“I’m surprised with you,” Prince Charming mentioned one night this past week. “I thought you read labels.”
Uh oh.
In the frazzled chaos of my family’s move, I went shopping and bought him some new shaving cream. It was the cheapest brand at the bargain store, and I chose the “sensitive skin” variety because I didn’t like the way the other varieties smelled. I never read a single label. And in complete honesty, I had never researched my husband’s shaving cream before, which is a thoughtless oversight on my part.
My trusting husband used the shaving cream – and his face burned. He was shocked by the awful feeling, shocked by the overpowering scent. When he read the ingredients, he was surprised I would buy anything with propane in it.
Right away I consulted the Environmental Working Group’s Cosmetics Database. While Prince Charming’s shaving cream hadn’t been tested, many popular brands of shaving cream were moderately safe. Honestly, with some personal care products I’m totally fine with moderate safety. I just don’t want something to be hazardous. (As a warning, I did discover that some women’s shaving cream products definitely ARE hazardous.)
I also discovered propane’s just used as a propellant to get the liquid shaving cream out of the aerosol can. But in the interest of trying to be green, aerosol is NOT the way to go.
Possible solutions
I asked Prince Charming to stop using the shaving cream that burned his face – right away – and I’d find something else. I discovered we have a couple possible solutions:
1) Use a moderately safe product. They’re cheap and easy – but they still contain some strange ingredients and are found in aerosol cans.
2) Go retro. As in cup and brush retro. It turns out that all my husband – and any man – truly needs to shave is a razor, a cup (using any old ceramic mug is fine), a shaving brush … and castile soap. Yes! Castile soap saves the day again. Squeeze a tiny bit of castile soap in the cup, add a tiny bit of water, and swirl the brush around to reach the desired consistency. There you have it! Homemade shaving cream that’s good for your skin and the environment.
How about you?
What did YOUR family’s Accidentally Green week look like? Please e-mail stories and/or photos to accidentallygreen@gmail.com. I’ll share them with other readers on Thursdays.
Today, I’m linking with:
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Olive oil works well to shave with =)
Thank you for sharing, Lisa!