King of Shave AlphaGel Shave Gel Sensitive Skin

Being within an hour of the capital, it's always a nice treat to spend the weekend in a big ...er... bigger city than where we live. So while shopping in Little Rock this weekend, we stopped by Target to look around and buy a few things that Wal-Mart doesn't carry.

Since picking up the wet shaving hobby several months ago, I have been more aware and wanting to check out the shaving and men's grooming sections of most every store I go into. Just to look and check it out to see what I can find. Most of the time, you find the usuals; cans and cans of Edge and Barbasol shave cream, and about a billion different cartridges and blades for the disposable razors. Big name brand companies filling up the entire section.

However, low and behold, I came across a brand that I wasn't used to seeing in the isle. King of Shaves!

King of Shaves (KOS) is like the big name company in the UK that is similar to the popularity of Gillette here in the U.S.

The only KOS item they had was one particular tube of their AlphaGel Sensitive Skin Shave gel. I quickly grabbed it up and began to browse the labeling, the content, ingredients, packaging,...

-BRANDON!!!

... Huh? What?

-Are you done?

Oh, yeah, lets go. And I dropped the tube in the cart to purchase.

So off we went and strolled around some more and spent the rest of the day in LR and shopping (gotta love Whole Foods).

One noticeable quality of KOS is that their product is not in an aerosol can. Instead, it’s it a plastic squeeze tube, much better for your skin. No propellants or preservatives. So when the tube is empty, rinse and throw in the recycle bucket.

This product was a low foaming gel, so I didn’t use my brush (which felt weird now that I was so used to it). I smeared it on with my fingers and massaged it into my beard. The smell was the most notable thing. It wasn’t as fragrant and luxurious as some of my other shaving products. I could definitely smell the tea tree/aloe (I think). It reminded me very much of my sun burn aloe “goop”. Not that it was a bad thing, but it did have that menthol cooling smell and sensation. Hm, not bad.

It was very weird to use this product and it not foam on me. I wasn’t used to that either, so it was different. It went on smooth and slippery. The gel stayed clear which was nice because I could see where I was cutting, especially nice around the sideburns. I noticed that the gel was very slick and protective.

I used my regular DE razor and blade so I could compare with a brush and cream. I could tell that it had a little more drag than usual (I wonder if it was my blade because it was about the 5^th use). Usually, when using a brush and cream, the whiskers are thoroughly massaged and coated in cream from the brush. My facial hair has softened and is completely slick and hydrated quite a bit because of this and I usually don’t experience much drag from the razor. It wasn’t really “pulling” but wasn’t cutting as smoothly as usual.

After completing my first pass, I give my face a little rinse and was pleasantly surprise and how slick my face still felt. I don’t usually rinse my face well after the first pass just to keep most of the slickness on my face. However, the second application was even more protective. I was very impressed with this.

After the second application, the second pass was way better than the first. Very moisturizing and protective with the slick gel. I was most impressed with this aspect since most of razor burn, knicks and cuts come after the initial pass of a DE shave.

After finishing up, I took a minute to wash all the gel completely off my skin. I was impressed at how moisturizing my face was. It wasn’t “hot” or red and wasn’t dry at all, but wasn’t oily in the least. I finished up with my regular AS routine and was pleased with the days shave.

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My overall impression was a good one. I enjoyed the eco/non-aresol quality of the gel and the slickness it produced. I don’t think it’ll replace my traditional creams and soaps and my badger brush, but for a quick shave or for travel, it was a great product. I enjoyed it much better than some of the more popular brands of shave cream.

If you’re interested in King of shaves products, they do have a website at www.shave.com

And you can follow one of my twitter friends Diane Wood who's a spokesperson for KOS on twitter @Queenofshaves (She was nice enough to send samples of their lady's shave cream to my wife)

Happy Shaving!