The simple answer to this and most "this or that" shaving questions is simply - Yes. Do whatever works and feels fight when shaving including your choice of razors(s) and all the other stuff.
I started my CWS regiment solely to combat irritation from my daily 3 + pass BBS chase. It worked! But several weeks into the daily chill I started to really enjoy the cold splash. Now I would not have it any other way.
This is a very relative, subjective question. It depends on what you are used to, and how you like the results with both methods. I typically fill the sink with hot water and let the razor and bowl sit in there to warm up. I have found it difficult to keep some lathers warm, as the water evaporates and cools it down. Having a warm razor makes the bigger difference for me as far as comfort. With everything cold my skin tenses up and I get a harsh shave.
My dad taught me to place a small bowl in the sink, and fill that with hot water. Works as well, and wastes less water than filling the sink.
Please don't take this as an attack. I see this as an opportunity to educate, and share some war stories. As the intent of this website is to learn from each other, please hear me out. Good point, I should qualify my use of the word "fill". I fill the sink with about two inches of water, just enough to cover the razor. I never fill the sink to the,top, and everyone's sink have different shapes and capacities. But in any case, I don't suggest everyone live the way I do. My daily water usage is less than 25 gallons, because I live alone. My dad chose not to be a part of my life after my parents divorced, so I taught myself how to shave. I had to relearn how to shave after discovering wet shaving, and websites like this. For teaching me things my dad never did, I thank you all. Once upon a time, I lived in Russia. There, hot water is piped through the apartment buildings, shared by all the apartments above and below yours. It is not typically something you control, although some apartments might have their own water shutoff valve. In all other cases, If you need to shut the water off, it must be shut off in the basement. Consequently, for about a month at a time, in the summer, all hot water is shut off so building maintenance personnel can work on the plumbing. It could be May, it could be July or August, but the cold water was still icy-cold. I attempted a few cold showers, but ultimately resorted to heating my water on the stove in a giant pot, and pouring it over me with a cup. As you can imagine, electric or gas tankless water heaters are popular there, and have been used already for decades. What's up United States? Eventually we will have to spend money to make efficiency upgrades whether we make back our money or not. A point of direct interest to this thread, is the Russian practice of bathing in cold water. You've seen or heard of polar bear swims in the news, but there is a widely held belief that cold water is good for you. School recess sometimes includes playtime in cold snow and water. I won't go into the details here, but google, and the phrase "cold water dousing" should give satisfactory results. Shortly after the US invasion of Iraq, my unit set up house in one of Saddam's palaces. Locals had already looted what they could carry away, so things like glass windows, and staircase banisters were gone. The bathrooms were the most ornate I had ever seen. The biggest problem? The plumbing did not work, and we couldn't flush paper or risk clogging. If we wanted to use the toilet or bathe in the amazing tub, we had to carry 5 gallon cans of water up 3 large sets of stairs with no banister, and collect our used TP in bags to carry back down for alternate disposal. I bathed in a tub I would have loved to have at home, but did it by pouring 2 liter bottles of water over my head. On another deployment, I found myself in the middle of Afghanistan's Helmund province. Our water was kept in large above-ground tanks. When summer rolled around, the temperatures were 120 F in the day, and only 90 F at night. All the water was hot, all the time. If you really want to conserve energy and water, eat less meat. To raise and process beef for the market uses about 1800 gallons of water per pound. Chicken requires around 500 gallons of water per pound. Replace all the incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs in your house with LED bulbs, drive smaller, more efficient vehicles, and replace your lawn with low water use grass. Conservation is great, and necessary, and I do it wherever possible. But when it comes to hot water in my sink, that's a small luxury I'm going to enjoy the hell out of, while I can. The morals of this story are: -Don't take a simple forum or blog post for face value. Most of how we communicate is non-verbal; writing can only convey a small portion of the whole message. There is usually more to a story than we know. - Some of man's greatest creations are air conditioning and indoor plumbing. -Eat less meat
I have always been told to shave hot water and since face off with cold water. Is there any benefit to shaving cold and rinsing cold?
I skimmed the article and this statement stood out, and the reason I use hot water, "...my razor tugged at my whiskers a bit more than when I shaved with hot water."
