much alcohol in aftershaves, is that 1) it's cheap, 2) it used to be a good advertizing point of "preventing infections" (that's like shooting a fly with a cannon), 3) It's the best way to maintain a strong and longlasting fragrance going, as it's an excellent solvent, while also being volatile. No wonder that most balms have weak scents that don't linger for long, since they don't have alcohol.
 
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Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
Agree. I use a straight razor and one of the tests of a new razor finishing hone is the lack of sting I get from the edge with alcohol AS. Along with smoothness and a long-lasting shave.

If the alcohol AS feels like water, no burn, that's a good edge and a good hone.

Cheers, Steve
 
And then I see posts asking where to find the most burning aftershaves like Cat O' 9 Tails or Snakebite and I just have to wonder about those guys...
 
And then I see posts asking where to find the most burning aftershaves like Cat O' 9 Tails or Snakebite and I just have to wonder about those guys...

Mother nature, didn't predict that we would use aftershaves, so she built the nervous system unaware of this particular human invention. Skin has pain receptors, that just like anywhere else, have one job: To inform you that harm is being done. You get burn, because the nerve terminals are trying to send the signal to the brain "don't do that!". Like many other activities where the human repeats despite the body saying otherwise, at the end the organism adapts to the situation, including increasing the sensitivity threshold (drink vodka first time at 16 and cough your guts out. Drink it for 10 years and you find it a warming drink).

Shaving can damage the outer layers of the skin. The more you damage it, the more the burn, because the quicker the penetration of the alcohol, which will lead to higher concentration. However, the perception of the sting, will change after years of use. I just applied aftershave to the skin below my eye, where i never shave. I still got a slight burning. Because my skin isn't used to it and face skin is more sensitive compared to other skin parts and also thinner.
 
Mother nature, didn't predict that we would use aftershaves, so she built the nervous system unaware of this particular human invention. Skin has pain receptors, that just like anywhere else, have one job: To inform you that harm is being done. You get burn, because the nerve terminals are trying to send the signal to the brain "don't do that!". Like many other activities where the human repeats despite the body saying otherwise, at the end the organism adapts to the situation, including increasing the sensitivity threshold (drink vodka first time at 16 and cough your guts out. Drink it for 10 years and you find it a warming drink).

Shaving can damage the outer layers of the skin. The more you damage it, the more the burn, because the quicker the penetration of the alcohol, which will lead to higher concentration. However, the perception of the sting, will change after years of use. I just applied aftershave to the skin below my eye, where i never shave. I still got a slight burning. Because my skin isn't used to it and face skin is more sensitive compared to other skin parts and also thinner.
I've always associated the burning feeling with a bad shave. But it seems some guys may be doing it on purpose and like it. Might be the same ones who want aggressive razors and very sharp blades and their faces turn bright red while shaving.

My first time with a DE razor was painful. I also didn't know how to make a good lather and prep back then either. It took a few tries to get it right.
 
I've always associated the burning feeling with a bad shave. But it seems some guys may be doing it on purpose and like it. Might be the same ones who want aggressive razors and very sharp blades and their faces turn bright red while shaving.

My first time with a DE razor was painful. I also didn't know how to make a good lather and prep back then either. It took a few tries to get it right.

There is a correlation, but this correlation is diminished after years of alcohol aggression towards your skin (much like the vodka drinker) and this sort of "signal" of bad shave, is actually what does damage, not the shave itself.

Epidermis - Wikipedia

What this says in summary. The outer skin, has 5 layers. Of these layers, the only crucial one, is the basal layer, which has the cells that constantly divide, mature and replace the outer 4 layers. Mother nature, predicted that the outer skin would be susceptible to hardships of everyday life, so she didn't include nerve receptors in there. Otherwise life would be very painful for ordinary tasks. The nerves exist below the outer layer and they are pressure, pain and thermal receptors.

When you shave, you may peel off some cells of the outer skin layers. But you don't feel pain, because there are no nerves. Otherwise you would be screaming each time you shave. If you nick yourself, it means you have sliced through the outer skin (the 5th layer, called the basal layer in that article) and you have entered the dermis were blood vessels and nerves are. Should you scape off an extensive basal layer, you would probably end up with the scar. Small damages can be repaired without consequences. But, the thing is, the 4 outer layers, are more or less "disposable", that's why they have no nerves or blood vessels.

Enter the alcohol aftershave. This manages to rapidly pass through the oily film of the skin, the outer skin barrier and enter the dermis, where it stimulates the nerves and gives the "burn feeling". Because alcohol is BAD for the dermis. So, while your shave may have done some superficial damage to sectors of your outer skin, these were "part of the game" when nature designed your skin. The alcohol reaching your dermis, wasn't, which is why you feel pain.

So the alcohol, isn't just an "innocent messenger" of "bad shave". It actually does more damage than the bad shave. Alcohol disrupts the external skin barrier, making skin to loose water. It also has the property to denaturate proteins and disrupt protein synthesis, which the skin will have to repair afterwards. Which is why the skin is trying to tell you "this thing you 're putting on, is hurting me".

