dry tight skin after shaving

[newwetsahver]

I think that a tight/dry feeling after the shave often has to do not with actual dryness but with over-exfoliation caused by too much pressure or an incorrect angle, or both.

Contrary to popular belief, not all soaps are drying to the skin, although they can be. Soaps that are excessively cleansing will dry the skin a lot more than a shaving soap, which is designed to be a lubricant, not a cleanser. Saponified coconut oil is quite drying, but most shave soaps either have only small amounts or they make up for its presence by superfatting and adding additional butters, glycerin, etc.

Another thing to think about is that you are not lathering the soap properly. Have you done test lathers wherein you add water by small amounts and continue to do so, watching its effect on the lather, and continuing until the lather becomes very clearly over-hydrated and worthless? If you have not done so, I encourage you to do it. It will be 10 minutes well spent. Just add a few drops at a time and incorporate fully, then add a few more drops. Don't stop until the lather is worthless. Make good observations of the stages it goes through; in other words, evaluation the lather before you add more water. Find out what its "sweet spot" is and how wide it is.

But I still think it's probably more of a technique issue than a lather issue.

how can you judge when the lather is overhydrated and no good anymore? Also is there a point where you can load too much soap and your shave brush cant handle the amount of lather you are trying to create? the boar brush i use sometimes seems a bit small, its one of those burma shave brushes, and i use in conjunction with a scuttle, could that be factor in the creation of the lather? soetimes it seems as tho the brush is just too small

 

[haggis]

i ordered myself a badger brush toady from elite razor, ill see if that helps out any

If nothing else it will help out your mood. I adore my Elite brush.

 

[Macduff]

@newwetsahver let me recommend to you a likely solution to your problem: Grooming Department pre-shave. It’s a bit spendy, but i can tell you from experience that it’ll leave your face feeling perfectly hydrated after your shave. It’s not like preshave oils (which i hate) and it really adds an noticeable difference to how your face feels after a shave. Also, it lasts a LONG time. I shave every other day and mine is Still going after 16+ months. There’s a fairly lengthy thread espousing its greatness if you want to do a quick search, but i highly, highly recommend it for the post shave dryness you’re experiencing.

 

[RayClem]

All soaps dry out your skin. Just keep it simple use some lotion if the shave was good or aftershave. Also I dont always do three passes.

Your assertion is only partly true. A plain soap, that is one comprised on only of fatty acid esters, will remove the oils from your skin. However, realizing this fact, soapmakers add various ingredients to the soap to moisturize and condition your skin. Coconut oil, cocoa butter and lanolin have been used for this purpose for decades or even centuries. Today exotic butters and oils such as Shea, Kokum, Argan, Avocado, Cupuaco, etc. are added to replace the lost skin oils. Even more exotic ingredients such as Hyaluronic Acid can be added to luxury soaps.

If have sensitive skin and typically do a four-pass shave: WTG, XTG. ATG, clean-up. With some soaps, I do experience dry, tight skin. If I use a high quality soap, my face is left soft and moist. Generally, my only post shave product is witch hazel. I rely on my soap to provide the skin moisturizing and conditioning ingredients. Otherwise, I would have to apply a post shave balm.

 

[kingfisher]

how can you judge when the lather is overhydrated and no good anymore? Also is there a point where you can load too much soap and your shave brush cant handle the amount of lather you are trying to create? the boar brush i use sometimes seems a bit small, its one of those burma shave brushes, and i use in conjunction with a scuttle, could that be factor in the creation of the lather? soetimes it seems as tho the brush is just too small

Ditch the scuttle for now and use a plain cereal bowl, ideally with a dark color on the inside so you can clearly see the opacity of the lather as you build it.

When it gets completely overhydrated it will cease to be opaque and will get thin and bubbly. Ideally, you should not be able to see your skin through the lather when it is applied to your face.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[@ngel]

how do you know if you have added too much water? with stirlings i have experimented with 3/4 of a teaspoons up too 3 teaspoons of water. i usually start out with pretty wet brush as well. how do you find the threshhold of where you adding to much vs what is the right amount of hydration for your lather?

First off, I do not bowl lather, I face lather, so I start with a pretty wet brush, and I load max 30 seconds, some soaps even less if they are soft soaps.

I also wet my face and start lathering up, first it starts pretty runny and bubbly, then as it starts to become foamy or even pasty, I add water directly to the brush with a spray bottle (I don't measure anything, nor shaving or cooking ) and keep lathering, adding water as needed, the goal (for me) is to have a glossy like yogurt looking lather and consistency as well, so there is really no exact point or measurement that I can give you to get there, is all feel of the senses!

 

[TinyT]

how can you judge when the lather is overhydrated and no good anymore?

It should be pretty obvious; the soap will be very runny, there'll be none left in the brush and what you have on your face will be an unworkable, watery film with little to no slickness and zero cushion. The characteristics of a broken lather. I've done it a few times and after a while you can recognize the warning signs and hold back, although it hasn't happened to me for a while now. It's not the end of the world if the lather does break, you just have to start again, but it is annoying.

Also is there a point where you can load too much soap and your shave brush cant handle the amount of lather you are trying to create?

Not really. It just means that you have to keep adding water untill the lather becomes 'right'. For me, that's shiny in appearance and a sudden change to a slippery feeling as I move the lather around my face with the brush. With a lot of soap it can take quite a long time to get the water added in. I've spent 5 minutes before just adding water and sometimes even get fed up and just shave with a lather that I know is still a bit too thick and pasty. I still get a good shave, just not quite as good as it is with a perfect lather.

