Razor Day With eos Shave Oil, Start to Finish

The name eos stands for Evolution of Smooth, and the company began with a lip balm shaped like a sphere. Jonathan Teller and Sanjiv Mehra founded it in 2007 and launched in the U.S. in 2009. They talked to women who could not find their lip balm by touch in a full bag, then hired a sculptor to shape clay spheres until one felt right in the hand and against the lips. The same brand later moved into shaving cream and body lotion, and its Cashmere shave collection was, according to Glossy, the biggest new launch in women's shaving in 2023. The eos shave oil is the quiet piece of that line. The brand makes it with shea, cocoa and argan butters, plus coconut and jojoba oils, and says it is pH-balanced and gentle enough for a full-body shave. It comes in Vanilla Cashmere, which the brand describes as whipped vanilla, soft musk and caramel, and Pink Champagne, with pear champagne, pomegranate and plum suede. The first grid puts the oils beside a butter and a fragrance-free shave cream, because it is the same job done by different textures.

Grid two is the full Cashmere routine, and I think of it as before and after. The pre-shave scrub is a sugar scrub that lathers into a creamy foam, and the brand positions it as the first step, for prep or for everyday exfoliation. The Post-Shave Smooth Body Cream is the last step, and the brand says it is for 72 hours of hydration. The two that surprised me are the ones with their own texture. The Cashmere oil is a separate squalane and jojoba formula, light enough to wear out of the house without feeling slick. The whipped oil body butter is the richest texture in the set, a thick, buttery scoop that the brand says melts slowly into skin. My tip is to exfoliate the night before, not right before the blade, so skin is calm when the razor passes. Patch test anything new if your skin is sensitive, and keep the order simple: scrub, oil or butter, rinse, cream.

After a shave the next good move is something that slides on and does not sit on the skin, and that is where oils earn their place. Salt & Stone Bergamot & Hinoki pairs bergamot and orange blossom with hinoki wood, and Nima Jalali, a former professional snowboarder, founded the Los Angeles brand in 2017. Phlur Missing Person is the soft skin-musk scent that Chriselle Lim built around longing after she took over the brand in 2021. Hanni Good Aura is called the anti-oil, and Leslie Tessler named the brand for her youngest daughter, Hannah. Cyklar Sacred Santal has cashmere wood, vanilla and bergamot, with oil-soluble vitamin C. Claudia Sulewski founded Cyklar in 2023. A body oil is easiest to use on damp skin right after the shower. What I would skip is rubbing it in hard over fresh razor lines. A light press with the flat of your hand works better, and stings less.

I like a routine that takes four minutes and still feels like a small ritual. Start with the scrub on a night you are not rushing, let the oil or butter do the gliding, and finish with whichever scent you want on your skin for the rest of the evening. The shelf of eos products in the first two grids gives you every step in one scent family, and the oils in the last grid let you mix in another signature if you prefer. Keep it simple and pick one scent for the week.