The Many Uses of Shaving Cream


It might not seem like shaving cream would have any more uses that softening the face to prepare for shaving, but this is not the case. There are several, rather unusual uses for shaving cream, also known as shaving foam. Obviously, it is most often used for shaving. Interestingly, the majority of uses are things that men (single men) would be able to use around the house.


Athletic Uses


If you play baseball, using a little shaving cream will make your game better. Since shaving cream softens the face, it can also soften leather. When you needs to get a new glove, the best thing to use to soften it and give it that broken in feeling that usually only comes after several games of intense play.


Cleaning Your Fingers and Hands


Shaving cream is a good alternative to heavy duty soap and other chemicals when it comes time to wash your hands. After a long day of painting, using shaving cream will help clean off paint. You will no longer need to use turpentine or other chemicals that you do not want to put on your body. Your hands will feel soft and supple; they will also smell good, too. You can also use shaving cream when you are camping and you do not have access to water. Shaving cream canisters are lightweight and easy to load into a backpack.


Tidy Up the Bathroom


Shaving cream also works well to clean items around the house. Grandmothers have been telling their children and grandchildren for years how well shaving cream works to clean up the bathroom. The first way that shaving cream can be used in the bathroom is to prevent mirrors from fogging up; just clean the mirrors with shaving cream once or twice a month. You can also keep your shower doors from fogging by doing the same thing. Bathroom faucets will also look great for a longer time when you use shaving cream to shine them up. While you are busy shining up faucets, doors, and windows in your bathroom, shine up your jewelry or your girlfriend’s jewelry with a little bit of shaving cream, too.


Floors and Doors


Floors and doors also benefit from a little shaving cream, too. If you get a stain or two on your carpet, shaving cream will help lift the stain. Spraying shaving cream on the stain and then rubbing it out with an old toothbrush works in most situations. Along with cleaning stains on carpet, shaving cream will also help make doors not so squeaky. Using the same little toothbrush, rub some shaving cream into the spaces in the hinges to stop those irritating sounds.


Entertain the Relatives


When nieces and nephews come to visit, shaving cream can help keep them having fun. Shaving cream is a fun tool for finger painting. You will not have to worry about too much clean up, because shaving cream is color free. Kids love to wiggle their fingers through a table top covered with shaving cream. When they are finished, they have clean fingers, too!

The Ladies’ Man: Here’s Some Real Advice


Life is hard for men. Especially when it comes to finding a good woman. Men want to be cool, but not too cool that they turn away the right girl. They need to be smart, but not so smart that they are intimidating. They need to fit, but not so fit that women think they are too self-absorbed. They need to have a great personality. They need to be funny. They need to know how to understand women. And the list goes on and on.

No wonder so many men think they need to be a ladies’ man.


When men are not sure what will work to get women interested in them, they often take on the persona of the man who really understands the ladies. Usually, that man could not be farther from reality. The typical lady’s man usually has absolutely no idea what women want, so they make it up as they go.


When men try to be a ladies’ man, they have some very poor examples to follow. Back in the late 1990s, Tim Meadows from Saturday Night Live had a recurring skit called “The Ladies’ Man.” In it, he played Leon Phelps, The skit was so popular that SNL actually turned it into a movie (which was not very good). However, the idea was that Phelps was a sweet-talking, Courvoisier drinking man who thought he knew how to get a lady or two into bed each night. He wore leisure suits, leather, and shirt unbuttoned to his navel. His Afro hairstyle was endearing, but he was actually kind of an oaf. He gave advice to men who were looking to score and his advice usually involved venereal diseases and overweight women. The skits were hilarious, but they should NOT be taken as real advice on how to get women. If you really want to know what NOT to do, follow Phelps’ instructions.


Pick Up Lines and How to Use Them


Many ladies’ men think that they can get a woman with a clever pick up line. While a pick up line might be a great way to break the ice, the pick up line alone is not a guarantee that a woman will be interested. Many women may find a pick up line to be funny and possible archaically sweet, but it is the conversation that follows that will really seal the deal. If you cannot communicate (e.g., hold a real conversation about an interesting gender-neutral topic), then you should not even try out the pickup line.


