Wha pencil? Styptic wha? What the heck is that? These guys can be a big time saver in the mornings when you’re shaving. As your daddy probably taught you when you first learned how to shave, taking a piece of toilet paper and blotting out a cut is a good way to stop the bleeding from any shaving mishaps. While that may be effective, it’s not necessarily hygienic to have toilet paper on your face is it? Plus toilet paper sheds, so you’re really putting small fibers into your cut. That can’t be good.
Here’s what styptic pencils do according to eHow.com:
When the moistened styptic pencil is pressed onto a cut, the anti-hemorrhagic elements in the pencil react with the skin and the tiny blood vessels called capillaries that run underneath it. The alum causes the blood vessels to contract, tightening up any openings caused by cuts.
The chemicals in the styptic pencil also coat the outside of the skin, creating a thin barrier that protects the cut from becoming infected by outside agents while it is healing.
