water,water everywhere and not a drop...

[KAV]

My tap water is plain wretched. I get a superior lather using distilled and have to clean my razor in vinegar and DW monthy. The joke is I have to bath in this stuff and probably look like the crome by the third week. This AM I reached for my distilled jug and it was empty I vaguely remember Piewacket waking me @ 2 A.M. with no drinking water and grabbing the jug. So, I'm looking at the last dab of Mitchell's And improvise. I popped a bottle ( glass of course) of Perrier Lime and lathered up. It works- very well.

[Squire]

Oh, good choice, that saves the lime wedges for G&Ts.

[Ouchmychin]

For your bath why don't you get one of those detergent based bars. I think I have tried "Zest" beauty bars at one time. We have very soft water and I couldn't rinse the slimey feeling off. But it might work for very hard water better than soaps.

[Squire]

Or take a dip in the ocean.

[Kiwi]

For your bath why don't you get one of those detergent based bars. I think I have tried "Zest" beauty bars at one time. We have very soft water and I couldn't rinse the slimey feeling off. But it might work for very hard water better than soaps.

My region uses the Edwards Aquifer for water, a great underwater sponge of limestone, and the water is very hard. We don't get a lot of rain, but most years, saving the runoff from part of my roof is enough for shampoos, shaves, a variety of uses like those. I use the distilled water for my coffee, in cooking, for drinking purposes generally. The advantage of using a detergent bath bar such as Zest is the tremendous decrease in soap scum on everything. With ordinary soaps, the shower needs to be literally scrubbed, hard, each and every time you use such stuff.

I have noticed no difference in what the Zest does with my skin; no greater amount of dryness, no greater degree of akalinity (which can be a problem with all that dissolved calcium), nothing of that nature.

[BeatlesFan]

Water is tricky -- I find it has to be "just so."

Fortunately, the water at my house seems fine for lathering and rinsing, so no problems for me, most of the time.

However, when I visit friends or family who use water softeners . . . yuck. It's like showering in baby oil! I just can never rinse properly, and my skin feels slimy and irritated, even after toweling off. And forget shaving in that stuff -- my face ends up red and aggravated every time. (I really don't see how people can stand softened water!)

On the other hand, for awhile I owned a summer home on a lake, which had very hard well water. That was awful the other way -- it felt as if it was 50% iron, and (although everything rinsed instantly) lathering was really difficult. My wife complained that her hair was getting brittle and that her skin was too dry.

I think if I had to do either of those options for very long I would start large-scale rainwater collection. Or maybe lay in a huge supply of that Perrier or Pellegrino (let them eat cake)!

[ShadowsDad]

I feel for you kav.

Where I was raised we had good water, but it was hard and out of a true Artesian well. I couldn't conceive of what soft water was. After moving to my present location 30 some odd years ago I finally understood what soft water was. Initially it took us seemingly forever to rinse soap off. Of course now it's second nature. The few times that I did go back to my previous town I absolutely noticed the poor performance of soaps. Of course we had used Zest as soon as it was released more years ago than I can count.

Our present water doesn't have the calcium in it that I would want for drinking, but for washing and such it's fantastic.

[jww]

We are quite fortunate in Ottawa to enjoy soft water and I notice the difference anytime I travel as most places have water that is much harder than what we are blessed with having.

[rsp1202]

First time ever using distilled water for a shave. The Wickham Super Smooth generates lots of lather with my hard water anyway, but the distilled took it to another level. A cup of water microwaved to warm, trickled on the soap, dunking the brush (even the razor), and wowser. Old dog, new tricks.

[flintlock]

Funny I have a Quality water softener in my house and love it. Soaps of all kinds lather very well. When I'm at a friends house and use there water I notice right away the chlorine smell and taste. I can bypass the system like when I water the lawn and sometimes for get to turn it back on. soon as I get in the shower I can tell right away.

Anthony

[slackskin]

We have our challenges too.

For most our lives, we lived in the San Francisco East Bay where the water was supplied by the East Bay Municipal Utility District -- affectionately called East Bay Mud. The water at our home was naturally extremely soft, being sourced from the Sierra Nevada runoff generated by snow.

Two years ago, we moved to an apartment in a new retirement community in the south-east part of SF Bay Area which has a different supplier. The water here is extremely hard (500-800 for you who keep track of the numbers). Great for drinking. Terrible for clothes washing, and leaves spots on glasses in the dishwasher. On the hot water side, the landlord has installed a new-generation high-tech (non-sodium) water softener, which makes it OK (but not great) for the shower and shaving.