To keep a conversation going, let the woman be the guide. Once you have gotten her attention, listen to her. Ask her questions and use her answers to help guide the conversation. If you are at a sports bar, she probably knows a thing or two about sports; therefore, it is appropriate to talk to about sports with her. If you are at a club, talk about music. If you are at a food-related event, talk about food. If you can get her to talk about her work, keep the conversation going. Women really want to know if a man can be interesting - that is the real way that a man will be able to be a true “ladies’ man.”

Grooming Etiquette 101: Mistakes to Avoid


Most people only think of etiquette when they have to eat at a fancy restaurant or at a classy wedding reception. However, etiquette is so much more than knowing what fork to use or whether or not to use capital letters in an email. Etiquette really does involve knowing how to prepare and behave in social, business, and family situations. When men do not properly groom themselves for certain situations, it rubs off on the people around them.


Appearance is important. It is the first thing that people see and even though we do not like to admit it, we make judgements based on people’s appearances. One of the worst etiquette mistakes that many men make is grooming themselves in public. (Now, women do this, too - but this blog is for men and about men...so we’ll leave the female behavior out of this one).


Groom in Private


Men should not ever do any type of grooming in a public place. This includes, cleaning your ears, cutting fingernails and toe nails, pulling out nose or ear hair, etc. God forbid if you pop a zit in public, too. If you would normally do the grooming procedure in your bathroom with the door closed, you should never do the procedure outside of your bathroom. The hard and fast rule about grooming is to keep your hands away from your face anytime you are out in public, which takes care of most grooming issues.


Be Kind at the Gym


One place where men seem to feel very comfortable being slobs is the gym. Whether the slobby behavior is due to a lack of knowledge or just the fact that many men are quite comfortable in the gym is not quite understood, but many men do not follow any sense of rules and order when they make it to the gym. Some men will completely monopolize gym equipment - like the one weight bench for an entire hour. Others drop items, like free weights, tee shirts, or gym bags, in the middle of the floor where they be tripped over. Some men will never, ever clean their sweat off of a machine. Eww… Everyone in the gym is paying to use that gym, so be kind and remember that you are in a public place.


Eat Quietly


Another disgusting habit that many men have is chewing loudly, with their mouths open. No one, hear this - no one, wants to see what you are eating, while you are eating it. They also do not want to hear you eating it. So, if you notice that people are looking at you when you eat, stop and think about what you could be doing to cause the stares. Look into their eyes and try to figure out if they are grossed out, which could symbolize their disgust with your mouth being open when you chew; or, if they sound irritated, which could reflect the fact that your chewing is loud and irritating. Now, if you are doing these things to irritate your sister or bother your buddies, just get the job over with and go back to your kind and socially appropriate way of eating.

The Wingman

If you have been anywhere near a television set to a sports channel or a singles bar, you have undoubtedly heard the term “wingman.” This term is a social term that is used to describe a man who is there to help his buddy talk to girls. The wingman can help a man find a desirable woman at a singles bar, and he can also help a man get away from a woman that will not leave him alone.


The Mentor and Friend


The term wingman seems to have come from the idea that a mentor take a person, “under his wing.” It term grew in popularity with the movie Top Gun where Tom Cruise had to be the wingman in his airplane to help protect the pilot in front of him. The wingman really is a helper; he is often already married or in a relationship so there is little worry from the man he is helping. It is common to see the wingman role played in television sitcoms and Homer Simpson has even played a wingman to the single man, Moe. There are plenty of spoofs of the idea of a pair of guys helping each other out when prowling for girls, the idea of the wingman is here to stay.


Man’s Man


Today’s wingman is a highly respected “man’s man” because he puts his needs second to the needs of his pal. When his friend sees a girl he is attracted to, the friend will walk up to her and talk to her. This girl usually has her own wingwoman, who might not be the nicest girl in the bar (she also might not be the prettiest girl in the bar, too). The wingman will go up to the wingwoman to distract her from the girl that the friend wants to meet.


