Equal parts Pure and Proraso Blue cream provides an awesome lather.
Gillette Pure Shave Cream
- Thread starter Tiggity T
- Start date
It's been a while now since I've had a tube of pure but I'm going to pick another one up. I've been shaving my head again and having a dual purpose brush/brushless product around will be helpful.
I picked up a tube this week to give it a try, and I gave it a run this morning. Subtle but pleasant scent. Easy to bowl lather with my inexpensive RR synthetic brush. Provided good performance during the shave. I eventually detected a weak mint tingle ( a plus in my book ). Face feel post shave was certainly adequate. Thumbs up on price, and being available in a brick and mortar store in my town is a plus.
Hard to ding it on anything except maybe scent since it's just kind of a clean generic soapy scent. I like it and will certainly replace it when I run through this tube.
Hard to ding it on anything except maybe scent since it's just kind of a clean generic soapy scent. I like it and will certainly replace it when I run through this tube.
I noticed this yesterday at Target and liked the ingredients list so I picked it up. After reading the reviews here I decided to mix equal parts with Cremo Cooling. It had a subtle pleasant scent with some citrus notes that I thought might be lemon, maybe. Kinda. Really nice thick lather gave a close smooth shave.
A great use for this will be making Cremo super lathers, but I don't think it should be bad on its own. I've just been on a menthol kick lately. For six bucks it's worth having a tube around.
A great use for this will be making Cremo super lathers, but I don't think it should be bad on its own. I've just been on a menthol kick lately. For six bucks it's worth having a tube around.
I used it for the first time this morning and it performed well and lathered very well with some cooling but I didn’t find it to be anything special. I still prefer Karo and Palmolive.
Last night, I was in Walmart (New Westminster, B.C., Canada) to pick up some tubes of Nivea cream. To my surprise, the only Nivea available was the canned foam and gel. Asked an associate about it and she said they don't stock it anymore because it's discontinued. I suspect that this is baloney because I've seen it in every other store in the area (Shoppers Drug Mart, London Drugs, Save-On, etc.). Maybe only Walmart isn't carrying it anymore?
Anyway, I didn't want to waste a trip, so I decided to buy Gillette Pure ($4.97 per tube; permanent rollback from $5.97, apparently). Tried it this morning and was pleased with the performance. At first, swirling it in my palm produced a somewhat airy, non-lubricating lather. But, face-lathering resulted in a much thicker, slicker lather. So, face-lathering seems to be the way to go.
Felt some minor tingling, but no burning or irritation like a few folks have mentioned. Overall face-feel was good. Very slick and moderately cushioning. My skin felt refreshed after rinsing, too.
The scent reminds me a bit of the Nivea Sensitive cream, but with a slight medicine-y note that seemed familiar (after sniffing some other P&G products in our bathroom cabinets, it might be Head & Shoulders shampoo!). It's not offensive, though. Rather pleasant, actually.
So, overall, this seems like a decent product. If the Nivea cream does become scarce, then I wouldn't complain if this Gillette Pure cream took its place in my rotation.
Edit: Just checked the Walmart Canada website. Both the Nivea "Moisturizing" and "Sensitive" creams are on clearance for $2.00 per tube. I guess that explains what the store associate was talking about. I phoned a few other Walmarts in my area and they're completely sold out. Well, I suppose if I want Nivea, then I'll have to buy it at Shoppers now.
Anyway, I didn't want to waste a trip, so I decided to buy Gillette Pure ($4.97 per tube; permanent rollback from $5.97, apparently). Tried it this morning and was pleased with the performance. At first, swirling it in my palm produced a somewhat airy, non-lubricating lather. But, face-lathering resulted in a much thicker, slicker lather. So, face-lathering seems to be the way to go.
Felt some minor tingling, but no burning or irritation like a few folks have mentioned. Overall face-feel was good. Very slick and moderately cushioning. My skin felt refreshed after rinsing, too.
The scent reminds me a bit of the Nivea Sensitive cream, but with a slight medicine-y note that seemed familiar (after sniffing some other P&G products in our bathroom cabinets, it might be Head & Shoulders shampoo!). It's not offensive, though. Rather pleasant, actually.
So, overall, this seems like a decent product. If the Nivea cream does become scarce, then I wouldn't complain if this Gillette Pure cream took its place in my rotation.
Edit: Just checked the Walmart Canada website. Both the Nivea "Moisturizing" and "Sensitive" creams are on clearance for $2.00 per tube. I guess that explains what the store associate was talking about. I phoned a few other Walmarts in my area and they're completely sold out. Well, I suppose if I want Nivea, then I'll have to buy it at Shoppers now.
