Cold Water Shaving?

[Russtopher]

I just saw an article on Art of Manliness about the benefits of cold water shaving (http://artofmanliness.com/2010/03/24/cold-water-shaving/). I've always prefered a warm water shave followed by a cold rinse. It's given me consistently good results.

This week, however, I found myself on the road in a hotel room that takes forever to get the water warm, so my first night I did a cold water shave. It felt supremely uncomfortable, but I must admit the quality of the shave was on par with my warm water shaves.

What do you all think of it?

 

[Yonjuro]

... thanks for that link, it is a good and thought provoking read .

I might give it a go, I remember someone saying that tallow soaps lather better in cold water as well.

 

[13ALPHA]

That's really interesting. I love the hot towel so much. Although I will give it a try, not too much longer and I will be in the boat of no hot water. It seems like the hot lather smells much stronger, I wonder if when cold it doesn't smell as good? That's a big one for me, but I will let you know it goes tomorrow morning.

 

[ajkimmins]

I just saw an article on Art of Manliness about the benefits of cold water shaving (http://artofmanliness.com/2010/03/24/cold-water-shaving/). I've always prefered a warm water shave followed by a cold rinse. It's given me consistently good results.

This week, however, I found myself on the road in a hotel room that takes forever to get the water warm, so my first night I did a cold water shave. It felt supremely uncomfortable, but I must admit the quality of the shave was on par with my warm water shaves.

What do you all think of it?

I wont do it. I like the hot water. I finish with a cold water rinse before WH and AS but since I take a shower first I'm not doing that in cold water either!!

That hotel is a good place to start the shower and go get something to eat!!

 

[Jim B.]

If it means shaving with cold water, I don't shave.

 

[Uncle Erik]

A cold water shave is like a warm beer.

 

[Yonjuro]

I remember reading some 20 odd years ago, that you should always rinse your razor in cold water.

The theory was that the micro crystalline structure of the edge will contract in the cold and expand with heat. Thus the tighter the molecules the sharper the edge.

This may have legs as we are talking about the finest of edges under a microscope, having said that I am not a metallurgist - food for thought?

 

[mwhals]

I think I will try cold water shaving tomorrow. I am still trying to fine tune my technique and this might end up working best for me. The only way to find out is by trying it.

Mark

 

[Yonjuro]

A cold water shave is like a warm beer.

the only thing worse than warm beer is no beer

 

[Davidy1026]

The author of that site, Brett, is a good friend of mine and was a fellow law student (he was a year ahead of me). I actually switched to shaving with cold water about half way in to my DE experience. I get a nearly BBS shave after just one pass with cold water, and frankly I won't go back to hot. I can and do vouch for this method 150%.

 

[rvmx]

Actually I was about to post something similar, cold shaving with a Jaguar brush. Long story short my house water heater just stopped working...so I had to shave with 'fresh' water...not so cold but not comfortable to shower with...I also tried for the first time a Jaguar 236? brush that costs like $7usd...I got surprising results! lather was just fine, above an average good lather...and the shave was between DFS and BBS slightly inclined toward BBS...not irritation, not bleeding, no tucking, not stubble or hair...I used a slim and a Feather blade in it's 4th shave

I still believe that hot water is more 'comfy', but I did not find any differences with cold water in terms of lather, glide, cushion, etc

 

[Ignatius]

‘Only think of the inconvenience attending the common practice! There must be hot water; to have this there must be a fire, and, in some cases, a fire for that purpose alone; to have these, there must be a servant, or you must light a fire yourself. For the want of these, the job is put off until a later hour: this causes a stripping and another dressing bout: or, you go in a slovenly state all that day, and the next day the thing must be done, or cleanliness must be abandoned altogether….How many a piece of important business has failed from a short delay! And how many thousand of such delays daily proceed from this unworthy cause!’

Indeed!

 

[bjh618]

Tried it, hated it.

Shaving using cold water felt so uncomfortable that I now forgo shaving if I do not have access to hot water.

 

[Niles]

Shaving with cold water is nice. But I'm hot-natured so that may be part of it. I recommend it to those who have not given it a try.

 

[13ALPHA]

So after reading this thread and the article at AoM, I decided to give it a try. Last time I did was in the field in Nov, and with a Mach 3 crudded up with face paint, needless to say it was horrific.

Here were my results: Lathering was just about the same, I used Speick. As far as the face lathering portion it was not bad at all, it was pretty cold at first, but actually felt like it warmed up while I was lathering, which makes sense. I used a Derby in a SS, and this was 24hr growth. It tugged a little at first, but actually got better as I went along, after a minute or so. It was surprisingly smooth. The biggest shock was when I went to wet my face for the second lather and felt how smooth it was! The second pass had a lot less work to do than normal, and these were both WTG passes. Now, the other nice surprise was that when I went to put AS on, the normal amount needed was TOO MUCH! At this point I go get dressed then come back and put some face lotion on, if I don't my face is dry by the time I get to work. NOT THIS TIME! I didn't even need the extra lotion, the ASB by itself was all I needed. SWMBO even commented on the shave being smoother and less redness.

I will be doing this again to try creams as well, but I have a feeling I will be doing this from now on. And when I say cold I mean icy cold Alaskan well water, it's cold! The hot is nice, but somehow this was so refreshing. After my last experience I would have not predicted any of these results. And it's a good feeling for me as I know I will be shaving with room temp or cooler water for quite a while coming up, and now I know I can get a great shave!

Conclusion: Closer shave 1st pass, smoother end result and my skin did not dry out, like it has since I started shaving. Give this a try!

 

[Mr. Imperial]

Shaving with cold water is nice. But I'm hot-natured so that may be part of it. I recommend it to those who have not given it a try.

But it's far easier to categorically deny any truth to the article/claims stated above without myself trying it

 

[yuppiejr]

Interesting, sounds like a good summer experiment - will give this a shot!

 

[thebikingengineer]

I remember reading some 20 odd years ago, that you should always rinse your razor in cold water.

The theory was that the micro crystalline structure of the edge will contract in the cold and expand with heat. Thus the tighter the molecules the sharper the edge.

This may have legs as we are talking about the finest of edges under a microscope, having said that I am not a metallurgist - food for thought?

As a metallurgist (just accepted the job so I can say that now, )I can tell you that this is absolute BS. You're looking at a temperature change of ~15-20K. You'd be looking at a change of maybe 2-3 ten thousandths of an inch spread uniformly over the length of the blade. The change in temperature wouldn't have any significant contribution to the bonding of molecules from a thermodynamic standpoint. If you heated your blade up to ~1400 degrees then quenched it down you'd get a phase transformation and warping, but then it really wouldn't matter what temperature your water was.

Short answer: No.

 

[Little Joe from Mexico]

I just moved back to California after living in Costa Rica for a year and a half. There, it was much more convenient to shave with cold (it's never very cold there) water. At first it was very annoying and it just never seemed to go as smoothly as with warm. After a while I certainly got used to it and eventually got to the point where I couldn't really say it was much different. Until I moved back to USA where hot water is right there for the taking.

I like it better. I just do. Like I said, I can shave with cold water just fine.... but definitely prefer warm water and warm lather any day. Besides the temp. difference, I really believe the razor glides more smoothly with warm water.

 

[BlackBard]

I just noticed that the same discussion is going on another thread. Here it is:

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=140111

I said that I did not intend to try a cold shave again, but after reading the comments, I might try it...someday.