votrevuWhen Votre-Vu,  one of the sponsors for the Wife’s site, asked me to try out their new line of Men’s products ( and give a set away to one of our readers) I considered it a great opportunity to try out some of the higher end products that I might have used back in the old days when I actually took care of my appearance.

Their Men’s line is relatively new, so it’s certainly cool to have the opportunity to try out something that has just been introduced (it also makes it an even better gift since you can tell the recipient that it’s “exclusive”). The items we’re talking about today are the Beau Baume Organic Shave Balm, the Formule 1 Men’s 3-in-1 Wash and the Habitude Men’s Daily Face Crème – SPF 15. All three are excellent and I’ll give a short rundown on each before we get to the giveaway.

Formule

Formule 1 Men’s 3-in-1 Wash

We’ll start off by talking about the 3 in 1 wash. This product is sold in a two-pack that contains two  3 fl. oz bottles and retails for $37. I like the whole “3 in 1″ concept, since I’m not one of those people that requires some special type of shampoo for a particular type of hair. I prefer to be able to use one bottle for all of my cleaning requirements. And this stuff does its job well. It has a nice citrus scent that reminds me of Armani Acqua di Gio which is a high-compliment in my book. The smell isn’t overly powerful or overbearing, and the product itself is relatively light and not “greasy” in any way. I could definitely see myself using this on a regular basis.

You can find all the details including a list of ingredients by clicking here.

Habitude Men’s Daily Face Cream – SPF 15

HabitudeI could not wait to try out this particular item. I’m not one for “face-creams” or “moisturizers”, but I do have a problem and its name is the Sun. I’m 31 and within the past 3 years I’ve had two squamous cell carcinomas that required surgical excision (on my chest and back – on the bright side, the scars are pretty impressive, so whenever someone who I don’t know sees them I always claim they happened in a knife fight – it’s funny to see the reaction before I tell them what really happened). Now these are rarely problematic unless they are left untreated (in which case they could kill you), but the fact that I’ve already had a couple means I’m at a much higher risk for more severe forms of skin cancer, like melanoma. As a result, I have to be pretty careful when it comes to the sun. I try to wear pants instead of shorts and when I work outside I always wear sunblock. That being said, I really need to be better about putting something with at least some level of SPF on my face on a regular basis, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Most of what I’ve tried has been cheap greasy stuff that was better suited for the protection of college kids on spring break in Panama City Beach FL than someone who is trying to find something that provides adequate protection in a completely unnoticeable manner.

The Habitude product fits the bill perfectly. It provides a good degree of sun protection, but it is not greasy, has a light citrus smell and provides a decent level of moisturization so that your face doesn’t dry up. I could tell that I liked it as soon as I put it on. Usually I cannot stand any sort of face cream, but this was so innocuous that it was no problem at all. I am definitely going to start using this stuff on a daily basis.

The Habitude Men’s Daily Face Crème – SPF 15 is sold in a 1.69 fl. oz bottle for $35. You can find full details including the ingredients list by clicking here.

Beau Baume Organic Shave Balm

BeauBaumeI despise shaving. Now, I don’t know anyone who likes to shave, but most people don’t have much of a problem with it. I do – I hate it completely. I have sensitive skin, so shaving always leaves my face feeling irritated and uncomfortable. Therefore I delay shaving to avoid dealing with this – but then I end up with even more facial hair to shave, and it takes longer and more effort and is thus more irritating and this vicious cycle continues. Anyway, I was curious to try out Votre Vu’s Organic shave balm. They sell this stuff in a package of two 3.0 fl. oz bottles for $42. This amounts to $7 an ounce so I was skeptical as to what was so good about this stuff to make it worth that much.

VotreVu1I wanted to make sure I had something to compare it to so that I would know for a fact if the Votre-Vu stuff was better, so I arranged an informal little experiment. I took the shaving gel that I typically use, a decent brand from a company called Bigelow and used this on the center of my face. I then took a bottle of some more expensive Clinique shaving cream that the Wife bought me as part of my birthday present and applied that to the right side of my face. Finally I took the Votre-Vu cream and applied it to the left side.

A few things to note – primarily, the last time I shaved was over a week ago, so I had a pretty significant amount of facial hair going. I also noticed the differences between the three shaving creams as soon as they were applied. The Bigelow gel was much more harsh than the other two, I felt my face burning a little bit before I even started shaving.

