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Cold water shaves

Erchy said:
Day 2 of cold water shaves and i don’t think i will ever turn back.

Irritation free....and better face feel.

Anyone else shave cold??


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I did it for a while and it worked very well. For some reason I switched back to hot.
 
Works OK. I wouldn’t say it was any better than warm for me. Though I do enjoy my cold rinse at the end of the shave before the post shave regimen.
 
Definitely. I absolutely prefer cold or cool water shaves, the difference is like night and day. It’s not like I can’t appreciate the feel and appeal of hot towel and warm lather but if I don’t at least do a cold rinse before hitting the blade and between passes I’m going to end up with some irritation. Since I know I need to stick to cold water I usually just fill a cup with hot water to soak a brush in while shower and fill the sink with cold water, the brush holds a little heat but not enough to make warm lather. I use the warm water to rinse the blade ...that’s the winner!
 
CBLindsay said:
Definitely. I absolutely prefer cold or cool water shaves, the difference is like night and day. It’s not like I can’t appreciate the feel and appeal of hot towel and warm lather but if I don’t at least do a cold rinse before hitting the blade and between passes I’m going to end up with some irritation. Since I know I need to stick to cold water I usually just fill a cup with hot water to soak a brush in while shower and fill the sink with cold water, the brush holds a little heat but not enough to make warm lather. I use the warm water to rinse the blade ...that’s the winner!
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Im really enjoying it cold.

My skin feels so much better.


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I’m with you @Erchy. Switching to cold water shaves was a turning point in eliminating post shave irritation.
 
I switched to keep my lather from drying out as fast. since I already live in the desert with almost no humidity I didn't need the water in my lather leaving any faster. The lack of irritation did help solidify things too. Plus menthol soaps just feel SO much colder with cold water
 
I enjoy cold water shaves during the Summer, especially on mornings that I run. The cool water helps keep me from sweating into the lather.
 
I had a lot of trouble with irritation early on when I started this adventure in wet shaving. Once I switched to cold water shaving it made all the difference. I have well water too, so my cold water is 52 degrees which is really cold compared to city water. When I travel I notice that city water's cold is equivalent to well water's luke warm IMHO. I've even gone a step further lately and after all my post shave stuff is done I take a bean bag from the freezer and let it sit on my face. It's menthol without the burn!

Witch Hazel helps too. Lately I've been doing a cold water rinse after my final pass, then liberally applying WH on the wet face & letting it sit there while I put some gel in the hair, then I cold water rinse the WH off. I found the little bit of alcohol in the WH was an irritant to me but this process seems to be the perfect combo. Any little bits of redness I might have are gone after that.
 
I'm a little of both. I always shave after a hot shower. And I use hot tap water to make my lather in a bowl. But from then on, all my rinses between passes and after the final touch up are cold water. I'm in NJ so during the summer the water coming out of the cold tap is not quite as brisk as it is in the winter. I actually prefer the colder temps of the water coming out of the tap during the winter.
 
HMan said:
Sounds horrible, but I'm going to try it just to see if it helps with redness and irritation, I'd never even thought of it tbh.
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I thought the same thing. Always had shaved with warm water. But then again, until I tried something new I had always shaved with a cart. The first time or two you think it sucks because, well you miss the nice feeling of warm water. But after a couple of shaves where the razor burn was eliminated I was hold. Now when I'm somewhere else and feel the water out of the tap isn't cold, I dread how that going to feel on my neck.
 
NurseDave said:
I thought the same thing. Always had shaved with warm water. But then again, until I tried something new I had always shaved with a cart. The first time or two you think it sucks because, well you miss the nice feeling of warm water. But after a couple of shaves where the razor burn was eliminated I was hold. Now when I'm somewhere else and feel the water out of the tap isn't cold, I dread how that going to feel on my neck.
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By jove, I tried it today, and it works! Much less post shave redness :)

It actually wasn't even horrible at all. Thanks Cadre!
 
HMan said:
By jove, I tried it today, and it works! Much less post shave redness :)

It actually wasn't even horrible at all. Thanks Cadre!
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I'm glad you had a positive outcome! The cold water technique was passed onto me by the Cadre too, so without TSC I would probably have quit wet shaving due to irritation.
 
Blade-meister said:
I'm glad you had a positive outcome! The cold water technique was passed onto me by the Cadre too, so without TSC I would probably have quit wet shaving due to irritation.
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Well I just passed the final test, looking at myself in the mirror in ballet class, where my neck usually looks like it went through a wood chipper, just looked normal today.

Here's another pseudo tip, at least it seems to be helping me. I have atopic dermatitis that tends to start really flaring up on my neck and under my armpits this time of year. I have all year, it just get even worse over the winter.

Well we went to Greece this summer and I started eating a lot of Greek Kalamata olives, soon after starting to eat them everyday, it seems my rash has pretty much disappeared. It's total knock on wood situation, but what ever it is I'll take it, the rash sucks.
 
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