I recently bought a new shave gel, namely the Bulldog Shave Gel. It was cheapish and entirely made of organic products, which got me hooked. I remember even telling my wife how the salesperson told me that it was "made for the male skin", which sadly seems to have affected my choice... "Most skin-care products aren't made for the male skin", I was told. "This one is!" Arrrgh! In retrospect I feel so bloody stupid to have walked into that, but never mind, then I basically wanted a new shaving gel as my old one had run out. I wish I would have bought something else though, even though this gel mostly works.

Alright, I'll just give you my first-ever run-through on a skin-care product. Consider this a word of warning.

First, wet the face, massage in the gel, feel a menthol rush through your face. Quite nice. However, no matter how much you rub that gel into your face a) it doesn't work as well as even the cheaper stuff (e.g. Gillette) by which I mean you must apply more strokes and even have to shave against the grain, and b) when you're done shaving you have to wash your face forever to get the gel off. When it's finally left my face, I've often had to remove a few hairs afterwards. I've never had this problem with the cheaper stuff, or even Decleor's shaving foam/gel, which cost a lot more than this one.

Then, the Bulldog After Shave Balm. It also cools the skin, feels better than the gel but goes stiff and vanishes after ten minutes or so, which leaves me having to apply something else, e.g. Clinique's Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion which is the best I've found so far, even though it's not meant as a shaving balm.

All in all: avoid the Bulldog products I've described.