Toss Away Shaving Cream for the Rest of Your Life

Let's face the brutal economic facts today. If we can skimp in our budget, or outright toss it from our shopping list, buying less is what every guy wants and needs. Here's a no-nonsense tip that saves you time, money and even offers better hygiene: canned shaving cream is a luxury. Just don't tell the girlfriend or wife--they're lucky we shave at all on schedule. Shaving cream is perfumed soap conveniently packed up in a can. You pay for the convenience. And yes, you can still live without it, and just as well.

Rather Lather

You're thinking "I'd rather lather up with my shaving cream! How's it possible not to throw away my cold, hard cash on that can of cream?" It's simple. You already have soap. The bar soap or liquid soap in your bathroom is all you'll ever need. While it's true the lather won't be as flashy, thick or odoriferous, the practical need to get a close shave can still be met.

Razors at the Ready

Using bar or liquid soap to shave can be done using practically any sink (airport restroom shavers know exactly what I mean); the best way to achieve a great shave without canned cream is a shower shave.

Keep that Schick or Gillette disposable razor close at hand in your shower rack. I use a disposable mirror I picked up at a dollar store. It's one of those plastic, silver-coated jobs that can't break if dropped from slick shower suds. I pack up my disposable razor near it, and have my bar soap handy. I'm good to go shave.

Super Soapy Suds

Liquid soap may provide a better immediate lather than bar soap, but both ultimately lather you up nearly as good as shaving cream. What's best about this technique is the control you have over the end lather size.

Shaving cream does feel great on the skin, and the lather is impressive, but often it's too much. It's like a snow storm in Buffalo, New York and your pitiful razor as snow plow is no match for that facial drift. With regular bar soap or liquid, you can work up a lather more slowly, until it's just right or even more of a lather than shaving cream.

Shaving cream is almost ingrained in us guys as a shaving necessity. It comes in all sorts of colors, scents and textures. The convenience is indisputable, and it's especially handy when traveling or pressed for time. But it's only that--a costly convenience. It promises to give us the closest shave possible, make our skin come alive and even gets us tingly for good measure. The soap we must buy anyway does just as good a job for a close shave, plus the money we save can be spent on more important things like beer, game tickets or taking the significant someone out for a night on the town.

Just make sure you look your best with that bar-soap shave!