While I was surfing around the web I ran across this little article about natural shaving cream. The idea of having my own homemade shaving cream was quite appealing to me since I have been thinking about finding an alternative to the propellant driven canned varities that I have been buying from stores.

It is reasonable that if we made our own shaving cream that not only would the cream be healthier for our skin, but it is also a move toward removing aerosol propellants from the environment and eliminating all those empty cans from dumps. So, without further elaboration, here is the article.

When I first decided to try making shaving cream, I used this recipe, mainly because it was simple and used ingredients I already had. It's basically just shea butter and oil, with options for different essential oil fragrance blends.

However, the stuff turned out more like shaving grease than shaving cream. It was thick and goopy, wouldn't rinse off me or the razor, and left a coat of oil everywhere.

So I decided to try adding some liquid castile soap and see what happened. Here's the final recipe:

2 TBSP shea butter
3 TBSP almond oil (you can use other cosmetic oil of your choice)
2 TBSP liquid castile soap (I used Dr. Bronner's)
Essential oils for fragrance (I didn't have and didn't want to buy any for this, so mine is unscented, but you can use any of your choice. The original recipe has lots of good suggestions).

Melt the shea butter in a glass bowl placed into a pan filled shallowly with water. Remove from heat. Add almond oil, liquid castile soap, and essential oils. Stir and let cool.

It turns into a kind of liquidy cream with tiny white suspensions which I think must be the shea butter. They kind of melt after spreading it on your skin.

Because it's fairly fluid you'll want to put it into a tube or a bottle with a narrow opening. It works very well and leaves your skin feeling really moisturized. It doesn't foam like commercial shaving cream but it does the job.

 I hope you found this information useful.

 Additional Resources:
Braun 5270 Silk epil X'Elle Body System Epilator
Braun Series 7 790cc 9595 Pulsonic Shaver
Philips Norelco Arcitec 1090 Men's Shaving System