Oil And Alum

Huh! Go figure. Four drops of shaving oil, applied as a half-assed oil cleanse using a cold damp microfiber cloth, turned out to be the most effective complement to my lavender KMF. I had to work hard for a close shave, though, touching up over and over --- no near-perfection here. Tomorrow I'll be moving my well-worn Astra SS to the late-model Super Speed, which is how most of my blades end their useful lives.

I've been thinking about the congested skin feel I get from KMF, and conclude that it must be due to perfectly balanced, intense hydration. KMF has a lot of glycerin, and it penetrates my spongy layer. Instead of exploding me, though, it employs aloe and other plant extracts to soup up the horny layer, and allantoin (a carbamide) to hydrate deeply.

Laying down the oil barrier just sort of scales it down to size, as far as my personal skin type is concerned. Unfortunately, its hair softening is also apparently diminished by oil. The first pass was doable, but unusually harsh, by recent standards. Only after the first cut did the hair seem to hydrate fully, sucking lather in like a straw.

One might consider KMF a shaving lotion, which, coincidentally, lathers extremely well. But I personally  just can't stand sustained use. I'm neither thick-skinned nor dry enough. Once again, I find myself breaking up with a long-time favorite, the perfect ladies' soap; our autumn romance has ended. We'll always have the croap.

To extricate myself, I employed potassium alum post shave, at which point it occurred to me that really, KMF was the closest I can get to a neo-traditional, three medium setup: oil, glycerine soap, and alum.