Just keep shaving away and it will all come with experience. Getting the lather to how I like it is the part of shaving technique that took me the longest and I spent a lot of time fiddling and experimenting with things like hot or cold water, soaking times of the brush, marcos method, the drybrush method and so on untill I settled to my normal routine. Now I barely think about it. Some people can pick up lathering in just a few shaves, no problem, for others, like me, it takes a bit of time. But it's worth all the effort when you get it right.

 

[newwetsahver]

It should be pretty obvious; the soap will be very runny, there'll be none left in the brush and what you have on your face will be an unworkable, watery film with little to no slickness and zero cushion. The characteristics of a broken lather. I've done it a few times and after a while you can recognize the warning signs and hold back, although it hasn't happened to me for a while now. It's not the end of the world if the lather does break, you just have to start again, but it is annoying.



Not really. It just means that you have to keep adding water untill the lather becomes 'right'. For me, that's shiny in appearance and a sudden change to a slippery feeling as I move the lather around my face with the brush. With a lot of soap it can take quite a long time to get the water added in. I've spent 5 minutes before just adding water and sometimes even get fed up and just shave with a lather that I know is still a bit too thick and pasty. I still get a good shave, just not quite as good as it is with a perfect lather.

Just keep shaving away and it will all come with experience. Getting the lather to how I like it is the part of shaving technique that took me the longest and I spent a lot of time fiddling and experimenting with things like hot or cold water, soaking times of the brush, marcos method, the drybrush method and so on untill I settled to my normal routine. Now I barely think about it. Some people can pick up lathering in just a few shaves, no problem, for others, like me, it takes a bit of time. But it's worth all the effort when you get it right.

this is what i was trying to figure out, thx again

 

[RayClem]

this is what i was trying to figure out, thx again

One thing I observe is thee way lather sticks to your razor when you shave. I fill my skink (or a cup if you are in a water conservation zone) witrh water and leave a slight trickle of water running. After a couple of shaving strokes, I dip my razor (SR, DE, SR, doesn't matter which) into the water and observe what the lather does. If the lather sticks to the razor, you need to add more water. If the lather dissipates immediately, you have too much water and need to add more soap. If the lather quickly releases from the razor and floats intact to the surface of the water, you have the lather about right. Some soaps have a wide range of acceptable hydration. Some have a very small range. I like a balance of slickness and cushion, so I aim for the middle of the range.

 

[TinyT]

this is what i was trying to figure out, thx again

No problem. Glad to help.

 

[Evilla01]

Your assertion is only partly true. A plain soap, that is one comprised on only of fatty acid esters, will remove the oils from your skin. However, realizing this fact, soapmakers add various ingredients to the soap to moisturize and condition your skin. Coconut oil, cocoa butter and lanolin have been used for this purpose for decades or even centuries. Today exotic butters and oils such as Shea, Kokum, Argan, Avocado, Cupuaco, etc. are added to replace the lost skin oils. Even more exotic ingredients such as Hyaluronic Acid can be added to luxury soaps.

If have sensitive skin and typically do a four-pass shave: WTG, XTG. ATG, clean-up. With some soaps, I do experience dry, tight skin. If I use a high quality soap, my face is left soft and moist. Generally, my only post shave product is witch hazel. I rely on my soap to provide the skin moisturizing and conditioning ingredients. Otherwise, I would have to apply a post shave balm.

I understand that, and I have over 25 soaps. There is no soap during the winter that wont dry my skin. In the summer is a different story. Regardless it is soap so it will dry you regardless if it's all natural or that it has some million different lotions, oil and w.e other crap. Once again it is soap but some will do it to a lesser degree and the post care helps it out. Maybe it is my skin so if your doesn't then your a lucky man. More passes with cause more dryness once again your putting sharp steel over your skin. Now if it doesn't do anything to you then great but it does for my skin. I envy people who have great skin but not every skin type is the same nor their environment.

 

[kingfisher]

I understand that, and I have over 25 soaps. There is no soap during the winter that wont dry my skin. In the summer is a different story. Regardless it is soap so it will dry you regardless if it's all natural or that it has some million different lotions, oil and w.e other crap. Once again it is soap but some will do it to a lesser degree and the post care helps it out. Maybe it is my skin so if your doesn't then your a lucky man. More passes with cause more dryness once again your putting sharp steel over your skin. Now if it doesn't do anything to you then great but it does for my skin. I envy people who have great skin but not every skin type is the same nor their environment.

The amount a soap will dry the skin is proportional to the amount of natural oils that the soap strips from the face. Cleansing soaps remove a lot more oils. Saponified coconut oil, in particular, is quite cleansing. A lot of shave soaps have a fair bit of saponified coconut oil in the recipe. If you look at the ingredients list, and "coconut oil" or "sodium cocoate" or "potassium cocoate" in in the top three or four ingredients, you should switch to a different soap. You might be surprised. Another option would be to go to a shave soap that doesn't have any saponified coconut oil in it at all; Mystic Water is one such soap, I'm sure there are others.

I think if you tried Mystic Water you'd be surprised by how gentle it is. As I have mentioned before in this thread, though, a lot of what people describe as "tight" and/or "dry" in the aftermath of a shave is actually not because of the soap, but because of over-exfoliation due to bad technique, or due to too much chasing after the perfect BBS shave.