New to the wet shave experience. Best Cream?

[DapperSurfer]

Hi,

Im new to this forum and new to the art of the perfect wet shave as a personal goal. So far, I like the idea of a good tub of cream as opposed to a tube or a puck. What makes a cream " good cream" in your opinion? I see a lot of folks here like the Proraso.Im digging the scents on the Truefitt & Hill... Point me in the right direction!

 

[SmoovD]

Welcome aboard. Glad to see that you have found our little corner of the world. Please take some time to post an introduction in the "Check-In" Forum.

There are a great many choices and what you prefer will ultimately be dependent upon your preferences for fragrance, ingredients, method of purchase, performance, etc. Thankfully, many creams are cost effective while delivering decent performance. IMHO, the best shaving cream is Al's. Al's creams offer excellent fragrances and superior performance. That said, the three T's (Truefitt & Hill, Taylors and Trumpers) are highly regarded. Proraso, and its rebranded Bigelow, is another solid cream. Speick is excellent. Queen City makes some great croaps. Razorock offers a plethora of choices.


You are just going to have to wade through some samples until you find what works best for you. Good luck.

 

[JaxJim]

What Daniel said is spot on. If you like the scents of T&H creams, I'd say pick some up. Top notch and easy to make good lather.

 

[musicman1951]

If you're particular about scent you have about 75 creams to sample.

There are also quite a few creams for people who don't want to spend much money initially.

My favorite by a long shot is Castle Forbes Lavender. It will seem expensive initially, but an amount of Proraso (a very popular cream everyone should have in their den) equal in number of shaves would cost a little over $29, so it's not really as expensive as you might think. There is a video kicking around here with a one swirl brush in CF that produces a bowl full of lather.

My second choice is T&H Ultimate Comfort. These two creams produce rich lather with plenty of cushion without using much product. They do not have very strong aromas - I'm tempted to say they have none, but it's subtle.

I have gone from rotating 15 creams to rotating these two 9 days out of 10.

 

[Eeyore]

A good cream should be easy to lather, should provide glide, and skin protection, and should have a pleasant scent.

Edit: do you have friends in Germany? Many shaving creams are very affordable in Drogerie Müller.

 

[Vitamin Shave]

I can only speak of CO Bigelow/Proraso, easy to find in the states, always on sale.

 

[Prof. Moriarty]

My favourite creams are Castle Forbes Lavender, and Speick. But for you it really depends on your budget, what scents you like, etc...
This hobby is a lot of trial and error, but it is fun.
Also welcome to B&B.

 

[skleice]

Castle Forbes is #1 imo

 

[Labowski]

Welcome to Badger & Blade, the most gentlemanly corner of the internets!

My advice about creams: Order the Truefitt & Hill sampler... Heck, order as many samples as you can to find your favorites!

 

[Christian_V]

My experience is limited, I've sampled about 10 creams so far however my absolute favorite stand-out cream is Geo F Trumpers - Spanish Leather. Unbelievably rich, old-school scent. Sweet but at the same time woodsy and just pure masculine. It lingers as well. I may be buying the cologne to go with it! It also lathers up like a champ. Also try the Art of Shaving Sandalwood - undeniably the best Sandalwood cream out there hands down.

As a noob I recommend you pick up a sampler box with a bunch of creams to try. There are several websites that offer sampler packs. I went thru Maggard razors and had a great experience with speedy delivery

 

[Gustav]

Of all the creams that I have tried thus far including most of the 3T's, Nivea and Fitjar are the only ones I have stuck to. Nowadays I am mostly a soap guy but on occasion I still like using Nivea. It is cheap, it has a great scent, it lathers easily and offers nice glide and good protection. What is there not to like? Fitjar are the same, just a little harder to come by and a lot more expensive.

 

[pvelyk]

This is the type of question where you ask it and you will get pretty much every cream as an answer. Each of us likes something different and its a great world because of it (YMMV). My advice is buy samples to find what you like and then spend the money on the full size of the ones you like. I personally really like Al's creams, specifically the Boheme is my favorite, and a bought a big jar and aftershave balm in that flavor, but I am still trying samples of more creams and soaps out there. Good luck and welcome aboard.