Getting the Job Done


The wingman does not always behave very well, because his goal is to get the wingwoman away from the girl. In order to this, he might have to be obnoxious and silly. He might even have to pretend he likes the wingwoman, just so his friend can have more time with the girl he wants to know better. No matter what the job of the wingman happens to be, he does it with gusto and pride because he is helping his friend.


The wingman has to look good because he has to be able to cause a distraction. In many cases, the skills of the wingman outweigh those of the wingman’s friend. The wingman needs to be able to set his needs aside and help out his buddy, no matter the cost.


The Namesake


At GuysEssentials, we named one of our grooming sets “the Wingman” because it is a useful and reliable set of grooming products. It contains all the right things to help a man look and smell good so he can be there when his pals need him the most. Everything in the kit comes from reliable brands that are always there when men need them. From Colgate to Gillette, these old-school brands get the job done every time, just like the wingman.

Hair Gel FYI


Since so many men rely on their moms, wives, and girlfriends for hair products, when they need to buy something themselves, they usually just turn to plain old hair gel. They must think that if hair gel worked in high school, it will work fine today. Unfortunately, men who just use hair gel do not know that there are many other types of hair products today and those hair products can do unique things to hair that gel cannot do. But, since our Guys Essentials kits come with traditional hair gel, we thought it would be interesting to share some information about the easy-to-use hair product.


Hair gels have been used for centuries, as there is evidence that ancient people actually used the a gel-like compound in their hair to keep it in place. The first “modern” hair gel was Brylcreem, which was created in the 1920s, and then Dep became the go-to brand later in the 1900s. Now, hair gel is available in different strengths, prices, and fragrances.


Hair gel is made from chemicals that allow the hair to stay put. Since consumers appreciate it when manufacturers put natural ingredients in their hair gels, more manufacturers are doing this. However, the ingredient that keeps hair in place are the polymers that coat the hair, but are not absorbed in the hair.


Once people realized how many styles that could do with hair gel, they began to take their hair to new heights. Men who wanted to draw a little more attention to their hair used hair gel (a lot of hair gel) to style their hair into gravity defying mohawks. Men also used their hair gel to accentuate the type of hair they had, since hair gel makes curly hair look curlier and wavy hair have better waves.


Hair gels that are made for men come in a variety of different types. There are hair gels that will help hide gray hair and there are some that will help prevent dandruff. Some of the better hair gels will also provide nutrients to hair to make it stronger. Some hair gels will also help condition the scalp, too. Many of the lower priced hair gel will hold hair in place, but that is about it. Some men and women do not like to use hair gel because they think they have too much alcohol - which can dry the scalp. However, many hair gels companies are reducing the amount of alcohol they use because of customer awareness.


Even though men are more likely to use hair gel than women, many men do not know how to properly apply hair gel. Men should put their hair gel onto slightly damp hair. Too many men put their hair gel on wet hair, and it will not stay in place that way. Men should also rub gel onto their hands and then rub the gel onto the hair, not the scalp. Men should also know know that hair gel will not cause hair loss because hair gel does not hurt the hair, but if it is used excessively, it could reduce hair growth by excessive hair gel residue blocking pores on the scalp.

Uses for Toothpaste


This may come as a big surprise: toothpaste can be used for more than keeping teeth clean. If you are already sending a Guys Essentials pack to your favorite guy, he probably does not do much housekeeping or shopping for cleaning supplies. So, the fact that our products can do so much more is a definite plus!


The majority of the uses for toothpaste have to do with cleaning, and surprisingly the paste can be used to clean everything from diamonds to coffee tables. The wide variety of uses it quite amazing considering that most people only use their toothpaste for their teeth; someone actually had to try these things!


Clean Stains Around the House


Since toothpaste is so good at getting rid of stains of teeth, it is only appropriate that it gets rid of stains elsewhere. Stains happen all over, especially when single guys have their own places. Toothpaste works wonders on carpet stains; all it takes is a squeeze of toothpaste on the stain and then a brush with a toothbrush or other small brush, along with a rinse and repeat. It also cleans off stains on clothing, too; simply follow the same procedure with squeeze, brush, rinse, and repeat. Toothpaste really works well on shirt collar stains, like ring-around-the-collar, and ink stains, too.


