Cryogen is not a game

My cryogen arrived yesterday and decided to do a test lather and see what all the fuss was about. I took a slice, put into my bowl, loaded and finished as a face lather. I found it to lather easily, good texture. Now the more important details.....
scent....it's straight menthol. Personally, I don't think it needs anything else, it's a pure potent menthol which I enjoyed.
Chill.....now I'm not the most experienced with menthol shave creams, but I will say my face was tingling shortly after I started face lathering, and this increased with each new application. Now, as I was not doing a shave, the duration of face-lather contact was not as long had it been a full shave experience, but I definitely got a good chilling effect.
duration of face tingling.....it's been a good 10 minutes and the face still has some tingle and some residual menthol scent. I'm very happy to have picked it up.
I'm looking foward to a full shave experience tomorrow.

How bad was it on your eyes? I really like Stirling MITA and am interested in glacials, but not sure if I want to use something that may require a pair of goggles to be worn while shaving.

vandarye said:

How bad was it on your eyes? I really like Stirling MITA and am interested in glacials, but not sure if I want to use something that may require a pair of goggles to be worn while shaving.

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no tearing up, that may be different tomorrow when I go full shave. If interested in glacials, do a sample puck from sterling. They seem reasonable, especially if adding onto an order. They're on by soap hit list to obtain. I would have done their black obsidian, but I'm not much of a licorice fan.
I'll post more tomorrow. I do agree you don't want any stray lather in your eyes or mouth!

Cryogen. Hmm, anything that reminds me of Ted Williams' head? Heck no, thank you kindly.
First off, to the OP, 80 degrees at the end of April? Show off!
<turns up thermostat once again to ward off the 40 degree "chill">
Anything overly mentholated that causes tears while shaving isn't my cup o' tea. I admit, I PIF'ed a once used bottle of Fine's Snake Bite because tears ran down my face just walking through a room, and the breeze from just walking caused the floodgates to open. It was like sitting through a double feature of Old Yeller and My Dog Skip.
I look at shaving as a respite from the impending Hell that is my work-day life. Sorry, starting that work-day with tears ain't for me...I shed enough of those at my desk

I accidentally got some MITA in my eyes while rinsing off.... not pleasant

I enjoy menthol to a point. Proraso Green with the preshave is nice, but Stirling Lemon Glacial Chill went past the point of "ahhhh" into the realm of annoying.

First full shave today. Eyes started watering in the middle of second pass. Performance was fantastic. Lathered easily, great slickness, great post shave feel. Face had that menthol tingle a good 20 minutes.
Overall I really liked it, I think I'll just use my DE with this soap.

Nice review.

Given all the buzz, I had to pick some up given my love for face freeze. WOW. Everything that has been said about this is true. Eye watering and face freeze for a solid 20 minutes after. I would consider Cryogen an "expereince". The initial burn after the first pass was pretty intense & I wasn't sure if it was a cooling sensation or pain (or both), but once it settles down, it's a nice shave. Wonderful feeling after the shave.

I took a look at the Chiseled Face site and noticed that they have a Cryogen Preshave Gel and a Cryogen Aftershave splash also.

Has anyone gone for the Cryogen hat trick yet? What were the results?

I only have the soap and aftershave. I love the freeze. Probably the trifecta would freeze me into the next millennia.

I'm a "menthol head". I love Cryogen esp. in the very hot weather. For me, it's just too intense to use every day.

Whatever works for you! I peronally like a little menthol cooling but I think the Cryogen would be unpleasant for me. I love reading threads like this though, because it shows how diverse (or perverse) our preferences are when it comes to shaving products. The menthol heads of the wet shaving community crack me up. Y'all will use anything if it's guaranteed to freeze your face:

'Introducing our newest shaving soap - Polar Bear! We've worked long and hard on this recipe to ensure it brings you an all natural face cooling experience! We started with a base of humanely harvested white bear scat and added steroid-free/hormone-free Arctic whale tallow. For slickness, we searched for the perfect source of beautiful Georgia red clay, and finally mixed it in paint cans using a 1:740 ratio with pure menthol. Please enjoy responsibly!'

Dark side of the moon. North Pole of Pluto. Interstellar space. It is a Star Trek experience. Yes!

Damn..if it wasn't that I had so many soaps in a holding pattern, I'd get some of this tomorrow!

For me , too much menthol is barely enough!! (especially during humid Sydney February weather)

Southern said:

'Introducing our newest shaving soap - Polar Bear! We've worked long and hard on this recipe to ensure it brings you an all natural face cooling experience! We started with a base of humanely harvested white bear scat and added steroid-free/hormone-free Arctic whale tallow. For slickness, we searched for the perfect source of beautiful Georgia red clay, and finally mixed it in paint cans using a 1:740 ratio with pure menthol. Please enjoy responsibly!'

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This sounds great! How much is it, where can I get it and most importantly... how much of a face freeze will I get??

FatboyFan said:

Damn..if it wasn't that I had so many soaps in a holding pattern, I'd get some of this tomorrow!

For me , too much menthol is barely enough!! (especially during humid Sydney February weather)

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If that's the case then you HAVE to try Cryogen. Life is too short to miss out on the good things, and it's just one more tiny little tub of soap. Go ahead and get one, nobody will notice. Besides, you probably did something really good this week that you deserve a treat for, right? RIGHT!?!

CigarSmoka said:

If that's the case then you HAVE to try Cryogen. Life is too short to miss out on the good things, and it's just one more tiny little tub of soap. Go ahead and get one, nobody will notice. Besides, you probably did something really good this week that you deserve a treat for, right? RIGHT!?!

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Nice enabling! And I do agree, besides having massive menthol kick, it is a great soap performance wise.

Reading this yesterday got me wanting to break out the cryogen for today's shave. Decided to kick it up by using a SR. Loaded way too long on the brush because as I face lathered it felt way too thick, not that my face felt it, but rather the soap didn't rinse off that easily. Supplemented with some bowl lathering and problem solved. Also, I thought it might be a good idea to have a DE on standby if I couldn't tolerate the time each SR pass took.
I was quite surprised how well it went. Seemed that once it kicked in fully it didn't matter how long I took for the pass.
in the end, I did 3 passes, WTG, XTG, WTG clean up. And to put the icing on the top (haha), I reapplied as I cleaned up the goods.
I will say, cold water splashes do become ice water temperature.
I don't consider myself a menthol addict, but I really enjoy this soap, just a different experience when I'm in the mood.
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Okay I bit - ordered a sample today. (And the AS sample too!) Can't wait to play the Crying Game!