That being said, nothing beats East bay MUD.

[EL Alamein]

Nothing beats a water softener IMHO. I don't really understand Beatlesfan's experience with it regarding shaving and the irritation that followed as mine was seemingly opposite. But there you have it, different strokes for different folks.

I've used distilled water for years as many long timers here may have noticed and it works a treat. Lately though I've adapted a hard water technique that seemingly works just as well. And we have hard water here. I also like the fact that it would probably deal with any water situation I might encounter as I travel for work sometimes (though not lately, thank God).

The technique is to have my brush completely water logged with the hottest water my tank can supply and rubbing the tips of the brush over the cake of soap or cream while it's held over a mug (or, ideally, a Moss scuttle). The water runs out into the mug with the soap in it and as soon as it can support some bubbles I know it's good to go. I usually smear some of that soapy water on my whiskers with the brush to soften them (no lathering) and then strop my blade (the brush sits askew of the water in the mug or scuttle on the edge of it but not directly in the puddle even though it's touching the water slightly). After stropping it's back to the cake with the brush for a swirl or two and then face lathering ensues to produce a thick, slick, warm, protective, unctious lather. I set the brush askew again while I perform the first pass and lather again for the second pass (almost never going to the cake again). The lather stays hydrated, slick and protective throughout the shave. Works a treat. I would imagine even for water not as hot as I have my tank set to (hottest setting).

This method changes slightly to dial in a particular soap and water hardness combination. In general older potassium or tallow based soaps require less soap while palm based soaps require more. Softer (yet seemingly milled) soaps act more like the old potassium and tallow soaps and thus require less effort as more soap is seemingly melted for use during this method (think Joris). For creams it's the same (based on their quality not ingredients - think English creams vs all others). Again, it works a treat.

If one has truly soft water I don't think this method is necessary at all as a few swirls on the cake with a slightly wet brush may produce the same results (I am working from an eight year old memory here so take it with a grain of salt). In any case experimentation in dialing the method in will is necessary.

Hopefully this may help some folks.

Chris

[brothers]

I once used distilled, but it was too much trouble. I decided to use my hard water and not worry about it. Here's what I do, and it seems to work with almost any soap I've tried. If it doesn't work, then life being so simple, the non-cooperative soap is instantly redacted.

Moving on, I start with the soap and a dry brush. Run some scalding hot tap water on the soap, somewhere from a few teaspoons to a bit more than a tablespoon. Let it sit for a few moments, if I'm so inclined, but not always. When I load the brush, I look at the little timer I have sitting at eye level on a shelf, then I load the dry brush on the wetted soap for anywhere between 10 and 30 seconds, usually 15. As I work the brush on the soap (vigorously, certainly) I see the protolather forming and possibly an excess flowing downward to my wooden lathering bowl. At the end of the appointed loading time I use the brush and my fingers to transfer most of the protolather into the bowl. Then I build the lather, adding more scalding water in a tiny dribble directly from the tap, very sparingly.

Usually, if I have accurately eye-estimated the right amount of water at the beginning, I don't need to add much water. Once the lather's ready, so am I, and the shave proceeds. My whiskers are already waterlogged because I've just showered. If the whiskers aren't already wet, I might remember to splash water on them. If not, dry whiskers just don't cut as easily as pre-moistened whiskers. That's what I've been doing for a few years now. This works equally well with synthetic, badger, and boar. It also seems to work equally well with very dense creams and soft soaps, as well as the harder soaps.

[nicodemus38]

there have been some good thoughts since this thread was posted on how the water shortage can be dealt with.
great ideas like, not shaving or bathing. but nothing against 200 gallon bathtubs being used every day...

the thing to ponder is, the areas that have depleted their watersheds have been run and occupied by all of the great "ecologists" and "environmentalists" of the last century. Yet look what they have done, depleted the ground water, and some states have SUNk because of it.

And the best idea they have is to drain the great lakes..

perhaps unwashed hill billies and whinos are the smart ones?

[ShadowsDad]

Nic', a friend in N'CA told me that some go'vermin building in one of the big cities had the bright idea to heat their building with water that could be used for drinking, then they just waste it. It was some incredible amount of water. They have the spheroids to tell folks to conserve. Yes, there should be conservation, but it ought to begin with the leaders. They'd be far less 2 faced if it began there.