How did you decide which type of shaving cream to use?

Van Der Hagen Deluxe, aka. VDH

 

without trying to sound like a pauper, economics dictates my options of shave supplies. Soap for me. I began with Williams UNTIL I found that VDH fell well within my price range and much better quality (IMHO). I got a tube of shave cream with my start up kit and loved it. Trouble being, it didn't last as long as the soap did. Frugality is the name of the game for me.

 

I haven't bought any cream or soap in a while, but I generally choose based on what I read and hear about a product and the scent. Hype builds like a tsunami on these forums and have caused me to make a few purchases based on that feedback. Some have worked out, some haven't.

 

For me the deciding factor is price - it has to be good and not too expensive.
Living as I do in Toronto, where J M Fraser's is made, that has become my cornerstone cream.
I use it about half the time and like it very much. My other favourites are Proraso, Omega, Kappus and Kaloderma;
all inexpensive and available locally.

Best Regards

goshawk

 

You have to buy 30-40 to try first. Then you decide.

Or maybe narrow the field down to 15-30. Then companies release new products...

 

When my consciousness became aware of a higher motive for existence, an inner urge to move on beyond mere, everyday mundane, existence - I felt connected to every shaving board on the net.

I shed all goo and went to the superstore - calm, peaceful in my mind with a single focused mission, to pick up one each of the largest pack of very shaving cream on the shelf.

And I dived in to them, meditating on the nature of them as I gently lathered, feeling the brushes badgers, boars bring out the essence in each of them. realization dawned on what lies beyond what meets the eye.

I can now feel that I am awake more so than before on the nature of creams, yet the quest continues. As my knowledge increases, I realize, how little I have traveled these paths, how much more there is to buy and meditate still further, I find how little I have and how long still the journey ahead is !!

Om Shanti !!

- An extract from the diary of Swami Shaveanand !

 

And an excellent place to buy your first five or ten, extremely inexpensively, is shaveabuck dot com. You'll probably meet their requirement for free shipping too.

Advice I wish someone had given me, when I was in your shoes: Try the unscented or "sensitive" or the least exotic scented cream from each manufacturer first. Find out which makers' products give a lather that YOU like, independent of the "smellem good" or of the machismo Face Freezing Menthol Bomb. You can fiddle with scents later.

 

I'm probably an 80% cream and 20% soap user. I just bought lots of creams and started to try them out. My two favorite creams so far are probably Castle Forbes and Cyril R Salter although Floris deserves and honourable mention. I quickly figures out that are far as soaps go, I much preferred the ones with tallow. My two favorite soaps are Ralph Lauren Safari and Mitchells Wool Fat.