We’re willing to bet most of you have ever thought about eating your shaving cream.  Sure, there were those of us back in the day who believed anything in our school desks was edible; glue, pencils, paper, etc.  But we eventually learned educational tools weren’t meant to go in our bellies.  The same logic has taught us that eating shaving cream probably isn’t in our best interest.  And not just because of the taste.  Have you ever looked at the ingredients on your traditional can of shaving cream?  With the exception of “fragrance” we probably mis-pronounced every chemical on the list.   It’s just not the kinda stuff you should be putting in your body.   Which begs the question:  If you wouldn’t eat it,  should you be putting it on your face?  

Are You Kidding?
Nope, these are the kind of tough questions we choose to tackle.  To give this some context let’s start with a simple fact.  Your skin (especially your face), is more like a fishnet than the suit-of-armor you might think it is.  Chemicals are readily absorbed through your skin where they end up in your blood stream.   Meaning that while shaving, your skin, as well as the rest of you, is absorbing a multitude of chemicals - Triethanolamine, Isopentane, Isobutane, Polytetrafluoroethylene, Propylene Glycol, Butylated Hydroxytoluene and more.  You can read more about each of these here.   Granted, it’s not a lot, but over time it can add up.  So what’s a man to do?

The Alternative
The good news is that you don’t need all those chemicals to get a great shave.  Organic and natural shave creams work perfectly well without any sort of nasty chems.  And in our opinion, many are superior to their traditional counterparts.   Made  from a variety of vegetable-based products like coconut and olive oil,  glycerin, aloe, water and other natural components, organic shave creams have all the stuff they need to their job, and nothing they don’t.   And because they’re based primarily on vegetable fats and other natural by-products they contain almost nothing that you couldn’t, uhhh, eat - though we don’t recommend it.  Think about the first time you cursed in front of your mom and she grabbed the bar of soap…

What To Look For
Luckily tthe hard work has already been taken care of.  Most of the shave creams we carry (but not all at this point) are certified organic.  And if you’re looking to pick up some organic shave cream from a local retailer (we’ll forgive you), just look for the USDA Certified Organic logo and/or the Certified Vegan logo.  These logos mean the product have passed strict standards, and are consequently a much safer alternative to your traditional shave cream.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Shave, Shave Cream, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.