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Niels Hoven

WTF is a styptic pencil? Ouch!

Everyone knows that when you cut yourself shaving you tear off a little piece of toilet paper and stick it on.  It sits there, looking silly on your face, saying, “Look at me, I’m a klutz!” to the world until it finally falls off into your breakfast cereal.

There’s a better way.

And the funny part is that it’s been around for years.  Styptic pencils used to be part of any standard shaving kit.  When you cut yourself, you wet the pencil, you dab it on the cut, it stings like the dickens for a couple seconds and then…

IT STOPS BLEEDING!

Just like that.  Couple dabs, no blood.  It’s incredible!  How did these things go out of style?  Where were they when I was growing up?  Paper cuts, razor nicks, even canker sores – I use mine all the time now.

One final word of advice, though: Styptic pencils are made from alum.  They’re great.  Caustic pencils, however, are made from silver nitrate and are used to cauterize skin and remove warts.  They’re not to be used for minor cuts and I hear they burn with the fire of a thousand suns.  Doesn’t stop the UK from selling them without a prescription, though.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Becky

    Hahaha oh, those crazy English. =) At least they have warnings about the burnination. But those styptic pencils sound neat. I might want some for the office since I get paper cuts like whoah, and seem to bleed all over important documents. -_-

  • Sounds great. Just one question. Since when are you shaving often enough that you cut yourself? And enough to warrant a styptic pencil?

    Ha! What happened to being ‘further evolved’ and not needing to shave?

  • Joe Lott

    Two words: Electric. If you need to look presentable daily, and are going to be mangling your delicate skin, it’s really the only option. It’s served me well in the business world thus far. But it doesn’t work if you’re gonna go a week and look scraggly. Then it just hurts. Trust me on this.

    Congrats on looking the stud in the publicity photos. Kyle is spreading the word back east, and we’re gonna watch the premier at my house. You’d better not suck.

    I stumbled on this site through various links, also cause Anna said your blog is worth reading, and let me tell you — this is totally surreal. I mean, we all knew you were smart, you had to go to a special class in the special school even! But taking a dare I say scientific approach to social aspects is mind boggling. How useful would this have been in high school? Mostly, congratulations on finding something to be passionate about. Forget the money. Except to Buffy, who could’ve made 7 figures — what, three years worth of soul selling to be able to have creature comforts while writing for the rest of your life wasn’t worth it? Dag, now I feel much worse about *my* job.

    Have fun in Australia, don’t get dead.

    Oh yeah, who comes home and doesn’t say hi? Jerks, that’s who. Catch you on the flip side.

  • Brenda

    Stumbled on this site quite by accident….good & funny read. Have used styptic pencils for 4+ decades. Began as a teenager after my Mom gave me permission to shave my legs. Needed to use my trusty pencil today after shaving. Went on line to find out the history of the beloved styptic pencil, when I came across your, WTF is a styptic pencil. Was rather intrigued!!

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