Is Pre-Shave Still Necessary? The Group Weighs In
Leslie asked the group something most guys never stop to question. She’s been using Proraso’s pre-shave cream, the kind that comes in a jar, and started wondering if it actually does anything. Not whether it feels nice. Whether it does anything her soap doesn’t already do on its own.
Her theory cuts deeper than “do I need this.” She floated the idea that pre-shave might be a holdover from before modern soaps and creams got good, something that made sense decades ago and never got retired once it stopped mattering. Habit and marketing keeping a step alive after the problem it solved went away. Fifty comments later, nobody settled it. But the thread is a better answer than any single reply, because it shows exactly who still needs the step and who’s shaving just fine without it.
The skeptics
Richard didn’t hedge. Pre-shave is a waste of money. Daniel agreed and said he’d already tossed his. That’s two guys who tried it, felt nothing, and moved on.
Matt’s version is more interesting because it’s not a flat no, it’s a no over time. Pre-shave helped him when he started. Then it mattered less and less the longer he shaved, until eventually a splash of water to soften the whiskers did the same job. That tracks with a broader idea in the thread: pre-shave might be a training-wheels step, useful while your technique is still rough, less useful once it isn’t.
Scott’s take lands somewhere similar without the backstory. His prep is a face wash before he picks up the razor, nothing branded, just water and soap, and he says the shave suffers when he skips it. No pre-shave product in the mix at all. Just proof that plain water does real work.
Peter’s one-liner got a laugh, but it also points at something real. The PAA Cube came up more than once in the thread as the product people reach for when they do want a pre-shave step, which says the debate isn’t really “pre-shave versus nothing.” It’s “which kind, if any.”
The believers
Brett’s been on Proraso White for years and admits he can’t prove it makes a difference. He just knows he gets a more comfortable shave when he uses it. Knick wants the same thing from a different angle, hoping the extra slickness means fewer nicks. Neither one is claiming science. Both are reporting what they’ve seen on their own face, which is the only evidence either of them actually has.
Martha prefers an oil over a soap-based pre-shave and thinks it performs better, though she’s not convinced either one is strictly necessary. Bill lives with hard city water and says the glycerin in his pre-shave is what rescues his lather. Tod made the same case from the opposite direction, high desert air instead of hard water, same complaint, same fix. Climate and water quality keep showing up as the real variable, not the step itself.
Andy’s answer to Leslie’s confusion about the Cube was the clearest walkthrough in the whole thread. Wet the face, rub the cube in with your hands, let it sit while you build your lather, then lather right over it. No mystery to it once someone actually explains the mechanics instead of just recommending the product.
Craig went back further than anyone. In 1996, mug lathering at a sink the way his father and grandfather had, he’d work the brush on the puck for ten or fifteen strokes, take that first bubbly lather, spread it on his face, then lay a warm washcloth over it for about a minute before working the brush over the puck again. That’s a pre-shave step nobody in this thread would call outdated. It’s heat and moisture doing the job some of the newer products try to bottle.
Cody switched pre-shave bars recently and says the new one acts almost like a conditioner, better lather, and fewer nicks and weepers since he made the change. That’s a specific, checkable claim about his own results, not a general statement about what pre-shave does for everyone.
It depends on your face
Jonathan’s framing might be the most honest one in the thread. Pre-shave can matter for some people and do nothing for others, because skin, beard, and routine are all different enough that one answer was never going to cover the group. Chris put it as a test: shelve the product for a week and watch what happens to your own face. Mark split the difference too, not vital, but real.
If hard water or dry air is working against your lather no matter what pre-shave you throw at it, that’s worth running down on its own. Our guide to building a lather covers what’s actually happening in the bowl, which is often the bigger lever.
Rob’s answer is the only one built to survive being read again next year. Try it both ways, watch your own face, and let that decide it. Leslie asked a yes or no question. The thread gave her fifty answers and one actual conclusion: there isn’t a universal one.
Smooth shaves out there.