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Strong like ox: Proraso mens shaving products

A A A Comments By THEO DOUGLAS Thursday, May 25 2006

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The name is perhaps underwhelming, but everything else about the line of Proraso men's shaving products is strong like ox—including its central ingredient, eucalyptus oil, which in the right humidity can make your face feel downright explosive. It's great: makes you not realize you're scraping hundreds of stiff little hairs off your face with a tiny and dull knife.

Eucalyptus oil is that stuff that vaporizes in the Australian heat, framing the landscape in a blue haze—unless it gets really hot and the trees explode, and then everything catches on fire. Koalas eat the leaves—of course—and Italians make shaving products from its . . . essence.

The company began in 1908 Florence, as a cosmetics company, but it didn't move into shaving products until 1948, when owner Ludovico Martelli's son Piero came to work. And it didn't become available in Target stores until just recently.

Proraso makes just six products today, most of which are at Target—including a pre-shave that's also an aftershave, two shaving soaps, an aftershave cream, a gel in case you cut yourself and a shaving brush.

But we suspect that, like their shaving soap in the tube—the old standard—each one makes your face feel so good you don't realize you're about to shave.

Which should be the whole point of a shaving product.

Confidential to Jack in the Box: it's not secret. It's not sauce. Why not call it "Some Stuff in a Packet"?

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