My para-shaving science technological breakthrough today is one for the whole family: baking soda and water, for minor scrapes. Why the hell haven't I heard of this? I was a nursing assistant!
http://www.livestrong.com/article/554988-baking-soda-scabs/
The internet is ALL OVER THE PLACE on baking soda, and the commercial bias is almost as evident as with glycerin, but in the other direction. It's a horrible, caustic base that will destroy your acid mantle! Bathroom researchers may be partly responsible for that -- mostly gung-ho, exfoliating idiots, mixing the dry powder with this or that, using grit and hydrolysis together to try to remove the stratum corneum.
Probably the only good thing about having every third shaver online involved in soap manufacture is that we actually know what baking soda does: saponify oil. We don't have to use vague terms like "dry," "absorb," or "dissolve," because we know it's a base, closely related chemically to the soda ash used instead of lye in Aleppo soap, and actually a component of the natron used by ancient Egyptians instead of soap. For once -- finally -- we're ahead of the curve!
If there's enough oil present, the basic solution will make soap of your sebum in a relatively gentle way, washing away as water soluble carboxylic acids and fatty alcohols, along with the dirt in your boo-boo. It's only about 10 times more basic than seawater at maximum concentration, and we know that's pretty good for wounds, right? I only put half a teaspoon in about a cup of tap water, and my son winced more from the tap water, when he fell off his scooter. The bleeding stopped, it looked dry... he didn't fuss for a band-aid, and that's usually a fight.
Sure beats the reverse, hyperpigmentation and scarring I've experienced when putting pumpkin juice on my scabs, probably due to esterification, opposite of saponification, confusing the healing process hormonally.
This ancient wisdom seems even more hopelessly lost, in today's corporate-consumer culture, than classic shaving. You can't even put this shit in a bottle and sell it for $1, that's why. I got my red plastic pump dispenser at 2/$1, and of course there are free alternatives. I was just going to play with it in shaving, because I didn't like how the dry baking soda was shaking into my palm; but could it replace even soap, eventually? Provided you're not too dirty, some people think water alone is the ideal cleanser.
http://hubpages.com/style/How-to-Wash-Oily-Skin-Naturally-Without-Breaking-Out-or-Drying-Out
Makes sense: we already know it's the best exfoliator and moisturizer.
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