A Note on Skin Irritation from Fragrant Shaving Products

[Geoface]

Hi everyone,

I love fragrant products and my skin has responded well to many fragrant soaps and aftershaves. Recently I’ve been trying a lot of new soaps and aftershaves and I’ve noticed that some of these products are causing extreme irritation for me. In this post I will not be discussing the products I have had a negative reaction to by name; I really appreciate the variety we currently have. Rather, I would like to build a list of known irritants used for fragrances in products. Please feel free to add to this list and like everything in wet shaving YMMV. Also this post is based on my limited knowledge and research, I look forward to more experienced members adding their insight.

First, it is important to note the recommended maximum value of fragrance oil in a cold processed soap is 3-5% by weight, this can be as low as 1-2% for hot-processed soaps. For lotions it’s about 1%. I’m not sure what it should be for AS splashes.

It is also important to note that the following is a list of irritants, the natural oils that contain these irritants are numerous.

A list of known skin Irritants (Oakley, 2015) and their associated fragrance profile (The Good Scents Company, 2016):

Amylcinnamic Alcohol – “Sweet, spicy, fruity with a cinnamon nuance”
Anisyl alcohol - “Sweet, powdery creamy, balsamic, coumarin and slightly lactonic, cherry and licorice nuance”
Benzyl Alcohol - “floral rose phenolic balsamic”
Benzyl salicylate – “balsam clean herbal oily sweet”
Cinnamic alcohol - “sweet balsam hyacinth spicy green powdery cinnamic”
Cinnamic aldehyde – “sweet spice cinnamon red hots warm”
Coumarin – “sweet hay tonka new mown hay”
Eugenol – “sweet spicy clove, woody”
Geraniol - “sweet floral fruity rose waxy citrus”
Hydroxycitronellal – “floral lily sweet green waxy tropical melon”
Isoeugenol – “sweet spicy clove woody carnation floral”
Musk ambrette – “musty sweet ambrette seed”
Oak moss absolute – “Green, herbal, woody, mossy, seaweed, earthy, hay and tobacco-like”
Sandalwood oil – “sweet woody balsamic cashew terpene herbal spicy”
Wood Tars

 

[mike_the_kraken]

Cinnamon oil or cardamon are ingredients I avoid due to sensitivity.

 

[Geoface]

Cinnamon oil or cardamon are ingredients I avoid due to sensitivity.

Cinnamic aldehyde which provides a “sweet spice cinnamon red hots warm” fragrance is also found in patchouli, rose, tolu balsam, and ylang ylang.

A piece of advice I recently learned is that if skin reacts to a fragrant oil do not use water to rinse it off, use a carrier oil. The water will help the oil saturate the skin causing more irritation (I figured it would be the opposite because oil and water are immiscible fluids).

 

[mike_the_kraken]

My experience was that rinsing with water was just fine - even when I was receiving the most irritation. ¯\_(&#12484_/¯