Allergic to something in shaving creams, need advice

[YouToo]

Wall of text incoming, apologies in advance but here goes!
I'm quite new to wetshaving since I started sometime in the spring of 2019 when my electric shaver was about to die.
Having used an electric for many, many years and having an elastic skin condition (Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos) I never had a tought about razors until that day since I imagined they'd only rip my skin apart. I randomly grabbed an old (but unused) disposable and ended up with a better shave than with the electric, only using normal hand-soap and water.

A little while later and after some failed experimenting (Gillette "Skinguard" gave me a permanent scar on my chin...) I found out about safety razors and bought a Feather Popular TTO, with which I slowly learned this new art and hobby. I'm now using a Rockwell 6C on setting 3 with personna reds and feel like I've almost mastered a good technique suiting my face and beard.

Now to the point of this thread: Since I've always been allergic to lots of things, including fragrances or just plain scents, around the time I got the Feather Popular TTO I also bought the only fragrance-free product I could easily get a hold of. (I live in a small city in Sweden) This was a can of foaming gel named Gillette Satin Care Pure & Delicate. "Canned goo", as some people would say. Funny note: Even though this particular shaving gel is marketed as a women's product, it smells almost identical to Truefitt & Hill Ultimate Comfort shaving cream! I'll get back to that subject later.

I was lucky, since I wasn't allergic to this shaving gel and it foamed up nicely and worked pretty good together with the Feather TTO razor. My next step was, of course, to find what mild- or aggressiveness worked best for me. (Feather blades were a bit too sharp for my skin, at least in that razor) I also wanted to get a brush and a real shaving cream since I knew it would save me a lot of money in the long run. I bought a Rockwell 6C, some different blades, a Mühle black fiber brush and a Geo F Trumper Coconut Oil shaving cream. I had an old porcelain cup that was perfect to whip up lather in.

The reason I chose GFT Coconut was because I imagined it having a mild, comfortable scent and I read some allergic people hadn't had any bad reactions to it. Also, being allergic since birth, I've never been able to use fragrances and since I relate strong fragrances with getting sick I'm not a fan of "masculine scents". I just prefer when things don't smell a lot. Even though GFT had a fragrance I wanted to try and see if it was still mild enough.

First time I was gonna whip up the GFT cream, it smelled okay from the tube. But once water was added and the lather started building up it felt like a second scent was released. Something I can only describe as a stinging, burnt smell. It immediately made my throat swell and my lungs hurt. At this point I was sure it was the perfume in the cream that made me allergic. I put the cream away to sell it to someone else eventually.

So having no "real" shaving cream anymore I started using my brush to make more proper lather out of the Gillette gel. I've read here and there on the internet that there's no reason to use a brush with gel but it made a huge difference. This is now my main method for lathering. Soaking the brush in water and lathering up the gel in a bowl gave it the right consistency, moisture and slickness. It also meant I needed way less gel to get enough lather for 3 passes. The best part is it smells good but not too much and the burnt smell of the other cream wasn't there.

I was still curious about real quality shaving creams and knew fragrance-free creams existed. My choice stood between TOBS Organic and T&H Ultimate Comfort. Seeing how T&H was the one with the least ingredients, I thought it was a safer bet and bought me one. This is where it gets funny since when I opened the T&H tube it smelled almost exactly like the Gillette "women's" gel. Lavender. And it was mild.

The sad part is when I started lathering up the T&H cream, that exact same smell appeared as with the GFT. It was like a second smell on top of the soft scent of lavender. And I got the same allergic reactions.

Now I'm trying to find out what exact ingredient in the creams caused my allergic reactions, since it seems it wasn't the fragrance, T&H having none. Here's a list of the ingredients of the gel and the two creams:

Gillette Satin Care Pure & Delicate:
Aqua, Palmitic Acid, Triethanolamine, Isopentane, Glyceryl Oleate, Stearic Acid, Isobutane, Sorbitol, Hydroxyethylcellulose, PEG-90M, PEG-23M, Myristic Acid, BHT, Lavandula Augustifolia (Lavender) Oil, Lauric Acid, Eucalyptus Globulus Leaf Oil, Silica

Geo F Trumper Coconut Oil:
Aqua, Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Acid, Glycerin, Parfum (fragrance), Triethanolamine, Sodium Hydroxide, Methylparaben, Propylparaben

Truefitt & Hill Ultimate Comfort Unscented:
Aqua, Strearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Acid, Glycerin, Triethanolamine, Lavandula Augustifolia (Lavender) Oil, Sodium Hydroxide, Linalool

I find it weird how the gel has many more and different ingredients yet doesn't cause me any allergic reactions. Neither does it have that burnt smell. It just has a clean, soft smell of lavender with a small touch of eucalyptus.