That's why an alcohol aftershave burns and a balm doesn't. Because the balm, on the same shave, isn't causing any deep damage, enough to stimulate the nerves.

EDIT: That's why it's also a decent disinfectant. Many microorganisms don't like it either and they die, because the alcohol is amphipathic molecule (hydrophobic and hydrophilic at the same time) and as such, it can pass cellular membranes easily and attack the interior of the cell and kill several bacterial species. Those who can't get it, are the heavy drinkers that end up destroying their liver and their nervous system, much like the bacteria when exposed to large quantities of it.
 
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There is a correlation, but this correlation is diminished after years of alcohol aggression towards your skin (much like the vodka drinker) and this sort of "signal" of bad shave, is actually what does damage, not the shave itself.

Epidermis - Wikipedia

What this says in summary. The outer skin, has 5 layers. Of these layers, the only crucial one, is the basal layer, which has the cells that constantly divide, mature and replace the outer 4 layers. Mother nature, predicted that the outer skin would be susceptible to hardships of everyday life, so she didn't include nerve receptors in there. Otherwise life would be very painful for ordinary tasks. The nerves exist below the outer layer and they are pressure, pain and thermal receptors.

When you shave, you may peel off some cells of the outer skin layers. But you don't feel pain, because there are no nerves. Otherwise you would be screaming each time you shave. If you nick yourself, it means you have sliced through the outer skin (the 5th layer, called the basal layer in that article) and you have entered the dermis were blood vessels and nerves are. Should you scape off an extensive basal layer, you would probably end up with the scar. Small damages can be repaired without consequences. But, the thing is, the 4 outer layers, are more or less "disposable", that's why they have no nerves or blood vessels.

Enter the alcohol aftershave. This manages to rapidly pass through the oily film of the skin, the outer skin barrier and enter the dermis, where it stimulates the nerves and gives the "burn feeling". Because alcohol is BAD for the dermis. So, while your shave may have done some superficial damage to sectors of your outer skin, these were "part of the game" when nature designed your skin. The alcohol reaching your dermis, wasn't, which is why you feel pain.

So the alcohol, isn't just an "innocent messenger" of "bad shave". It actually does more damage than the bad shave. Alcohol disrupts the external skin barrier, making skin to loose water. It also has the property to denaturate proteins and disrupt protein synthesis, which the skin will have to repair afterwards. Which is why the skin is trying to tell you "this thing you 're putting on, is hurting me".

That's why an alcohol aftershave burns and a balm doesn't. Because the balm, on the same shave, isn't causing any deep damage, enough to stimulate the nerves.
I've always been suspicious of alcohol based aftershaves and you've confirmed it. I always go with witch hazel and balms or pure aloe vera gel. It feels great!
 
I've always been suspicious of alcohol based aftershaves and you've confirmed it. I always go with witch hazel and balms or pure aloe vera gel. It feels great!

Before DE shaving, i was only shaving with carts WTG. Barely what you 'd call a shave. No irritation, nothing. I could shave without foam if i wanted. But even so, when i was applying alcohol aftershave, i would howl like a wolf. That was when i was a teenager. I stopped using aftershave. Now i started it again with DE shaving, but 1) i rotate it with a balm and i may return to only balms if i get over the novelty of the fragrance, 2) Like i said, i apply it over water. This 1) dilutes the alcohol 2) gives the moisturizing ingredients of the aftershave, something to play with. Their job is to "keep" the water in, to restrain the alcohol damage. However, the AS itself has no water. So i give them extra water, to help them with their "sealing the water in" job.

Mother nature, has found the best way to inform you when you did "significant damage" when you shaved. Same as anywhere else. It shows you weepers and nicks. It means "moron, you overdid it and cut too deeply, be more careful next time". You don't need the alcohol for that.

EDIT: Oh, i also use now a hydrating, high glycerin cream as preshave. This also helps against the AS effects i believe, since it hydrates the skin beforehand and has also "nutritious" effects, so it might help.
 
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I think that I am going to have to respectfully disagree (very respectfully) with the theory that its solely the alcohol causing the burn rather than irritation.

I just performed the same exact tests as stated above but with using even stronger straight alcohol (95% lab grade denatured). This stuff will let you know quicker than anything if you have an open wound, and there was no burn on the skin under my eyes. I tried my forehead, and no burn. These are places that I don't shave either. Finally I tried under my chin where I had some irritation from my Wednesday evening shave, giving my skin enough time to heal up, and still no burn. And as a note I use balms instead of AS's because I like the moisturizers. So I believe that its the irritation, the removing of the layers that causes the alcohol to burn, not the alcohol itself on skin.

So though the science above sounds interesting and may even be viable in many instances. I just don't think it quite does here, or at least not 100%.
 
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