My review on Kiehl's White Eagle Ultimate Brushless Shave Cream
First off, thanks to MothyrGrimm for giving us a heads up, I got a free tube of Kiehl's White Eagle Ultimate Brushless Shave Cream from Nordstrom a couple weeks back. As promised, I'm writing a review about it, not sure if anybody cares but here goes! I've used shave creams by Taylor of Old Bond Street, Geo F. Trumper, and Edwin Jagger with much success in the past. I'll break it down in sections:
Scent: Has anybody ever bought a tube of Hydrocortizone anti-itch cream? This shave cream smells EXACTLY like it. I wouldn't say its a bad smell, I'd describe it as a medical type of smell if that makes sense. For those of us used to the Sandalwoods and Bay Rums, the smell just doesn't cut it. Scent isn't a huge deal-breaker/selling point for me, so this didn't really bother me. That said, the smell sticks to your fingers for a while, even after showering.
Pre-shave/lathering: As is my normal ritual, I soaked a towel in hot water and wrapped my face with it for a few minutes. I had about a 4 day beard growth, definetely not too heavey or crazy. Now Kiehl's specifically says this is a brushless shave cream. Ever since I switched to straights, I vowed I would always lather up with a brush because just rubbing shave cream onto my face with my hands causes me to reminisce of the times I used a multi-blade cartridge razor, which was always followed by razor burn, intense irritation and bumps, and my old hatred for shaving. So I figured, what the hell, lets see how this lathers. I globbed an almond size glob of the white shave cream into my Old Spice mug, picked up my now wet Omega Badger Brush and proceeded to work up a lather...or attempted to. Upon contact with my wet brush,the shave cream dissolved faster than an ice cube on a hot side walk. So much for that. I was forced to rub this on to my face as I did back in my multi-blade days, making sure I gave it a nice rub in (my face was damp with hot water). Out of the tube it almost has a consistency of toothpaste. When wet and on the face, it has a consistency of lotion. What I like most was that almost immediately it gives off a tingly cool feeling on the skin due to its Menthol and Camphor ingredients. What I hated was that it took a significant amount of the stuff just to give my face a good coat. I could have possibly over applied the stuff haha.
Shaving: I used a virtually new Dovo Renaissance straight razor for my shave. Lubrication wise the shave cream isn't bad, razor glided decently smooth over my skin with the shave cream. The shave was much more forgiving with the grain than against the grain though. Here is what I hated the most about this shave cream: when mixed with the shaved hair on the straight blade, it becomes really thick and if you're like me and don't rinse your straight after every pass, the cream sticks strongly to the blade. It took several seconds of rinsing the razor off under pretty high pressure water before most of the cream washed off. This is a big no no. At one point I had to stop and wipe the cream/hair mixure off the blade with some toilet paper because wasting that much water on a blade rinse isn't for me. I finished my with the grain pass on my whole face and prepared for an against the grain pass. I figured I might have done something wrong for the first pass, so I made sure my face was extra wet and thoroughly rubbed in the cream for the second pass and let it sit for a few seconds. I went through my against the grain pass which didn't turn out as smooth as I would have liked. I finished my shave with my skin still tingly cool from the Menthol and Camphor, rinsed my face and applied my after shave, my shave was complete.
Final Verdict: This cream isn't for straight razors! At least thats my opinion. I'm way too fond of lathering and using a brush, I don't care for rubbing shave cream onto my face with my hands. While the Menthol/Camphor sensation was cool, I was really bummed that the cream sticks so tightly to the blade when its shaved off and I've gotten better lubrication/skin protection with my other shave creams. This cream got some good reviews on websites, some from DE shavers, others not so good. People don't seem to like the fact that it has carcinogens in it, apparently as do all Kiehl's products (not my words). Would I go buy this? Definetely not, but I'm interested in trying DEs one day and this shave cream MIGHT shave better with a DE that a straight, so for now, this shave cream is going into my cabinet until I get myself the Merkur 37C thats on my wishlist. Hope this helps someone!
