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Burt’s Bees Shaving Cream, Deal or Dud?

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Organic and natural have been buzz words for more than a decade and where there’s buzz, there’s products. One of the biggest, is Burt’s Bees.* They have a huge line, close to 200 products, that they promote as being natural and produced with minimal processing. And in that lineup…is shaving cream! Ready to go be one with nature, but with a clean-shaven face? If you’re not, don’t fret. I am because I tried it. But is this a deal or a dud? Read on!

This is the first Burt’s Bees product that I’ve bought that wasn’t for my kids. The company makes all sorts of stuff for babies, so I knew the name when I saw the shaving cream on clearance at my local grocery store. I knew it existed, the shaving cream that is, but it didn’t really show up on my shaving radar. But I decided to be a guinea pig again and see if the “natural” bit worked for shaving.
BB Shaving
Out of the gate, the smell of this product is…unique. Almost like lemon Pledge, but with something else I couldn’t put my finger, or nose on. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was new to me. I had my Fatboy ready to go with a new Astra Platinum blade and my Semogue Owner’s Club brush ready to go.

The first thing I found out was that the brush was useless with this. I put a decent-sized dollop on my brush, went to brush it into my face…and it disappeared. Literally, there was nothing left in my brush. I did have circular white marks on my face, but that was it. Ah. It was a brushless cream. Nothing to go by on the instructions, which read “wet skin, apply to area to be shaved, rinse.” So I applied directly to my face. But the amount, again about an almond-sized dollop, didn’t cover much area, so I used about four more dollops just to get my face covered. Now comes the moment of truth. The shave.

The cream did give some semblance of slickness for the razor but nothing stellar. I have read reviews that say you shouldn’t judge it badly just because it doesn’t lather, so I won’t. But I will judge it on its ability to do what a shave cream is supposed to do: provide glide for your razor, a slickness so you’re not feeling every single hair being cut as a piece of steel runs across your face and some sort of cushion between the razor and your face. It managed to just barely do that, but didn’t provide any cushion. I decided on the first pass, to give it a pass. Maybe I didn’t add enough of the white cream to my face. So I put it on like my grandma used to apply cold cream at night. Trust me, not a pretty sight! (Me, not her!) Pass #2 was the same as the first. Third was the same as the first two and I decided to skip my last pass. No BBS here. Plus, my skin was feeling the effects of having just the bare amount of slickness during three passes. I had the Fatboy on #5 the whole time, so I know it wasn’t from a too aggressive angle of the blase. I dried off and didn’t do my normal post-shave routine of alum or witch hazel because I wanted to see how my skin felt. In a word, abused. Not hurting, but with some mild razor burn in spots.

In the end, I tried to find some reason to want to shave with this cream again, but in the end, I couldn’t. I don’t see the reason to use a product that doesn’t do what literally hundreds if not thousands of products seem to do and do well. That’s provide slickness and cushion for shaving. What seems like something so simple…simply isn’t done by Burt’s Bees. Natural or not, tt’s definitely not a deal, it’s a dud.

(Ingredients: water, helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil, stearic acid, glycerin, cocos nucifera (coconut) oil, silica, sodium borate, glucose, cetyl alcohol, citrus aurantium bergamia (bergamot) fruit oil, citrus medica limonum (lemon) peel oil, citrus aurantium dulcis (orange) peel oil, pogostemon cablin (patchouli) oil, citrus reticulata (tangerine/petitgrain) leaf oil, abies sibirica (fir needle) oil, rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) leaf oil, tilia cordata (linden) flower extract, calendula officinalis flower extract, centaurea cyanus (cornflower) flower extract, anthemis nobilis (chamomile) flower extract, hypericum perforatum (St. Johns wort) extract, theobroma cacao (cocoa) seed butter, xanthan gum, sucrose stearate, glucose oxidase, lactoperoxidase) )

Jay Harrell

Jay Harrell

5 thoughts on “Burt’s Bees Shaving Cream, Deal or Dud?”

  1. The reviewer here definitely gave Burt’s Bees a generous opportunity to work with the huge amount that was used, and even then, Burt’s Bees fell short on slickness and cushion. I agree. Burt’s Bees “Shave Cream” is really bad and is more like a lotion. I tried it once last year. It seemed like thick white sunscreen, but with a stronger fragrance. I couldn’t even tolerate one pass with the stuff, stopping right after I started shaving with it because it dried very quickly and was not really slick to begin with. It was pretty awful.

  2. No surprise here. Burt sold out to Clorox in 2007 for a cool $925 million. I’m not knocking the sellout, cause I’d do it too. But I have absolutely no faith in Clorox (or any other big conglomerate) when it comes to developing a great performing shaving cream.

  3. Never tried the SC but the aftershave balm is great in the winter months. Warning, it seems to smell a little of camphor, but delivers great skin care.

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