Pre Shave Methodology

I could not wait, so I went and did it.

Everything was going good, until I put the oil mix on.

It soaked in and I could not get it off. Made my beard tough.

Guess its just wash face and Hot towel for me.

BTW, I had to change my SoS to a Wadsworth 5/8, the DE was not cutting it for the monster growth.

 

Not enough time with the hot towel.

 

5 min?

 

The Texas translation for that is "slicker than greased owl feathers".

 

Great discovery, Joe! Fortunately, the King Barber shop is just a few blocks from my house and they carry it ($9). I'll get some today and try it out tomorrow.

I had been thinking about adding a little scent to the mix. I love olive oil, but the castor oil smell brings back bad childhood memories...

And doing the hot towel in the shower... like the guy in the Guinness commercial "BRILLIANT!".

 

I'd really like to understand the cases where this technique doesn't work; they may give us some insight into how to make it work better.

1. Did you use Extra Virgin olive oil, or just plain? The Oil Cleansing Method is pretty emphatic about the difference being important.

2. Did you add the castor oil and glycerin? The castor oil is essential, I know that olive oil won't do the trick by itself. The glycerin should be 100% or nearly so, not a dilution. It helps in rinsing the oils off.

3. You said it "made" your beard tough. Is your beard normally pretty soft without doing this?

4. You mention a "monster growth". 2-3 days? I would guess that would give more time for more oil to accumulate and harden. I've not tried this technique on anything more than a 36-hour growth, since that's usually as long as I can go without shaving before I just can't stand it...

5. The scrubbing with a hot towel is essential too, for removing the surface oil. Perhaps a little bath soap would help here, if you can't seem to get it removed.

If your beard softens up nicely enough without this, then it's probably a waste of time and effort (and good olive oil). If it really makes things worse in some cases, that would be good to understand.

 

1. It was the EV
2. Yes
3. My beard is pretty tought to begin with, the oils seemed to make it stronger
4. about 4 days of growth
5. I did do some heavy scrubbin

On a side note, today I just used the Noxzema face wash and hot towel and it worked out pretty good. ::

 

This stuff works great with a hot towel, perfectly. Without a hot towel, I wouldn't get this stuff anywhere near my skin. It is very heavy, but the combo of the oils in there and the lanolin, combined with the hot towel.........BOOYAH :rofl

 

I agree if the oils soaked in and didn't get out, then they would make things worse, or at least no better.

Really curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said (or was it the white rabbit?). I'd almost say it was the Russian Gillettes, except you say Joe likes them and this works for him...

The only thing that comes to mind is the 4 days of heavy growth. Perhaps there's a need for 4 times as much of the oil mix??? This technique depends on the idea that the oil you apply dissolves the sebaceous oils in your whiskers, so if there's not enough solvent, it won't be able to do that. If sometime you could try it on a 1-day growth, that would be good info. OTOH, if today's 1-day growth softened well enough with Noxzema and hot towels, then perhaps you don't really need the 800-pound gorilla technique.

In the meantime, I've just obtained a (probably lifetime!) supply of the Lucky Tiger Lemon Scent Pre-shave and will try that in the morning. Trader Joe is right, the first ingredient listed is mineral oil, and there are several other oils in there as well.

 

I will add that I did have a "tough" feeling to the beard at one point, while in the shower.......but I kept applying the sopping wet towel, gently massaging the beard, and before I knew it.........my face reached the "dog snot"/'greased owl feathers" stage.

Did Not take 5 minutes though.......at least it didn't seem like that long :think002

Keep up with the experimentation, you'll get there

 

I should check out the Lucky Tiger store too.

 

+1. I've not dabbled in their pre-shave stuff, but I do have both versions of their Menthol Aftershave cream (Vanishing and Disappearing I believe they're called). Great stuffs, both of them.

 

Report on Lucky Tiger

I wanted to change only one thing at a time, so I didn't switch to Joe's shower scheme. Instead, I simply substituted the Lucky Tiger Lemon Scent skin cleanser for the olive oil/castor oil/glycerin mix.

I'm happy to report that I could not tell any substantial difference in the beard softening effects using the Lucky Tiger instead of the homemade mix.

Pros & Cons: At first I thought price might be a con, but the castor oil costs me $3 for 6 oz. and the glycerin about $4 for 6 oz. So add the cost of the EV olive oil and $9 for the Lucky Tiger 13 oz. (weight) is probably break even or even better. In any case, what either of these does for my shave is priceless.

The Lucky Tiger smells quite a bit better, more like orange than lemon to me, because of the beeswax smell mixed in. It has a lot of other good things in it, too. Overall, I will use it, knowing that I can always mix up the homemade if I have to. I'll probably put a few drops of sweet orange EO into the olive oil mix, to make it smell better. It may have a slight advantage for travel, in that it can be poured into one of those little flip-top squirt bottles (which is how I use it anyway).

 

Yes, that did the trick, smells really nice now.
Even though I now use the Lucky Tiger for the prep, this oil mix is much better for the undercoat before lathering up for the ATG and touch-up pass.

 

Did you drop the noxzema, or are you still using that as well?

 

No, I still use the Noxzema. It's not worth it to me to experiment to see if it makes any difference in the beard softening or not. I think it's useful as a general face cleaner anyway; for instance, I put it over my entire face and forehead, not just the beard area. One of the things that often goes with a tough beard is lots of facial oil.

 

Dimethicone

It is in Noxzema Medicated Shave Foam (yes I said foam).


1. Wet Face with Warm Water (too hot will dry you out).
2. Towel Warmed with water (again not too hot), apply for a few min re-wetting.
3. Smear Noxzema Medicated Shave Foam on throughly and let set for a min.
4. Lather in bowl (skip this if you a lather on the face guy).
5. Wash of Foam with Warm Water.
6. Lather you regularly scheduled cream or soap (or both for you superlather dudes).
6. Shave.
7. Have cleaning rag ready for when the whiskers come flying of your face.


Also try this. Leave the zima on face and lather on top with Williams Mug and have a great shave.

Please note, I once said make towel hot. I was wrong, works better warm then hot.

 

To add on, do the Noxzema Face wash the normal way before step one.

 

I'm new to the wet shave world. In fact, I am waiting on my new DE razor to show up in the mail. For the last several days I have been applying the techniques while using my ultra-modern monstrosity with five blades. (Even before I found the many wet shaving forums I knew that was a bad idea.) Beard prep seems to be the one area that I was most overlooking. I'd love to follow these ideas, but I have a problem.

She who must be obeyed is allergic to Noxzema. That means the clenser and the foam. Since having a woman with red, itchy, irritated skin giving the evil eye is a bad idea, is there anything that could be substituted for Noxzema with similar results?