Two years ago, after reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, my wife laid waste to our bathroom cabinets, chucking an unused stockpile of my grooming supplies. While she was technically correct that hoarding single-use samples hadn’t inspired any giggle fits, now I had to go on the hunt for new shaving cream. I stumbled upon Cremo, a dirt-cheap, no-frills shaving cream that bills itself as “astonishingly superior.” Is that hyperbole on par with Donald Trump’s doctor’s notes? Maybe not.
Even on my especially sensitive skin, shaving with Cremo is surprisingly close and comfortable — no nicks, no irritation, no accidental shearing of the epidermis like thin-sliced deli turkey. Compared even to fancy brands like Kiehl’s, or Baxter of California that I was using from my days in men’s magazines, the Cremo leaves me with no tightness or discomfort. It comes in both mentholated cooling and coconut-mango-scented moisturizing versions, too. But to praise Cremo’s well-balanced viscosity, its subtle citrus scent, or its natural ingredients is to miss its greatest triumph: This shit lasts for-ever.
I’ve been working on the same six-ounce tube for a year and a half, whereas a typical tube of the other gloop would last me three months, tops. That is witchcraft. The secret is actually fairly simple: Cremo is concentrated and “water-activated,” which means a dime-sized squeeze provides an ample lather-less slick (foam is not your friend; foam is filler) when applied to a moist chin and neck. And Cremo is so committed to its less-is-more philosophy that the tube comes with an actual warning label — “STOP! Please read directions for this unique cream” — as if users were about to self-administer methadone for the first time. To be clear, you can’t overdose on Cremo. But at six bucks a tube, that’s a year’s worth of the closest shaves you’ve ever had for less than two cents a day.
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