The Art of Shaving Ingrown Hair Kit

ProphetNoir;1513446 said:

In fact there isn’t really an ingredient listing as we know it. Instead there is a descriptive paragraph that says it contains “Pure, unrefined African shea butter; jojoba oil; white willow bark; meadowsweet extract; and salicilin.

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Maybe someone else has a better idea, but my guesses would be:

White willow bark and salicilin = keratolytics
Shea butter and jojoba oil = moisturizers
Meadowsweet extract = astringent

Art of Shaving used to get beaten up here on B&B and, I presume, on other shaving forums. But, as the old saying goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Some of their products have performed well enough to have developed a rather devoted following. Shaving soaps and creams in particular are actually regarded as superior, and with good reason. They compare very well with the English soaps and creams and the soaps are still tallow based. All of this has been stated in many threads and posts.
I want to speak about the Ingrown Hair Kit I purchased at a 50% discount. It bears mentioning that I would not have purchased this at full price. I was curious about the Ingrown Hair Night Cream, but at $40, I was happy enough with Anthony Logistics Ingrown Hair Treatment at half that price to have worked through one can and purchased a second.
So when I saw a sale on the AOS kit for less than the price of the Night Cream alone, I decided I could take a chance and at least get a few more products for my coin.

What’s included:

Ingrown Hair Night Cream
Ingrown Hair Tweezers
4 Elements of The Perfect Shave Starter Kit
- Pre- Shave Oil
- Shaving Cream
- After-Shave Balm
- Trial Size Badger Shaving Brush
- AOS DVD

When added up as sold separately, the price is the same as for the assembled kit, except you get the DVD thrown in.

I was primarily interested in the night cream, but the tweezers are my next favorite thing in the kit and at least when everything else is gone I will continue using them.

So I watched the DVD, but seriously, Mantic’s videos are all I need to watch as far as demonstrations of proper technique are concerned.
The Pre-Shave Oil is supposed to be unscented and I guess it is but I found it to be tacky when I expected it to be slick. I did not leave it on my face so I can’t review it here.
I have been using AOS soap and mixing in cream from some AOS samples I got when I bought the soap to make my superlather and I love both of them, especially when mixed together. No surprise there, AOS really makes great soaps and creams.
The unscented After-Shave Balm was nothing to write home about and it smelled foul to me. I will stick with Nancy Boy.
I didn’t use the brush to make lather, as I am very happy with my EJ silvertip – spoiled by it actually – however I found the feeling of the dry brush to be surprisingly soft and I wouldn’t knock it. It actually felt a bit softer than an EJ travel brush in pure badger.

That leaves the Ingrown Hair Night Cream.
It is delivered via pump and it is more a paste than a true cream in consistency. The directions say to “Apply generously to affected areas nightly, after cleansing”
I give it about half a pump across the palm of my hand and rub it between my palms to coat them before wiping down the shaved areas of my face. It smells very strongly of tea tree oil but the package doesn’t list that as one of the ingredients. In fact there isn’t really an ingredient listing as we know it. Instead there is a descriptive paragraph that says it contains “Pure, unrefined African shea butter; jojoba oil; white willow bark; meadowsweet extract; and salicilin. The smell is strong but it fades a bit. I apply it about an hour before I go to bed and by then it has absorbed well enough so that it doesn’t get into my bed linens.
Surprisingly, I find it to be quite effective. If my face is a bit tender when I apply it, by the next morning I can honestly say that I feel a great difference. It helps to use the tweezers on any existing ingrown hairs before applying also.
Would I buy just the Night Cream at full price? Probably not unless I developed a really bad case of ingrown due to very bad technique. There are a few products that do a decent job at treating ingrown hairs that are far less expensive. I mentioned Anthony earlier, but I have also had success with the Barc Bump Down product, although it reeks and stings.
What is most interesting is a wide variance in the tactile consistency of these products, lotion, gel, paste. I guess it serves to show that they are all different, but I also think that they are all used differently to achieve the same general results.
In conclusion the AOS Ingrown Hair Kit was worth the price at 50% off, but I wouldn’t have paid full price to get all of the products included because I didn’t really need all of them. I like the tweezers and I will use the Ingrown Night Cream because it works for me.
If you have a problem with ingrown hairs and don’t mind the smell of tea tree oil (whether this contains it or not) then decide for yourself if the $40 price for the Night Cream is an investment you can afford.

As for the ratings.

This was tricky since the kit contains so many products that are not directly related to the treatment of ingrown hairs. I felt as though I had to rate the shave stuff as well so …

I had to ding it on the price based on the MSRP which is what I find it selling for most of the time
The quality is pretty much typical of AOS, good stuff.
Latherability applies to the included shave cream and it lathers very well.
Moisturizing is also good as far as the shave cream and possibly the balm are concerned.
Only the night cream has a scent, and it isn’t how I want to smell but I can live with it for medicinal purposes.
Efficacy. It works for me; I really do notice an effect in the morning after I use the night cream.
No complaints about the packaging, I really don’t think that is where the high price comes from.