Is the hot towel doing anything at home, or do I just like the way it feels?

Started doing a hot towel before my shave a few weeks ago because it looked good in a barbershop and I fancied the ritual. I do enjoy it. What I genuinely cannot tell is whether it's improving the shave or whether I've just added three minutes of pleasant warmth to my morning and then credited the shave with it.

I already shave after a shower most days. Is the towel adding anything on top of that, or am I doing the same job twice?

And how hot is it supposed to be? Mine goes on at "slightly uncomfortable" because that's what it feels like it should be.

Can't answer the science but I can tell you the towel makes a huge difference to my evening shaves and no difference at all to my morning ones. Morning shave is straight out of the shower. Evening shave is dry face at 9pm and without a towel it's noticeably grabbier.

Which sort of answers your question by itself, doesn't it.

On the "slightly uncomfortable" bit, I'd stop doing that. Facial skin is not a good judge of heat and it will let you scald it before it complains properly. I test on the inside of my forearm now, which is a habit I picked up watching a barber do it, and my towels are noticeably cooler than they used to be. Shave hasn't got worse.

Also worth timing it. I used to leave it on until it went cold, five or six minutes, and my face came out puffy and slightly waterlogged, which made it harder to feel what the razor was doing.

Direct answer: after a shower, the towel adds essentially nothing to the shave. Before a shower, or on a dry evening face, it adds a lot. Pete's experience is the whole thing in miniature.

The reason is that the towel isn't doing anything mysterious. It's holding warm water against the beard so the hair takes it up and softens, and a shower has already done exactly that for several minutes. Water is what softens hair, heat just speeds it up. So the honest way to think about the towel is as a shower substitute, not a shower upgrade.

Numbers, since you asked. Two to three minutes is the useful window and I've never seen a case for longer; past that you're waterlogging skin rather than softening beard, which is what slantcurious noticed. Hot tap water is warm enough, and if you've used a kettle it needs to cool before it touches a face. We test on the wrist or forearm in the shop for exactly the reason given above.

In the chair I'll use two towels and pre-shave oil between them, but that's a service, and part of what people are paying for is the experience. At home, one towel, wrung out damp, on a face you've already washed, then lather straight away while the skin is still warm. Don't let it dry off in between, that's where most of the benefit goes. I wrote the longer version with the timings in hot towel shave at home.

One boundary: no towel on sunburn, broken skin, or anywhere already sore from yesterday's shave. Warm wet skin is softer skin, and softer skin nicks more easily, so if you're a weeper-prone shaver keep it brief. Anything that stays sore for weeks or looks infected is a pharmacist or doctor, not a prep question.

Two weeks on. Dropped the towel on shower days, kept it for the evenings I shave before going out, and cooled it right down after the forearm-test comment. Shave quality identical, morning routine three minutes shorter, and I no longer look like I've been mildly poached.

Slightly disappointed the ritual wasn't secretly doing more, but I'll take an honest answer.