 

[DapperSurfer]

Thanks!! I appreciate all the info and it seems like everyone has their own personal fav. I personally like the truefitt and hill because of the lavender scent. Seems to work great so far. Specifically, I was more curious about the universal qualities that make a great cream like shelf life, smoothness, ease of application and lastly scent. What sets the standard? Looking at the labels it seems like most of them have similar ingredients but I'm sure some are better than others.

 

[lmill999]

Proraso is a great place to start. Very easy to lather. A good way to get your technique down. Everyone has at least 1 Proraso product in their den.

 

[cfender]

Proraso is a great place to start. Very easy to lather. A good way to get your technique down. Everyone has at least 1 Proraso product in their den.

+1

Easy to find. Reasonably priced. Good solid performance. The favorite of many. A good baseline to compare other less and more expensive creams to.


Speaking of less expensive creams, I just finished a tube of Arko Regular cream. Dirt cheap. Nice, pleasant, mildly lemon scent. Great lather and performance. I'll probably buy about a dozen tubes for low priced holiday gifts.

 

[Beftus]

Best is highly subjective but here goes. Palmolive Classic is a really good cream and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Nivea cream and Williams cream are also solid performers that are very affordable.

 

[Jeff_H]

I don't know exactly "what" makes a good cream a good cream. There are those here who know down to the ingredient what each do and how they interact with each other. For me, a cream has to lather easily, be rich and creamy and provide good slickness above all else. For my face, a cream can have all the cushion in the world, but if the blade doesn't glide it's useless to me.

I have never tried T&H, mainly because of the price. Not that I can't afford it, but I got started on Proraso and for $10 almost nothing is slicker or lathers better. And, the Sandalwood scent is nice. I do not care for the green...it irritates my skin and the Blue is just ok so far.

As I get older, I seem to care more about products that are natural, limit chemicals and are good for the skin. Most of the creams considered "better" here are mainly natural and are good for the skin, Proraso included. I did find that moving up in price just a bit to $15 a tub gets you into the TOBS p roducts and all of these are hard to beat for the price. I have only smelled 3 or 4 and have only used one regularly, but all of the scents smell nice and the lather is very nice and fairly slick. The Avocado is supposed to be the best of the bunch when it comes to slickness and lather because of the Avocado oil.

I recently discovered Cyril R. Salter shave cream, and am very, very impressed. It lathers as well as anything I've tried, is slicker than my TOBS and smells out of this world. They do not have the variety of scents that TOBS or the others have, but the performance is top notch. I plan to buy one of every scent I think I like...they have 6 or 7 I think.

T&H is supposed to be one of the best creme's out there....and I will try it someday. The Lime is reputed to be one of the best lime scents on the market, and apparently a little goes a long way, so the price per lather is not supposed to be quite as bad as the initial expense would suggest.

My recommendation would be to either order a sampler of one or several brands, or just pick a brand that strikes your fancy for any reason, ingredients, scent, country of origin or because you like the name or label. You have to start somewhere. The great thing here is if you buy something you don't care for, just seal it back up and keep it nice and clean. Once you have met the time and post count requirements you can recoup most of your cost on our BST forum. There is ALWAYS someone out there who loves a product you do not.

Best of luck and let us know what you end up with to start your journey.

 

[evnpar]

I would order samples of Truefitt & Hill, as well as Mike's, and learn what it is that you like, and venture out from there. T&H will give you a luxurious lather with standard, old world scents. Mike's creams literally explode into a wonderful lather, and offer more complex scents. Have fun with your new adventure, and welcome to the forum.

 

[Acmemfg]

Tried many. Possible way too many. Top of the heap is T& H 1805, AoS Sandalwood is a fair second, TOBS Eton College a close 3rd. After that it is much too close to really call.

 

[August West]

I can only speak of CO Bigelow/Proraso, easy to find in the states, always on sale.

+1