It's when you really get down to reading your EDGE PRO GEL cannister that you start to wonder, what is my life about? What reasons have I chosen a GEL product, versus the standard shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits shaving foams?

The un-subtle advertising suggests that shaving with a foam is old fashioned and passé, not where the future of humanity is heading. Shaving GELs offer a new type of shave, closer, safer, more thorough, faster, longer lasting, smoother, more comfortable, more attuned to human technological developments. Foam exists in the sea. Foam happens all over the place. GEL is futuristic sounding, and doesn't occur in nature. I've believed all this, because I'm a SHAVING GEL user.

I've repudiated the wayward foamy shave with the conviction that GELs will take my surly mountainman's grin and, with a few quick swathes, chisel my own features into walking evidence that GELs offer a superlative shaving experience. Anyone who has see the commercial sets in which our shaving heroes reside know that the morning shave isn't something to be taken lightly; with strong, passionate lighting on a futuristic often-blue-toned bathroom set, it looks like the transplanted forward-looking ecstasy of Gene Roddenberry's most spasmodic wet dream. Couple this arrangement with the fly-around camera techniques which exalt the model's shave to nothing short of cinematic brilliance, and you have successfully converted a rote daily procedure to a state of intense, romanticized reverie.

When I hit the aisle to make a selection, the mind-boggling decision-choking omnipresence of types and subtypes of shaving products is a fine tribute the both the diversity of potential consumers and the availability of shelf space. Visiting the EDGE PRO GEL web site, I found the following types of shaving GELs:

These can be identified, sequentially, as: Sensitive Skin, Extra Protection, Extra Moisturizing, Normal Skin, Extra Soothing, Extra Refreshing, Skin Conditioning, Tough Beard.

What does EDGE say about each of these varieties? Let me first give one example from the web site :

Sensitive Skin : Edge® Sensitive Skin Gel with Aloe is formulated to help protect and moisturize your skin while you shave. Its lubricant-rich gel transforms into a thick lather when rubbed onto your face. No other gel or foam can give you a more comfortable shave. Edge® Pro Gel®. Save Your Skin™.

Now, each of the GELs contains the same four sentences : "Its lubricant-rich gel transforms into a thick lather when rubbed onto your face. No other gel or foam can give you a more comfortable shave. Edge® Pro Gel®. Save Your Skin™." So, for the descriptions, I can leave them out without a loss of generality. Simply append them to the end, and you have the description from the website. Now, we have the above 8 products (the website says the GELs come in 9 different varieties, yet only 8 are listed, suggesting to me yet another CORPORATE CONSPIRACY) and can trim their descriptions to a single line. Let us examine them. Keep in mind, that the site lists them as 'nine distinct formulas.'

Sensitive Skin : Edge® Sensitive Skin Gel with Aloe is formulated to help protect and moisturize your skin while you shave.
Extra Protection : Edge® Extra Protection Gel is formulated to soften your beard and cushion your skin for a smooth razor glide.
Extra Moisturizing : Edge® Extra Moisturizing Gel will leave your face smooth and moisturized every time you shave, and it's great for dry and sensitive skin.
Normal Skin : Edge® Normal Skin is an ultra rich gel with extra lubricants for smooth razor glide and protection against painful nicks and cuts.
Extra Soothing : Edge® Extra Soothing Gel with Menthol cools and soothes your face when you shave to provide extra comfort.
Extra Refreshing : Edge® Extra Refreshing Gel contains a citrus splash, giving your face a refreshing, invigorating feel every time you shave.
Skin Conditioning : Edge® Skin Conditioning Gel is formulated with added Lanolin to condition your face while you shave.
Tough Beards : Edge® Tough Beards Gel with Special Beard Softeners is formulated to deliver a smooth, close, and comfortable shave with even the toughest whiskers.

Maybe I just want what I cannot have -- but each and every one of those descriptions sure does interest me. I would love to have a citrus splash, which gives me "extra refreshment"; which suggests, of course, that they all give you some refreshment, but this one refreshes you to a higher degree, no doubt thanks to the citrus splash. The only cost is that you have to give up one of the other valuable attributes, like protection, or moisturization. God forbid you have a tough beard, which robs you of any choice and sentences you to a lifetime staring at the GEL line's most ominous monolith : the jet black TOUGH BEARDS formulation.

You also run the risk of being the scourge of your social circle when people discover your wanton genetic preference for strong, thick, almost inhuman patches of hair.

In an effort to dumb it down for the public, the tough beards formulation touts "Special Beard Softeners" -- the capitalizations appear on the website. I suppose by capitalizing it it is more likely to be perceived as something freshly minted from the R&D department, rather than some kind of sales apparatus. You notice how unconvincing the statement "this contains special beard softeners" compared with "this contains Special Beard Softeners." Instinct kicks in and "SBS" is transcribed, lending credence to the suspicious claim that something special is involved.

One of the benefits of the GEL system, as the company claims, is that "its lubricant-rich gel transforms into a thick lather when rubbed onto your face." The difficulty, it seems, is the conversion from GEL to 'rich lather.' As far as I could tell, taking a small bead of ultra-dense GEL and "massaging" it gently into my skin was far more difficult than it sounds. In my experience, small pockets of GEL form between the fingers as the application process proceeds. You then must scoop these pockets out with the other hand and attempt to reapply it.

This soon becomes routine, reapplication of errant beads of GEL. I have tried further a different method : putting a large chunk ON my face, then smearing it around. This however is perhaps the worst procedure, as a much larger bead on the face becomes unstable rather quickly, and often falls on the cold, callous counter below. And don't get me started on the drawbacks of shaving your (or a friends) balls!

The best, most reliable procedure, is to simply rub the GEL between your hands to work it into a rich, lustrous (see the image of the gel on the cans above) lather -- I would sometimes call it a foamy lather. This prevents all of the above problems, and allows a smooth application.

At this point, I begin to second guess what the advertisers had told me about all the manifold benefits of said GEL. Perhaps if I had paddle-hands or a bowl-face or tools to apply the precious GEL with ease, it would be a more practical scenario. I'm biologically incapable of appreciating the GEL in the ways the boys in R&D had hoped.

Perhaps I shouldn't have gone ahead and purchased the PRO GEL, and perhaps started with a beginners gel, something more amenable to my old standard of easy-to-apply foam. Perhaps this product would be part gel, part foam, and can act as a bridge between the relative ease of foaming products to the esoteric application procedures demanded by the PRO GEL series.

One thing is certain; the technological advancements in the field of shaving/grooming have never disappointed in the past and I hold faith that EDGE will soon brandish such a product.

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