So the time came around for me to be certified to carry OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) spray. The public calls it pepper spray, but in law enforcement we call it OC spray. After a day of classroom training, you graduate by being sprayed in the face with the same OC spray you carry. Those who have gone through this will tell you they'd get tased any day rather than have to be sprayed again with OC. They also give you advice, and you better listen or take notes if you aren't a good listener because this is not a fun process to go through. Perhaps @Spider has built up enough immunity to hot peppers to glide right through, but only 5% of the population is either unaffected or has minimal issues, but the rest of the 95% will have a really bad time with it. Every guy advised me to not shave the day of the test, and I really thought about that piece of advice for a bit. Why wouldn't I shave? When done right, wet shaving should produce little to zero irritation and 99% of the time I don't have any irritation or cuts now from my shaving routine. My thoughts were that not shaving would give me all these rough hair follicles to hold the OC foam spray on my face and perhaps act like little lightening rods or straws drawing the OC into my pours or at least holding it up from running off. I decided the night before, I was going to do a simple, clean, one and a 1/2 pass shave.
On spray day I used Stirling Haverford Soap, Parker Variant razor, and a Feather blade. Pass one was a WTG pass, nice and easy taking care to be extra sure not to draw blood anywhere. The half pass was an across the grain pass on the neck only. Put the dang razor away and rinse! Post shave was just Dickinson's witch hazel. I skipped my normal Soap Commander AS lotion with menthol opting for a clean face.
So how was it?.....................Well, we have a high percentage foam OC spray, so it pretty much felt like someone poured gas on my face and lit a match to it. I have a high pain tolerance, so OK, I suffered in silence, but don't ever think this is a pleasant experience. Part of the training process is that you have to perform a bunch of duty related physical activities. This is to show you that you can in fact perform while this stuff is causing physical crisis. The effects of the OC induce panic, so you have to push through that. Mind over matter, if you don't mind it don't matter! After decon, you look like you have a really bad sunburn, and you feel like perhaps your face was a S'more marshmallow, but you do get better over time. I've been a little vague on things like the decon because we don't want the bad guys to know too much about that. I didn't see that shaving caused me any issues at all, so I hope this can serve as information for those that follow me at some point.
The next morning, I had a great shave and the menthol AS lotion I used felt refreshing and no longer felt like it was burning my face.
On spray day I used Stirling Haverford Soap, Parker Variant razor, and a Feather blade. Pass one was a WTG pass, nice and easy taking care to be extra sure not to draw blood anywhere. The half pass was an across the grain pass on the neck only. Put the dang razor away and rinse! Post shave was just Dickinson's witch hazel. I skipped my normal Soap Commander AS lotion with menthol opting for a clean face.
So how was it?.....................Well, we have a high percentage foam OC spray, so it pretty much felt like someone poured gas on my face and lit a match to it. I have a high pain tolerance, so OK, I suffered in silence, but don't ever think this is a pleasant experience. Part of the training process is that you have to perform a bunch of duty related physical activities. This is to show you that you can in fact perform while this stuff is causing physical crisis. The effects of the OC induce panic, so you have to push through that. Mind over matter, if you don't mind it don't matter! After decon, you look like you have a really bad sunburn, and you feel like perhaps your face was a S'more marshmallow, but you do get better over time. I've been a little vague on things like the decon because we don't want the bad guys to know too much about that. I didn't see that shaving caused me any issues at all, so I hope this can serve as information for those that follow me at some point.
The next morning, I had a great shave and the menthol AS lotion I used felt refreshing and no longer felt like it was burning my face.
