Hot towel AFTER the shave?

[MursesAnonymous]

Water in general disrupts clotting, so you're all kinda right and kinda wrong. While warm water may appear to prevent clotting, it's really just causing vasodilation in your face and increasing blood flow to the skins surface, thereby increasing bleeding but not having any direct positive or negative effect on the process of clotting itself. Cold water on the other hand constricts blood flow and decreases bleeding, but the temperature of the water again has no direct effect on the act of clotting because both are actually actively washing away the clotting factors that are required for clot formation.

Applying heat over a blood clot is mostly to help keep the vessel dilated so that tissues beyond the clot don't starve due to lack of perfusion.

My barber applies hot towels after using his straight, so I think I may ask when I see him again if there's any particular reason to use the hot towel after the shave other than the fact that it feels good.

 

[shakin_jake]

Who has tried a hot towel on the face after the shave, as well as before?

In Lynn Abrams' demo shave on the straight razor dvd, he uses the hot towel both before and after. I tried it for several days running, and I can't see that it does anything for me post-shave. Before the shave, of course, it's a huge help, but not after.

This may be another case of YMMV -- well, heck, that applies to everything, doesn't it? -- but what's the point of the hot towel after the shave? What am I missing?

~~~FWIW, I use the barber towel, *every* shave. first get the face wet using a wash cloth soaked in hot water, then I spread Proraso Pre Shave Cream in my beard, then face lather soap, all the while, the hand towel was first soaked in the sink with hot water, then I place the soaked hand towel (wrung out first, still damp) on an oval plate and heat in my micro wave oven for 3 minutes, which gets pulled out using a pair of tongs, then swished around in the ambient, to shed excess BTU's, the hand towel then goes on my face for several minutes, holding the four corners of the towel behind my head...

I have prepped every one of my shaves this way since early 2011, now to answer your question about using a hot towel after...yes, the same barber towel. I wash and rinse in the same sink keeping a bottle of laundry soap under the sink. I pour a small amount of the liquid laundry soap on the towel, fill the sink just above the towel with hot water than wash it, rinse once or twice and call it done

But the point where I use the hot towel on my face after the shave is before I wash the towel. When I'm done shaving, I take the towel and shave brush into the laundry room next to my shave den, and rinse both well using hot water in my laundry tub sink. I'm using very hot water and when I wring the towel out, that's when I set it on my face. It's luxury AFAIC and I make sure I wipe my fore head well with this hot towel

FWIW2, I take usually, 30 minutes to shave when I shave. Good time spent. For those that don't bother using the barber towel to prep your shave, more power to you. Personally, I can't shave without it

I used to heat my barber towel in this food steamer, until I plugged it in and tried heating the towel, w/o any water in the reservoir=:-( Yeah, the heating element burned out. Now, I use the microwave oven...which works well also


Best,


Jake
Reddick Fla.
"The mother of stupidity is always pregnant." - old Sicilian Saying

 

[Rusty Blade]

When you live in colder climates a warm/hot towel before and after a shave is one of life's little pleasures.

 

[MursesAnonymous]

When you live in colder climates a warm/hot towel before and after a shave is one of life's little pleasures.

Maybe that's why I'm not getting it. It's a little hard to appreciate heat down here in the tropical swamps of the beautiful state of Louisiana

 

[alex2363]

If it feels good and works for you, do it. I'm a bigger fan of pure cold water rinses after a shave is over, but that's only my preference.

Coldwater for me to

 

[The Count of Merkur Cristo]

When you live in colder climates a warm/hot towel before and after a shave is one of life's little pleasures.

Maybe that's why I'm not getting it. It's a little hard to appreciate heat down here in the tropical swamps of the beautiful state of Louisiana

Rusty & Andrew:

...having grown up in 'Pure Michigan' and now retired in 'The Bayou State' ("Laissez les bons temps rouler"!),...I have to agree with you both.

"[Hot towels] in their less visible forms are called [shaving] memories". Thomas Fuller