From the lists of ingredients I find that while some are the same, the creams have glycerin where the gel has glyceryl oleate. I can probably rule out the parabens in GFT and linalool in T&H, I've had deodorants with linalool in them.

This would leave me with potassium hydroxide, coconut acid and sodium hydroxide as the candidates for what causes the smell and allergic reactions. Unless the glycerin is really different from glyceryl oleate.

I'd appreciate any help with finding out what causes the allergy and tips on what creams/soaps would be suitable to try next! While I can't get a hold of as many products here in Sweden as overseas, I might be able to import something together with some members of a local shaving forum at some point.

Thanks in advance and have a nice day!

 

[Juanmosey]

Get something simple out of a can with just stearic acid. Can you get Gillette Foamy over there? I use white original Noxzema with minimal ingredients and have no problem. I think some people react to glycerin.

 

[YouToo]

Yeah the way it looks right now I will stick to the Gillette gel I'm lathering with my brush. (Not as interested in canned foam) Just interested to see if anyone would know what exact ingredient causes this.

As for Noxzema I googled it and it seems to have all of the 4 ingredients of which I suspect one causes my allergy. Thanks for the tip though!

 

[sarimento1]

You might be sensitive to any leftover lye or potash (alkali).
Try adding a teaspoon of plain olive oil or coconut oil to a portion of your cream, mix well, let it sit for a day, then see if that calms the shave.

 

[FarmerTan]

I would lean towards the potassium. It is an important (quite an understatement) electrolyte in human physiology, along with sodium, and some folks are just extremely sensitive to any changes to their body chemistry.

I'm no doctor, I'm a retired Registered Nurse, and a Cosmetologist, but I know very little about skin sensitivities in any theoretical sense, just a practical one. My father was very sensitive to just about any soaps.

 

[FarmerTan]

I should add, the fact that the process of lathering caused your lungs distress points to something besides just skin sensitivity, your next inhalation of whatever caused you such grief could cause an anaphylactic reaction. Just be careful my friend.

Best regards, Dave

 

[FarmerTan]

You might be sensitive to any leftover lye or potash (alkali).
Try adding a teaspoon of plain olive oil or coconut oil to a portion of your cream, mix well, let it sit for a day, then see if that calms the shave.

Wise words.

 

[Chandu]

Just interested to see if anyone would know what exact ingredient causes this.

No one will know. It will only be conjecture. Get thee to a dermatologist, explain what happened and get an allergy test. That will definitively nail it down.

Yes that will cost some money, so will listening to all here and going in 20 different directions on soap/cream recommendations.

 

[FarmerTan]

No one will know. It will only be conjecture. Get thee to a dermatologist, explain what happened and get an allergy test. That will definitively nail it down.

Yes that will cost some money, so will listening to all here and going in 20 different directions on soap/cream recommendations.

Amen. I should have said this.

 

[YouToo]

Thanks for the informative replies! And don't worry, I will sell both of those shaving creams. I asked here just in case someone else had a similar experience or knew what it could be that smells weird during lathering and after. I guess I'm a bit old-school in that I'd rather ask in a place full of knowledgeable people rather than google around for days/weeks and try to puzzle things together.

And don't worry, I won't even dare to put that on my skin! And I'll be fine with the foaming gel if I can't find anything else that works. In fact, I guess I'm lucky it's what I found first.

 

[Halfblade]

You could be allergic to coconut.
The hydroxides are unlikely, as hydroxides are used in soaps as well, so if you were allergic to them, you would have reactions to bath soap too. In any case, there is usually no hydroxide left after saponification.

 

[Scouser]

There is no "leftover" potassium hydroxide in shaving cream. There is a deliberate excess of fatty acids to more than neutralise the potassium hydroxide (to make the soap) which results in the very creamy lather characteristic of shave creams. But potassium soaps are the salts of a very strong base and weak acids which in aqueous solution hydrolyse to give a high pH. If you attempt to measure the pH of neat potassium based shave cream the pH meter will give a reading around 11.5. I suspect with a sensitive skin like yours this is the most likely reason for your discomfort.
The pH of triethanolamine based products such as aerosol shave gel or aerosol shave foam is around 8.

 

[BrushJockey]

If you are suffering respiratory distress from an exposure, get a referral from your physician for an allergy test. It could be quite serious.

 

[Raktajino]

Triethanolamine. That stuff always gives me problems and if you read up on it, you'll probably give products that have it in it a wide birth.

 

[YouToo]

If you are suffering respiratory distress from an exposure, get a referral from your physician for an allergy test. It could be quite serious.

