Dear straight razor users, those of you which use alum after the shave. Do you get "feedback" or sting from it regularly? Do you only get it where you cut/nicked yourself? Or only where you pressed a little too hard? If you nail the shave, do you feel it at all?
Asking because I am working towards achieving a shave without irritation and bumps. I've used alum for the past three years, first with DEs. When I used too much pressure during the shave, the alum would sting, I would get irritation and bumps. So I was aiming for a shave without alum sting and my face would be pretty for a day or two after such a shave.
But last night I had a terrible SR shave (I ruined the edge trying to bump the finnish and I was stressed and tired so I messed up just about everything that day). And I said: "you know what? if I use alum, it's just gonna sting like hell, I don't need that right now". Now usually after a shave like that, I would use alum, suck up the burn, get all red and inflamed, look like a rotten tomato for a week.
This time I didn't use alum. And the shave was truly bad. But I just healed overnight. And now I look as pretty as I would after a shave that I pretty much nailed and used the alum after. What is going on? Should I question everything? Is alum just another thing people will pick up when starting and keep repeating it blindly without questioning it? Have I failed as a being that considers himself inteligent?
Now normally I would just stick to the change I have made and see if I detected an improvement in achieving my goal, or if it was just that the stars alligned for me that day. Then come here and casually let you know about my personal experience. But now I'm anxious that there was a primitive way of fixing my suffering for the past three years. And the fix was to throw the 5$ piece of a hydrated double sulfate salt of aluminium with the general formula XAl ₂·12 H ₂O, where X is a monovalent cation such as potassium or ammonium out the window? God....
Please share your experience with alum. Does your post shave feel better with it or without it?
Asking because I am working towards achieving a shave without irritation and bumps. I've used alum for the past three years, first with DEs. When I used too much pressure during the shave, the alum would sting, I would get irritation and bumps. So I was aiming for a shave without alum sting and my face would be pretty for a day or two after such a shave.
But last night I had a terrible SR shave (I ruined the edge trying to bump the finnish and I was stressed and tired so I messed up just about everything that day). And I said: "you know what? if I use alum, it's just gonna sting like hell, I don't need that right now". Now usually after a shave like that, I would use alum, suck up the burn, get all red and inflamed, look like a rotten tomato for a week.
This time I didn't use alum. And the shave was truly bad. But I just healed overnight. And now I look as pretty as I would after a shave that I pretty much nailed and used the alum after. What is going on? Should I question everything? Is alum just another thing people will pick up when starting and keep repeating it blindly without questioning it? Have I failed as a being that considers himself inteligent?
Now normally I would just stick to the change I have made and see if I detected an improvement in achieving my goal, or if it was just that the stars alligned for me that day. Then come here and casually let you know about my personal experience. But now I'm anxious that there was a primitive way of fixing my suffering for the past three years. And the fix was to throw the 5$ piece of a hydrated double sulfate salt of aluminium with the general formula XAl ₂·12 H ₂O, where X is a monovalent cation such as potassium or ammonium out the window? God....
Please share your experience with alum. Does your post shave feel better with it or without it?