Polish Your Precious Items


Because toothpaste is safe for teeth, it is also safe to use to polish other items around the house. If your guy does not use a screen protector on his cellphone, toothpaste will clean up the scratches. It also works nicely on piano keyboards, linoleum, and bathroom sinks. Amazingly toothpaste will polish the heck out of metals like silver and brass. It will also get your chrome nice and shiny, too. Many people also use toothpaste to get their faucets shimmering.


One of the most unusual items that toothpaste cleans is the simple diamond ring. With many of the items that toothpaste can clean, it is important to rinse the paste off after you have used it as a polish.


Toothpaste can also be used on other clothing items. It can be used on anything made of leather, like jackets, purses, and baseball gloves. Many people will also use it to clean up the scuffs on their white athletic shoes. Just use a little bit and be sure to wash it off.


Clean the Body with Toothpaste


Toothpaste can also be used on the body, not just in the mouth. One of the best uses for toothpaste is zit cream. It really does not matter what type of toothpaste you use; if you have a zit, it will help reduce the size. It helps reduce the redness. All you have to do is put a little dab on and rub it in - you should still be able to see the toothpaste. Then, go to sleep, or read a book, or watch a show; but, whatever you do, wash it off before you leave your home.


You can also use toothpaste to sooth a bug bite and to calm a bruise. It can also be used to bring a fresh smell to your hands after you chop garlic. When your guy runs out of hair gel, toothpaste can keep his locks in line.

The Low Maintenance Man


Low maintenance men are everywhere. These are the men who have simple, no-frills grooming habits. They shower regularly, wear deodorant, and brush their teeth. They get regular haircuts and might use a little hair product and that’s about it.


Keepin’ It Simple


The low maintenance man started out as a low maintenance boy. He used the grooming products that his mom bought and he did not care what brand they were. All the low maintenance boy needed was soap and shampoo. As the low maintenance boy grew into a teen, he only added a couple products to his grooming kit: deodorant and a razor. If someone bought his cologne, he would wear it on dates. Other than those products, the low maintenance boy grew into a low maintenance teen who only used the products that his mom bought for him and the rest of the house.


Smelling Good and Looking Good


The challenge for the low maintenance man does not come from knowing how to use the products, but remembering to buy the products. Men who just want to smell good and look nice do not always notice when they run out of a particular product. This is where GuysEssentials makes perfectly good sense for the low maintenance man. We have created a collection of grooming supplies that the low maintenance man needs so he can easily smell good and look good.


Men who are more involved in their grooming (high maintenance men) are very well aware of the products they use and when those products run out. They go to the store specifically to buy grooming products. High maintenance men have brands they love, fragrances that are their signatures, and products that they cannot do without. These men do not need GuysEssentials, because they know exactly what products they cannot do without.


The low maintenance man has absolutely no idea what products he needs. He might realize that toothpaste is important and maybe a bar of soap, but most low maintenance men do not even know where to find these products in the grocery store. They do not know the difference between whitening toothpaste and cavity-fighting toothpaste. They do not care if they use bar soap that is white or flecked with green. They just need the products.


Low Maintenance Orders


With GuysEssentials we take all of the thinking out of the grooming products that the low maintenance man needs. Whether mom, a high maintenance friends, or a girlfriend orders the products, the low maintenance man will have the basic necessities to keep looking good and smelling good.


Our preselected kits are perfect for the man who just needs the basics. Each box includes items like toothpaste, deodorant, shaving cream, soap, and hair gel. We include products from major manufacturers, but not the department store or salon brands. Our products are for the low maintenance man. The best part of the deal is that once you place your first order with GuysEssentials, you can set up a recurring shipment so you never have to think about your grooming needs again. The box will arrive, you open it, and you use the products - low maintenance all the way.