I'm used to it. I've had allergies and asthma from birth but I also have the proper medicines needed to keep it in check. Without my meds it would've been very serious but when exposed to something I'm allergic to, I often get away with a slight pain in my lungs that goes away in an hour or two and if not I have stronger meds to get rid of that as well.

Triethanolamine. That stuff always gives me problems and if you read up on it, you'll probably give products that have it in it a wide birth.

Well, triethanolamine is in the gel I'm using that doesn't give me any allergic reactions.

Also, I think some of you got me wrong. It's not my skin that had allergic reactions since I didn't dare try any of the creams on the skin, seeing how they affected my nose and breathing.

Anyway, your replies have been informative and interesting. And don't worry, I'm not gonna pay hundreds to try all kinds of shaving creams when I have that gel that works. I was simply interested in seeing if someone had a similar experience and could help me identify the exact cause. I doubt any allergy tests would help since I've done that in the past and I'm allergic to all the usual stuff anyway. (Animals/fur, raw fruit/vegetables, flowers/plants, odors/scents and so on)

 

[FarmerTan]

I'm used to it. I've had allergies and asthma from birth but I also have the proper medicines needed to keep it in check. Without my meds it would've been very serious but when exposed to something I'm allergic to, I often get away with a slight pain in my lungs that goes away in an hour or two and if not I have stronger meds to get rid of that as well.

Well, triethanolamine is in the gel I'm using that doesn't give me any allergic reactions.

Also, I think some of you got me wrong. It's not my skin that had allergic reactions since I didn't dare try any of the creams on the skin, seeing how they affected my nose and breathing.

Anyway, your replies have been informative and interesting. And don't worry, I'm not gonna pay hundreds to try all kinds of shaving creams when I have that gel that works. I was simply interested in seeing if someone had a similar experience and could help me identify the exact cause. I doubt any allergy tests would help since I've done that in the past and I'm allergic to all the usual stuff anyway. (Animals/fur, raw fruit/vegetables, flowers/plants, odors/scents and so on)

Thanks for the update! I have the opposite of asthma, I'm on disability for restrictive lung disease. Not fun, but I have very few allergies. But not being able to breathe is frightening!

 

[YouToo]

Thanks for the update! I have the opposite of asthma, I'm on disability for restrictive lung disease. Not fun, but I have very few allergies. But not being able to breathe is frightening!

Sorry to hear. I hope there's at least some good medicines to treat that to some extent.

 

[FarmerTan]

Sorry to hear. I hope there's at least some good medicines to treat that to some extent.

Lol, thanks for the kind words! Unfortunately, not really. But I am blessed beyond measure my friend. I hope to see you here on B&B a lot. You seem to be a right smart chap.

 

[FireDragon76]

I'm used to it. I've had allergies and asthma from birth but I also have the proper medicines needed to keep it in check. Without my meds it would've been very serious but when exposed to something I'm allergic to, I often get away with a slight pain in my lungs that goes away in an hour or two and if not I have stronger meds to get rid of that as well.

Well, triethanolamine is in the gel I'm using that doesn't give me any allergic reactions.

Also, I think some of you got me wrong. It's not my skin that had allergic reactions since I didn't dare try any of the creams on the skin, seeing how they affected my nose and breathing.

Anyway, your replies have been informative and interesting. And don't worry, I'm not gonna pay hundreds to try all kinds of shaving creams when I have that gel that works. I was simply interested in seeing if someone had a similar experience and could help me identify the exact cause. I doubt any allergy tests would help since I've done that in the past and I'm allergic to all the usual stuff anyway. (Animals/fur, raw fruit/vegetables, flowers/plants, odors/scents and so on)

Alot of high-end English creams are heavily fragranced. You might be reacting to a top note like an aldehyde that creates a hazy, effervescent "perfume" effect.

Nivea Sensitive might agree with you more. It's very lightly scented. You might even get lucky with something like Palmolive.

It doesn't surprise me that you don't react to the Gillette shaving can. Companies like Gillette formulate their products to be acceptable to a wide range of consumers with potent fragrances being less of a consideration. Their products are fragranced just enough to be distinctive, but will not be confused with cologne.

 

[FireDragon76]

There is no "leftover" potassium hydroxide in shaving cream. There is a deliberate excess of fatty acids to more than neutralise the potassium hydroxide (to make the soap) which results in the very creamy lather characteristic of shave creams. But potassium soaps are the salts of a very strong base and weak acids which in aqueous solution hydrolyse to give a high pH. If you attempt to measure the pH of neat potassium based shave cream the pH meter will give a reading around 11.5. I suspect with a sensitive skin like yours this is the most likely reason for your discomfort.
The pH of triethanolamine based products such as aerosol shave gel or aerosol shave foam is around 8.

If the pH of a shave product is really 11.5... that explains why I find alot of shave creams and soaps uncomfortable.