The Clinique was certainly good stuff, it smelled nice and there was no irritation like that associated with the Bigelow, but it was almost too lite and viscous. As a result I didn’t feel like it was able to do too good of a job keeping the facial hair elevated away from my face, which is what you really want the shaving cream to do.

VotreVu2The difference with the Votre-Vu was immediately noticeable. Not only did it not have any of the irritation of the Bigelow gel, in fact it felt quite the opposite, my skin felt better with the Votre-Vu cream on it. It had the same sort of pleasant smell as the Clinique, but the real differentiator was the thickness of the cream itself. It was easy to work with and you didn’t need to use alot to get good coverage of your face, but this stuff was fantastic at grabbing your facial hair and holding it up for the razor. There was no contest when it came to deciding which one was better in the shaving “preparation” area.

Next up was the actual shaving. I started in the center to hit the areas covered by the standard Bigelow gel. The experience was typical since my beard had become long enough to require numerous passes over each patch of skin just to shave it adequately. The stuff was already irritating my face when I started and dragging a razor over the area a few times didn’t help much.

I did the Clinique side next and as predicted, the biggest issue was that this stuff has no hold to it, so even though it wasn’t in any way irritating my skin, I still had to make quite a few passes over each spot since most of the hair had not been elevated to the appropriate levels.

VotreVu6Finally I hit the Votre-Vu side and it was like night and day. While my facial hair was so long that I often had to make three or four passes over one small area of skin on the Bigelow or Clinique sides, the Votre Vu had done such a good job of grabbing and holding up the hair that I only had to make one or perhaps two passes over each area. It took me half the time to shave the left side  as it did to shave the right and there was no irritation at all. I had been skeptical that any shaving cream could be worth the $21 that they charge for this, but I know one thing – this stuff does make a difference. It may not be in everyone’s price range for regular usage, but it would make a damn fine gift for someone, especially someone like me who hates to shave in the first place.

You can find all the details for the Beau Baume Organic Shave Balm by clicking here.

Giveaway!
We are giving one lucky reader a set of the Votre-Vu Men’s Products. This includes a 2-Pack of the 3 in 1 wash (ARV $37), a 2-Pack of the Shaving Balm (ARV $42) and a bottle of the Habitude face-cream (ARV $35). Total ARV = $114. This would make a fantastic gift for any guy who wouldn’t mind casting aside his Gilette and Axe Body Wash in exchange for something a bit more high-end. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and indicate who you would want to give this to (this can be yourself, I’ve heard one or two guys actually read this site, but I have not seen one out in the wild yet). The winner will receive their prize by Christmas.

Official Rules:
1. You must already be, or become a subscriber to this site in order to participate in this contest.
2.  To enter, leave a comment on this post and indicate who you would give this prize to if you win (saying that you plan to keep it for yourself is ok too).
3. One winner will receive: 2-Pack of the 3 in 1 Wash, 2-Pack of the Shave Balm and one bottle of the Habitude Face cream, total ARV $114. The winner will receive the prize by Christmas.
4. The winner will be selected using random.org, based on the number of your comment.
6. This contest will end at 10pm on Friday, December 12th 2009.
7. Winners will be notified by email and posted to this site. Winners will have 48 hours from the time of notification to claim their prize. If the prize is not claimed within that time, an alternate winner will be chosen.
8. Each comment represents a single entry. Those entitled to multiple entries for performing “extra credit” must add a comment for each entry.

Extra Credit:

1. Follow me using the Google Friend Connect widget – 1 extra entry
2. Follow on Twitter and Tweet about this contest – 1 extra entry per day (include link to Tweet in your comment)
3. Blog about this contest – 3 extra entries (include a link to the post in your comment)
4. Enter any of the giveaways in progress on www.theartofbeingmom.com – 3 extra entries (include name of contest and your comment # )
5. Post a comment on any of the other posts on this site (from the past month) – 1 extra entry per post (leave post name and comment #)
6. Enter any of the other giveaways in progress on this site – 2 extra entries per giveaway (include name of contest and your comment #)

(remember, you have to leave a comment for EACH ENTRY when you do extra credit. We pick winners based on a drawing using the comment number. If you put 5 entries into a single comment, you defeat the whole purpose of the extra credit, since you aren’t increasing your chances of winning. No, I am not going to go through each entry and make sure that you’ve entered correctly, that is up to you.)

FTC Disclosures:
I have previously received each product described in this post at no charge. I have also been provided with the same set of products to provide to the winner of this contest. No monetary compensation has been received for reviewing these products or administering this contest. Regardless of compensation, all views and opinions expressed are my own.