Interesting, thanks! I looked it up and it's a chemical with a citrus scent.
Which soaps burn or irritate your face?
- Thread starter ShavePastor
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Fortunately, only one soap has produced a proper burning sensation:
Body shop Macca Root
Alas, most soaps and creams give me a slight tingling sensation. It's never painful but it is noticeable to varying degrees:
Wickham which is super annoying because their scents are superb and Magnum is my all time favourite scent!
TOBS Sandalwood stick
TOBS (any cream other than Coconut)
D R Harris
Palmolive
Haslinger (tried 5 different scents)
La Toja
Arko
Vie Long
Stirling
Phoenix and Beau
Lavanda
The tingle doesn't prevent me from getting a great shave and the post-shave irritation is virtually non-existent. However, it does mean I don't reorder those soaps.
There are only 2 soaps that are utterly benign on my skin:
Proraso Green and White.
Body shop Macca Root
Alas, most soaps and creams give me a slight tingling sensation. It's never painful but it is noticeable to varying degrees:
Wickham which is super annoying because their scents are superb and Magnum is my all time favourite scent!
TOBS Sandalwood stick
TOBS (any cream other than Coconut)
D R Harris
Palmolive
Haslinger (tried 5 different scents)
La Toja
Arko
Vie Long
Stirling
Phoenix and Beau
Lavanda
The tingle doesn't prevent me from getting a great shave and the post-shave irritation is virtually non-existent. However, it does mean I don't reorder those soaps.
There are only 2 soaps that are utterly benign on my skin:
Proraso Green and White.
Have you tried Proraso Blue?
Not yet. One day I'll get around to trying the Proraso creams though. I hear they are pretty damn good.
Anything with mint in them if they stay on my face long enough will tingle. The basic Razorock offerings also do the same thing due to the scent. Haslinger Schafmilch was also terrible for me.
I have only come across two soaps that my skin reacted poorly to. Those are tobs sandalwood and Stirling barbershop. Everything else, including high menthol, seems very benign.
I'm good with menthol, but yea, I think Almond is an issue for me too.
Col. Conk almond shave soap was no bueno.. (smelled great though)
TOBS sandalwood is very irritating.
Stirling barbershop did the same thing to me. It's not really bad, but very uncomfortable and it's a shame because it's one of my favorite scents. I actually bought the barbershop cologne because it's so nice. I was thinking of trying again since it's been a few years.
I also react a bit to Stirling barbershop but I find that mixing an unscented soap to barbershop in 1:1 ratio solves the issue. I love the smell so I take a bit more time to make it work, haha.
I got irritation and uneasy feel with Mint/ menthol scented creams like with :
> Shaving Station Cool Menthol
> Vinkam Aloe Vera (it has healthy mint kick in it)
I will absolutely try to avoid any soap with menthol, cooling effect as forward attribute.
I'd love to use them, but it's hard for me to justify risky purchase when I already have bad experience with said scents.
> Shaving Station Cool Menthol
> Vinkam Aloe Vera (it has healthy mint kick in it)
I will absolutely try to avoid any soap with menthol, cooling effect as forward attribute.
I'd love to use them, but it's hard for me to justify risky purchase when I already have bad experience with said scents.
That's not rare at all. Benzaldehyde or bitter almond oil is a fairly common skin irritant.
Shaving products and aftershaves shouldn't be overly scented. Sensitive skin among shavers is not rare. Many people will eventually develop sensitive skin if they shave aggressively day after day, that's just the nature of shaving. That's one reason aftershaves like Old Spice have been reformulated to meet new regulatory demands. Anything with clove or similar ingredients are notorious skin sensitizers.
My experience is that they are fairly strongly scented, perhaps too much. The scent of Barber Shop lingered for hours, just from the soap. A shave soap should ideally have a scent more like Williams or Van Der Hagen- it gives the product a distinctive signature without lingering heavily once you are done shaving.
I've started to avoid soaps that seem to get trigger happy with the EOs/FOs after getting reactions from, but not limited to:
Body Shop Maca Root (old formulation)
TOBS
LPL
Razorock vegan base
Catie's Bubbles anything
A now defunct artisan linked with Catie's Bubbles..."SH" for short
I own soaps in both vegan and tallow bases from "SH", the tallow base I have zero issue with but the vegan base absolutely lights me on fire.
All of them also share one thing in common: they are all vegan, which has made me do a double take on every artisan soap that I'm looking to buy just to mitigate the risk of a wasted purchase. No tallow, no bueno. Not even Stirling Bay Rum, Executive Man or Arko warm my face in any way, so what gives?
Body Shop Maca Root (old formulation)
TOBS
LPL
Razorock vegan base
Catie's Bubbles anything
A now defunct artisan linked with Catie's Bubbles..."SH" for short
I own soaps in both vegan and tallow bases from "SH", the tallow base I have zero issue with but the vegan base absolutely lights me on fire.
All of them also share one thing in common: they are all vegan, which has made me do a double take on every artisan soap that I'm looking to buy just to mitigate the risk of a wasted purchase. No tallow, no bueno. Not even Stirling Bay Rum, Executive Man or Arko warm my face in any way, so what gives?
I think I may try the same thing. I may add a dab of proraso sandalwood cream since I don't have any unscented soaps.
Stirling Barbershop soap doesn’t really irritate me by itself. However, I do have the matching aftershave splash with menthol, and when I use both of them together, my face lights up on fire. I think the fragrance oils in the soap make my face tingle a little bit (I hardy even notice it), but as soon as that menthol from the splash hits, it gives me a harsh burning sensation followed by extreme redness.
The same exact thing happens to me with Stirling Dunshire. Little tingle while shaving, then the aftershave with menthol lights me up.
I will have to try the Barbershop or Dunshire aftershave splash with menthol, without using the matching soap to test my theory that the fragrance oils in the soap are causing me the issues.
The same exact thing happens to me with Stirling Dunshire. Little tingle while shaving, then the aftershave with menthol lights me up.
I will have to try the Barbershop or Dunshire aftershave splash with menthol, without using the matching soap to test my theory that the fragrance oils in the soap are causing me the issues.
Phoenix and Beau Albion.
Have had one for quite some time and remember it has always given me some burning sensation during shave. I had thoughts that it was because I was learning to shave and had some burn because of bad technique. Well, it's been sitting on my closet for half a year or something. Mean while I have tested a lot of different soaps with no problem at all.
Today I wanted to check Albion again and that familiar burn was there again, getting stronger every pass.
It was soap itself that was problem here. I binned it. I did not like scent anyway, just had it for it's nice performance.
Have had one for quite some time and remember it has always given me some burning sensation during shave. I had thoughts that it was because I was learning to shave and had some burn because of bad technique. Well, it's been sitting on my closet for half a year or something. Mean while I have tested a lot of different soaps with no problem at all.
Today I wanted to check Albion again and that familiar burn was there again, getting stronger every pass.
It was soap itself that was problem here. I binned it. I did not like scent anyway, just had it for it's nice performance.
Hannah's Dad
I Can See Better Than Bigfoot.
M&M Barbershop de los Muertos
I have had several that burned my face, but the one that was the worst by far was Oleo Providence. I looked like a lobster.
Anything with tea tree oil.
Tobs sandalwood tub stings my face before the blade has even had a chance. And sometimes Palmolive cream stings a little bit, but not every time.