Last edited:
I bought some today at Target and with my $5 coupon for getting the flu shot it was only $1.07. If they could make this with a menthol or citrus scent they sell a lot more of it.
Used it today. Low lather in hard water but still enough. Good glide and washed of cleanly. The scent did not linger. They need to make a menthol and/or citrus version.
If you like the performance but want a citrus scent you should try the Gillette Lime tube cream from India, it's mostly the same base cream but has the "Sprite" limey scent similar to the lime foamy. You can get a tube for about $5 from maggard, pretty sure some of the other guys sell it as well.
Thanks for the tip. Just ordered it from Ebay $3.99 and free shipping!
Last edited:
Awesome, great price. It's not going to be some mind blowing game changing product for you but since you enjoyed the pure's performance I guarantee you won't be displeased. It did make me question why I spent much more on other creams just like the Derby did.
How's the Old Spice from India? Mixed reviews on Amazon mostly due to the scent.
I don't have personal experience though from what I've understand (and read a few times before) the same company/factory is contracted by P&G to make those Gillette and Old Spice creams and that they are all the same base product with different scent profiles. Some people have tried to argue there is a difference in the base product due to ingredient listing but keep in mind where the US only requires "fragrance", many other countries require each component of the scent make up to be listed as they are infact ingredients that could cause possible irritation in some. I have read a number of reviews saying the same thing: performance is fine but scent is muted and not the same as even modern OS.
If you are talking about the India OS aftershave, I still have no personal experience but read a number of reviews stating it is the closest to the original formula of old spice that you could find today (even if you get an original bottle as most of them are pretty oxidized at this point).
I started up the manufacture of Gillette shave cream in India in 1990 but been retired now for some years. In those days Gillette had two different base formulations throughout the world but they were designed to end up with the same finished product. The older of the two formulations used a mixture of fatty acids and nut oils to produce the soap (this was referred to as the saponification formula) whereas the newer used just a mixture of fatty acids (the fatty acid formula). In India the "fatty acid" formula was used. After I retired (at the time of the P&G takeover) all the Gillette shave cream formulations were modified to remove boric acid present in them all at 0.83%. The new formula is now used internationally and this is the one found today in India in all P&G / Gillette creams (and is the same as Gillette Pure in the USA). Obviously the fragrance differs from market to market and variant to variant.
Whereas it is true that some markets require only the presence of fragrance to be included in the ingredient listing there are no markets that demand a full breakdown of the fragrance components - only those components of the fragrance known or suspected to cause skin irritation are listed.
Although the base product throughout the world is identical it does not follow that all product bases internationally are the same. The raw material suppliers differ from market to market and this has been known to affect product characteristics.
Last edited:
Thank you for the detailed response! I'd much rather know from someone who actually knows so I appreciate it. I love the detailed science talk about these products, I've been running a craft brewery for years so things like analytics, lab reports, etc, have become somewhat of a hobby by default.
Thanks for your appreciation! I worked for Gillette for 30 years being chiefly reponsible for starting up and subsequently monitoring the production of their toiletries products by third party manufacturers all over the world. If I can help you with anything relevant please don't hesitate to ask. If I can help you I will.
Shaving cream (we commonly referred to it as LSC - "lather shave cream" although in later years it was often called "tubed shave cream" as some in and outside the company had, annoyingly, started to describe aerosol shave foam as aerosol shave cream) is an extremely interesting product. My favourite in fact. Although the formulations went back so many years it remained a tricky product to get right. It was more art than science.
So Gillette lime and Old Spice lime from India are the same product, more or less?
I've used this cream on and off for the past few months. I've used with and without a brush. It gets the job done. I didn't feel any tingling or menthol whatsoever. But it was slick and I didn't have any irritation or razor bumps after using it. I did a lot of experimenting with the lathering, so I have almost used up a whole tube of the stuff when I combine the experiments with the shaving.
The base formulations are the same. They may well have different fragrances. Also there may be a difference in minor additives (eg aloe, withhazel etc) and they may have differing dyes.
To help put this into perspective, at one time Gillette had 7 shave cream products on the Indian market:
7 O' Clock Classic
7 O'Clock Lime Fresh
7 O'Clock Sensitive Skin
Wilkinson Ocean Spray
Wilkinson Lemon Splash
Wilman Lime
Wilman Musk.
They were all excellent products but they differed only in perfume and some had a touch of menthol and/or witchhazel and dye.
Last edited:
