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Alum and Witch Hazel.... when to use?

StratMan

StratMan

Member
instead of hijaking the shave of the day thread i thought best to post my question here

i just learnt (thanks to todras) the effects of using additional witch hazel on his AS splashes and the general effects on the skin.

I am new to DE shaving and automatically purchased both products due to the praises they both received on various forums, now i am questioning the need to of bothered with these products in the first place.

todras reply is in quotes below. My question here is does Alum have the same effects as witch hazel? does this apply to all splashes or just APR, and when should one or both of these be used during a post shave?

cheers


"My aftershave formulation has more than sufficient Witch Hazel in it, if you skip the thayers you will get longer duration from the fragrance in my splash :)"

"Witch Hazel does not hydrate the skin, it does the exact opposite by tightening the pores and removing oils from the skin.

Witch Hazel can be extremely drying to the skin, it is an astringent and using too much of it will simply stimulate excessive oil production by your skin to counter the drying effects of the tannic compounds. Many of the aftershave/splashes on the market contain way, way to much Witch Hazel and that is why compounded with the effects of the ETOH they are as harsh as buggery.

If you use extra witch hazel with my splash all you are doing is removing the perfume that is contained within the splash from the surface of your skin, when I formulated the AP Reserve splash base it took months to achieve the correct balance of witch hazel to aftershave solution. With my splash you have just enough to experience the beneficial effect of Witch Hazel without overly drying the skin or destroying the longevity and sillage of the perfume.

All AP Reserve aftershaves contain exactly the same composition with the exception being the addition of menthol for some releases."
 
lol i did the exact same thing mate.. except i had two doses of the thayers..

so my post shave was alum few mins > cold water rinse > thayers > let it dry > thayers again > let it dry > AS splash

today was the same except for no alum (forgot to bring to work) and two doses of AS splash to make up for the lack of staying power of the splash

tomorrow will be strictly Florian soap + splash and really looking forward to both post shave skin feel and AS splash longevity
 
StratMan said:
tomorrow will be strictly Florian soap + splash and really looking forward to both post shave skin feel and AS splash longevity
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's that simple.

StratMan said:
todras reply is in quotes below. My question here is does Alum have the same effects as witch hazel? does this apply to all splashes or just APR, and when should one or both of these be used during a post shave?
Click to expand...

Completely different. Alum is a coagulant, I only ever use it if I cut myself....
 
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This is valuable information that I think many people may not be aware of!

Edit: me included!

When I first started out I was using both Alum and WH as well as aftershave. I stopped using WH fairly quickly and only sometimes used Alum as it seemed to tighten and dry my face.

Now I’ve gone back to using Alum pretty much daily but always rinse if off within about 1 min and don’t experience the before said tightening of skin.

Thanks @StratMan for the question and also @todras for the enlightening answer!

In short, less does indeed seem more (y)
 
so from what i understand alum wont have the effect of lessening the effectiveness of the fragrance, or cause the skin to get oily lke the witch hazel would, but it has the effect of tightening up the face (which i like).

Does alum dry out the skin and counteract the beneficial effects of the 'skin food' in splash?
 
I would consider using the witch hazel with splashes with less propierties than APR, I mean, with basic composition like Fine, even if most likely I have sometimes used it with better splashes
 
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just to update.....

shaved only with the APR soap / Splash and no WH

Todras is exactly right.. applying WH before his splash causes the skin to get oily. Best way to describe my skin atm is soft and supple and non oily

also i couldnt really smell the splash on me so i added a second dose, i pretty much just got told by a co-worker the fragrance smell is quite strong, so i better tone that back down to one application lol

awesome stuff, i am really impressed
 
StratMan said:
just to update.....

shaved only with the APR soap / Splash and no WH

Todras is exactly right.. applying WH before his splash causes the skin to get oily. Best way to describe my skin atm is soft and supple and non oily

also i couldnt really smell the splash on me so i added a second dose, i pretty much just got told by a co-worker the fragrance smell is quite strong, so i better tone that back down to one application lol

awesome stuff, i am really impressed
Click to expand...
Hmmm. I too have been using additional WH and didn't realise the splash already had some.
Thanks for sharing. I'll give it a go.
 
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