Head and Shoulders - Mens Refresh

Alright it's time to face the facts. Summer's over. You know what that means? Colder, dryer air. For a lot of guys, including myself, that means one thing. Dandruff. I've had to deal with an itchy scalp for the greater part of every year for as long as I can remember until I started using Head and Shoulders products. I've tried other dandruff shampoos, but from what I've found Head and Shoulders is the only brand that actually truly works.

If you go the store you'll see a ton of different products by H&S. They come in a variety of scents, and sizes. Some are geared for women, while others are made for men. Some are 2-in-1 that contain shampoo and conditioner, but as a rule of thumb I generally stay away from those no matter who makes them. There is one particular product that H&S makes that I like over all the rest. It's the Mens Refresh shampoo. What I really like about this stuff is the cooling action it has, hence the name Refresh. Don't ask me what it's supposed to do. All I know is it feels like your brain is inhaling a menthol cigarette when you scrub it on your scalp. If you're not a menthol guy, don't let that deter you away from it. It's a great awakening sensation in the morning. It's also pretty good smelling. It's a little citrusy, but not in a bad way. Actually, I've received a fair amount of compliments from coworkers breathing over my neck on how nice my hair smells.

Aside from the way it feels, it gets the job done. It cleans, and more importantly it stops itchiness, and prevents flakes. It's seriously a great product and I have nothing but great things to say about it. If you're a guy who gets even the slightest bit of dandruff in the winter, do yourself a favor and give this stuff a try.


Head and Shoulders

-S.D. Oscar

Keurigs

What's America's most popular drug? Caffeine! Where do Americans get their caffeine? Coffee! In fact, we Americans love our coffee so much, we have to order Café Americanos instead of regular cafés in exchange for snobbish looks from baristas just to get our fix when we're abroad. 

Coffee drinkers do one of three things every morning to get their dose. They brew some at home, pick some up on the way to work, or mooch off of the company stash when they get to work. Each comes with their own problem. It's tough to allocate enough time to make your own coffee, and still be on time for work. That is of course, unless you drink instant coffee, and in which case you don't deserve to call yourself a coffee drinker. Buying coffee on your way to work is a great way to get your favorite coffee, but the issue is that all that money adds up after a while. $10 to $15 dollars a week, or $500 to $750 a year if you only take two weeks off. Some people are lucky and are actually blessed and have good coffee at work, but in reality most companies are cheap when it comes to spending money on that sort of thing, so most of us are left drinking room temperature, watered-down coffee from the bottom of the pot. Also, there are few feelings as lousy as being bombarded with work before you've had your morning coffee. So that leaves us with the question...What's the best option?

By now I'm sure you've heard of Keurigs. They instantly brew coffee into a single mug in approximately 30 seconds, or so. There's a wide range "K-Cups" available out there. Even chains like Starbucks, and Dunkin Donuts have gotten in on the game and offer their own special K-Cups for your machine at home, or at work. There's also options outside of coffee for Keurigs. There's hot chocolate, hot apple cider, and even tea, but I'll be honest...the tea one is pretty stupid if you ask me. That aside, Keurigs come in various models and prices that start out at $99, so they're relatively affordable. 

I know Keurigs sound amazing, and they actually are pretty impressive machines, but there's one important thing you should realize before you go out and buy one, if you haven't already. These things are awful for the environment. Each mug full of coffee requires a new plastic K-Cup to be used, and then thrown away. It's important to know that these cups are not biodegradable. For me, this is really concerning. I can't speak on your behalf, but I seriously question the convenience of Keurigs knowing how strong of a negative impact they have on the Earth. That said, buying coffee on your way to work isn't great for the environment either, because each cup creates more waste -- although often times you get discounts for using reusable travel mugs, but it still ends up costing a lot over time.

So it's up to you. Get your morning coffee at the expense of the environment for convenience sake, spend money every morning when you buy coffee at Dunky's, or maybe drink your work's shitty coffee. OR maybe we should all just start drinking tea?

Keurig

-S.D. Oscar

Pierre Cardin - Deodorant Stick

I've used Old Spice deodorant ever since my hormones started to revolt against the greater good of my body. I really never considered using anything else, because Old Spice just works really well. I was set in my ways and never gave it a second thought until I came across some Pierre Cardin Deodorant at a Marshalls for $4.00. I was surprised to see something by Pierre Cardin at a Marshalls, so I lifted up the cap to smell it and I was surprised by how good deodorant could smell. It has really elegant scent to it that could seriously pass as a cologne. Actually, I did some research and found out this stuff is based off of the classic Pierre Cardin cologne. It combines amber, patchouli, and sandalwood together to create a scent that no man could go wrong with. For the money I had nothing to lose.

The next day I gave it a trial run. I put it on right before I left for work at around 7:30. I could smell it on me in the car if I concentrated, but it wasn't nauseating. I just smelled good. Towards the end of the morning the smell wore off, but I didn't have B.O. After lunch, though, I started to catch whiffs here and there of perspiration. It was a pretty busy day at work, but not busy enough to make me sweat that bad. I blamed it on the summer heat outside, and figured I'd give it another try the next day. 

My results the next day were the same. I started out smelling fresh, but after lunch I started to smell like sweat. In fact, my sweat started to infuse with the remnant scent of my deodorant to create something nasty. It made me realize how good Old Spice actually is. Even though every guy from 10 to 100 wears it, it's the standard for a reason I found out. 

Although the Pierre Cardin Deodorant isn't that great in terms of performance, it smells great, and works just fine for short periods of time. If you can get a good deal on it like I did, then by all means do yourself a favor and buy it. It's a great deodorant to wear when going on. Just make sure you use something else like Old Spice for your daily sweat protection. 

