How cold are you guys getting the water you use to shave with? I see a few of you have gotten down to ice cubes. What about frozen towels for a beard prep? I just use the coldest water that comes out of the tap. Part of it is the ease, the other part is I face lather so where would I put the ice cube?
Simple cold tap water. A big part of my motivation for cold water shaving is simplicity - less stuff, more efficiency. (I face lather too - also for efficiency. However I do put water in a cup - that way I can use it for dipping the brush and rinsing my shave cloth later. The cup also serves to rest my brush on after the shave) Though I'm sure the ice cubes have their merits, for me its more stuff to do! But whatever works for you and helps you enjoy the shave has got to be good! All the best, Michael.
I just put a couple of cups of ice cubes in the basin of tap water to make it a little colder.
I prep my face with an Ice Cube, held in a washcloth with the ice touching my skin. I just slide the Ice Cube around my whole face and throat until it is melted. After that, my face is so numb I really couldn't tell if my lather is cold or just tepid, so I am now skipping my scuttle/Ice bit, and am just face lathering. It saves a lot of steps and time. After I am shaved clean, guess what?.. I do another Ice Cube on the face. Happy Shaves- J
After reading the other discussion on cold shaving I decided to give it a go and am more than happy with the results. On a par or better than the h*t method. Generally it's a less fuss thing - I often shave after my shower so there's been some warm prep but everything else is done via the cold tap. Decided to try the FULL cold routine the other day. Soaked my brush in iced water Let an ice-cube melt on the soap to soften it Stood my mug in ice to keep the lather cold Prepped my face by rubbing an ice-cube on and then finished the same way. End result: lots more involved (maybe like trying to deal with keeping things h*t) for no real appreciable benefit that I could find. So will happily continue the way of the Minimalist Polar Bear and just use cold water through my normal shave routine.
