https://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele012.html
Uh, how come nobody informed me of this? That sounds WAY better than alum! Certainly, when you're still scraping yourself, trying to figure out how to shave. I thought that shit was just for bathing, or soaking your feet!
As I've been "refeeding" awhile, following my holday fasts, I've become convinced that I am magnesium deficient. Supposedly, 2 out of 3 of us Americans are. Drinking soda is especially bad for this, also sweets. (Guilty!) I wonder if kombucha addiction should also be listed. I only think of it as cleaning my "pipes" of excess calcium, but those two ions tend to go together. Magnesium is undoubtedly the better way to prevent calcium buildup in the body. The same restless feeling in my muscles that compelled me to take up running, after I started drinking kombucha, prods me when I overdo carbs now. Magnesium pills take that weird, bodily anxiety away.
Here's the biggest magnesium bombshell, in my opinion:
ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the main source of energy in cells, must be bound to a magnesium ion in order to be biologically active. What is called ATP is often actually Mg-ATP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_in_biology
ATP is a neurotransmitter, too?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16487603
Wouldn't surprise me if that's what was making my muscles crawl. But it could be anything, really, because so many enzymes are only active with magnesium.
So this report from 400 years ago, regarding skin abrasion, is absolutely plausible, and must be tested in the context of shaving. (Or the internet will be forced to rely on this copypasta.)
Unfortunately, I have a ready experimental model of inept beginner shaving: a terrible pairing of the Gillette-Wilkinson Sword blade from India with the Italian Barber Torsionshobel razor. The blade seems sharp enough, but looks too wide in the razor. It has a real knack for opening up my neck to the lower right of the Adam/s apple, given the range of cutting angles applied simultaneously by the slant razor.
I prepared a salt solution by just covering the bottom of my little ceramic cup kept for this purpose, and adding several splashes' worth of water to dissolve, maybe 1 cm deep. Erasmic soap provided a litmus lather for a preshave test: if enriched, it would perform like Arko, and if diminished, it would dissipate like Williams (in beginner hands). First, I applied a soap emulsion to cleanse the skin, and rinsed; then rubbed some Epsom salt solution as preshave, and backed it off with a damp cloth.
Results. Lousy preshave, much like alum. Though I didn't get any extra cuts, I still got neck weepers in a shittty, two-pass shave with touchups. This, AFTER I rinsed off the first lather, because it was so obviously diminished by the salt. Insubstantial, watery, dissipating... no way was I going to shave on that. I could feel my brush catching my face after it delivered a stroke of soap and was somewhat depleted, the way we use alum to prevent slippery fingertips.
Postshave, good! When splashed on a wet, rinsed face, there was no sensation. When wiped off and reapplied full-strength, some alum-like tingle was felt... but still no sting on the weeping neck. Neither did it stop the bleeding, however. I eventually pressed my deodorant aluminum alum against it, which didn't sting, either, thus prepared. More subjectively, I would say my skin is smoother and softer than with alum, but I won't be able to use this without splash or balm, either -- too drying.
But how does it taste, you ask? I used the leftover salt as a mouth rinse, and brushed my teeth with it. The answer is, bitter, very bitter! I almost puked, and there was an immediate laxative effect.
Overall, since alum rarely stops bleeding on its own, either, I think I will give the edge to Epsom salt. I will dump my spray bottle filled with dissolved chunks of alum, and replace it with a solution of Epsom salt.
But stay tuned, there's more...
ATP is a neurotransmitter, too?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16487603
Wouldn't surprise me if that's what was making my muscles crawl. But it could be anything, really, because so many enzymes are only active with magnesium.
So this report from 400 years ago, regarding skin abrasion, is absolutely plausible, and must be tested in the context of shaving. (Or the internet will be forced to rely on this copypasta.)
Abrasion Test
Unfortunately, I have a ready experimental model of inept beginner shaving: a terrible pairing of the Gillette-Wilkinson Sword blade from India with the Italian Barber Torsionshobel razor. The blade seems sharp enough, but looks too wide in the razor. It has a real knack for opening up my neck to the lower right of the Adam/s apple, given the range of cutting angles applied simultaneously by the slant razor.
I prepared a salt solution by just covering the bottom of my little ceramic cup kept for this purpose, and adding several splashes' worth of water to dissolve, maybe 1 cm deep. Erasmic soap provided a litmus lather for a preshave test: if enriched, it would perform like Arko, and if diminished, it would dissipate like Williams (in beginner hands). First, I applied a soap emulsion to cleanse the skin, and rinsed; then rubbed some Epsom salt solution as preshave, and backed it off with a damp cloth.
Results. Lousy preshave, much like alum. Though I didn't get any extra cuts, I still got neck weepers in a shittty, two-pass shave with touchups. This, AFTER I rinsed off the first lather, because it was so obviously diminished by the salt. Insubstantial, watery, dissipating... no way was I going to shave on that. I could feel my brush catching my face after it delivered a stroke of soap and was somewhat depleted, the way we use alum to prevent slippery fingertips.
Postshave, good! When splashed on a wet, rinsed face, there was no sensation. When wiped off and reapplied full-strength, some alum-like tingle was felt... but still no sting on the weeping neck. Neither did it stop the bleeding, however. I eventually pressed my deodorant aluminum alum against it, which didn't sting, either, thus prepared. More subjectively, I would say my skin is smoother and softer than with alum, but I won't be able to use this without splash or balm, either -- too drying.
But how does it taste, you ask? I used the leftover salt as a mouth rinse, and brushed my teeth with it. The answer is, bitter, very bitter! I almost puked, and there was an immediate laxative effect.
Overall, since alum rarely stops bleeding on its own, either, I think I will give the edge to Epsom salt. I will dump my spray bottle filled with dissolved chunks of alum, and replace it with a solution of Epsom salt.
But stay tuned, there's more...
