Men's shaving cream reviews - Is Gillette the ONLY option?

Ah, Gillette. Their shaving cream conjures up a lot of memories. Primarily all of the mistakes I made when I first started shaving as a teen – when I barely had any facial hair to begin with. Gillette shaving cream in a can was the first I ever tried, and I still remember using handfuls of it, turning me into some Santa Claus wannabe instead of the mature young adult I was aspiring to become.

To this day, I throw a can of Gillette into my basket of toiletries I get from the drugstore, out of habit. It’s available everywhere, in massive quantities that you can’t ignore as you walk through the aisles. But recently, a friend turned me onto some specialty brands that offer incredible men’s shaving cream options. Now it’s becoming increasingly apparent that it wasn’t just that I was making mistakes in how I was using my shaving cream, but that I was using Gillette at all.

The biggest problem with Gillette is that, despite all of its formulations, it wants to reach a broad base of shavers – in slightly harsher terms, it’s borderline generic. Ingredients are synthetic, ‘moisturizers’ leave a strange film on your face, and as the results are always the same, there’s an odd fast food quality about it that makes me wonder why I ever thought this was the best shaving cream out there. Sure, there’s that sentimental value that ‘Gillette smell’ conjures, but is it really worth it to harm your face?

A Men's shaving cream?

We’ve come too long of a way to continue passively supporting this atrocity that has affected generations of shavers. There are much better options out there that offer a closer shave, smoother skin, better protection, and are made of ingredients that you can actually pronounce. As long as you are okay with abandoning the pressurized can, everything from shave soap to shaving oil becomes a possibility for your shave.

My friend, for example, gave me a men’s grooming kit as a gift – or hint, perhaps – which included the Shave Cream from Anthony Logistics for Men. I had heard of Anthony before, even saw it, but had never ventured to try it myself. I was still brainwashed at the time, so the bottle didn’t look like shaving cream to me. When I put it in my medicine cabinet, I could almost mistake it for my hair gel. I didn’t believe that what was in there could improve my shave.

Boy was I wrong. From the first moment, I could feel how differently my skin was reacting to this shave cream. The razor glided across my face in a way that it felt like I was, for the first time, shaving correctly. And in a way, since the Santa Claus days, perhaps I had. For the rest of the day, my skin didn’t dry out, felt naturally soft, and I could definitely see the difference in my reflection.

I would suggest trying several different brands in order to, over time, find out what works best for you. There are several excellent specialty brands like Anthony that are out there – some companies even offer starter sets that allow you to try a range of products at once. There’s nothing frivolous about experimenting with the art of shaving. Improving your shave and taking care of your skin will make a real difference to how you look and feel for years to come.