With all these shaving stories being traded back and forth, I was excited to get the opportunity to try something completely different - shaving products from Whish.

Whish products are meant to give you a luxurious shaving experience, the cornerstone of which is their girly version of a barber shop shaving brush. There are several available, included some crystallized versions, but my favorite is the Old Hollywood-inspired Regency brush. Fun!

I loaded up my bathroom with a brush, a jar of Shave Crave shaving cream in Papaya Coconut, and a bottle of Shave Savour aftershave moisturizer (also in the Papaya Coconut scent, which is delicious). I wet the brush and dipped it into the Shave Crave per the instructions, swirling it around to pick up the product. Maybe it's because I was using a travel size jar (from the Regency travel bag set), but the large brush smeared shaving cream all over the outside neck of the jar, which was a bit of a pain in terms of cleanup.

Smoothing the Shave Crave onto my legs produced a translucent cream (they don't use foaming agents, which is nice). It was thin, but still allowed me to see where I'd already shaved. I went to work with my Venus Embrace, rinsed and dried, and then applied a coat of Shave Savour. I'm really into gel moisturizers these days, so I loved this. It kept my legs smooth and soft without the heaviness of some moisturizers.

So how was it? Well, the Whish experience was fun, but I can't say it gave me an incrementally better shave than, say, my trusty Neutrogena Triple Moisture conditioner method, which is both simpler and cheaper.

I was also a little disappointed to see parabens on the ingredient list for Shave Crave. I'm not at the point of throwing out all my products that contain parabens, but it's still a disappointment to see them. Small companies like Whish really have an advantage over their larger, slow-moving competitors in this space. For a small company, it shouldn't be that hard to reformulate without parabens, especially when the rest of your marketing copy emphasizes "natural ingredients" and "amazing healthy anti-aging benefits," not to mention boasting how you've "eliminated foaming chemicals that are harsh and drying on your skin." Why not eliminate the parabens too?

That aside, Whish is a fun way to shave, but I can't say it's as "surprisingly simple" as the company claims. Legs have quite a bit of surface area, and shaving them using the brush method is a time consuming and rather involved process. It's great for a Saturday night shave or whenever you do your "weekly beauty ritual," but certainly not for a Monday morning.