Link:

Buy it here

-S.D. Oscar

Every Man Jack - Cedarwood

Walking up and down the cosmetic aisles in Target, it’s very apparent who the target demographic is for soaps, shampoos, and other cosmetic products. Almost every product smells like flowers, or some blend of scents that create something reminiscent of a middle aged woman’s perfect fantasy life. There was some relief when I was able to find a small section devoted to men, but a closer look left me rather disappointed. I was looking for a body wash that was rugged, and didn’t make me smell like I just finished frolicking through a field of daisies. Unfortunately, the impossibly small men's department was more like a teenage boys department. In front of me was a portion of a shelf filled with Axe products that came smelling like chocolate, or some other scent that reminded me of my high school’s locker room. Many came creatively packaged with the toughest looking luffas you’ve ever seen, and each bottle guaranteed you’d get that girl. As tempting as that guarantee sounds, I figured it would be better to find something a little more age appropriate.

I started to come to the conclusion that I wasn't going to find what I wanted. I saw some Crew products, but I didn’t feel like dropping twenty bucks on a bottle that was literally the size of a tube of toothpaste. I was about to give up and settle on some generic clean scent Dove For Men body wash when I came across a few bottles of Every Man Jack. I wasn’t too familiar with the brand, but I was intrigued by their scents. Cedarwood, and sandalwood, were the two that stood out to me. I popped open the tops to test the scents of both. To be honest, they didn’t smell too different from one another and you had to be paying pretty close attention with your nose to be able to get a whiff of cedarwood, or sandalwood. I figured maybe they would stand out more once I actually scrubbed them on, and for five dollars I couldn’t go wrong.

After showering the next morning I was left disappointed at first. I didn't smell like a wooded forest, or even anything remotely close to it. I just smelled...clean? This stuff isn't really pungent at all. It's actually pretty generic. That being said, I actually really like this soap. Although I didn't smell the way I was hoping I would, I didn't smell like a bowl of fruits, or a field of flowers. I'm just clean. Another benefit to that is if I'm wearing cologne, aftershave, or even strong scented deodorant, the scents aren't going to clash. It's also gentle on your skin. I tend to get rough skin around my arms, but this stuff didn't bother me at all. It's for that reason that I actually highly recommend this stuff. It's fairly priced soap that does it's job - it cleans. What's more manly than that?

Link:

Every Man Jack

-S.D. Oscar

Portland General Store - Whiskey After-Shave Splash

While searching for new quality men's care products online, I started to notice how infiltrated the market had become with small business products. It wasn't just the usual brands that you see at Target, or Walmart, but also brands that boast which state they're made in as a testament to their overall quality. It was kind of like going into a beer store, and seeing microbrews next to 30 racks of Bud Light. You know the microbrews are of better quality than the Bud Light (tipped off by the difference in price.), so I figured the same might stand true to "Micro-men's care products." 

I decided since I was running low, I'd get some aftershave. The great thing about these smaller brand products, is that they come in scents that you just don't come across in stores. While I'm sure Gillette, and Brut have conducted considerable amounts of market research to concoct scents that are appealing to the masses, I wanted a quality product that wouldn't make me smell like every other guy in the office. Certain scents can conjure up memories for people, and the last thing I want to do is remind the girl of her ex. There's a saying that women are attracted to men who remind them of their fathers. I kept this in mind when I ordered Whiskey scented aftershave from the Portland General Store. I wanted a scent so manly that it conjured up images of bacon sizzling in a lumberjack's cabin in Vermont during peak foliage season. A scent so manly that it was sure to remind every fortunate woman who I passed by of her father, or at least make her question the manliness of her old man. PGS's Whiskey Aftershave seemed like the best product on the market that would make my fantasy a reality. I ordered it without hesitation.

It took a little longer than I would have liked for it to arrive in the mail, but I found the reason for the delay to be that they had to make more batches, which made me all the more excited knowing I was getting something that required time and effort to make. When it came, I admired the bottle in which it came for longer than I had admired any other bottle before. Brown glass, with an aged looking label which specified the formula number (2), and the volume (120ml) of my particular aftershave. It seriously looks like some sort of "cure all" remedy that a traveling doctor in the old west would sell in each town he came to.

Onto the smell. No it doesn't smell like Jim, or Jack, and I know at first that may sound disappointing, but think about it. Do you really wanna reek of alcohol at work, or at that parent-teacher meeting your wife's making you go to? Chances are you don't, but if you do, you might as well just rub some bourbon on your face after your shave. It'll kill the germs. The scent of this aftershave is fairly subtle. It has a very natural smell to it that is vaguely reminiscent to whiskey. In fact, it's made only from natural ingredients, which was a huge plus for me. I got a lot of compliments for the way I smelled. Someone out of the blue actually told me that I smelled like Vermont, which was probably one of the best compliments I had ever received.

The one fault with PGS's Whiskey Aftershave is that it doesn't do that great of a job in preventing razor burn. I was used to aftershaves that have a burning sensation when you apply them after shaving, which I like a lot for some reason, but this aftershave doesn't. I noticed that if I didn't shower after I shaved that I would get razor burn. 

The bottom line is that although this stuff isn't the best on the market for preventing bacteria from getting into your pours, it smells great. I've actually replaced my go to colognes with this stuff, and for $18.00 you really can't beat it. I say go out and try it. Support a small business and smell like the man you wish you were.

Link:
Portland General Store


-S.D. Oscar