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Awhile back, I noticed my wife having trouble shaving her legs with one of those oval-shaped Lady Sensor razors, the ones that use the same twin-blade cartridges as the men's Sensor Excel. She'd get nicks on her shins all the time, and just hated the whole routine. Of course, me so not being a shavegeek at all, I suggested she try shaving her stems with a DE.

In fact, I had just the razor for her to try -- a clean vintage long-handled Gillette "Slim-Twist" that was part of a gaggle of DEs I scored on eBay. One of those razor assortments you see in the listings, probably culled from jails and funeral homes. But a half-hour in a boiling teakettle later, and who cares whether it was the community shaver at a leper colony? You've got yourself a nice, shiny, squeaky clean razor.

Actually, the long-handled Gillette I gave my wife was in great shape when I got it. The rough-grip plastic handle is slightly tapered toward the end, and the non-adjustable silo-loading head seems ideally suited to gam shaving, being just a bit more aggressive than the fixed-head Gillettes meant for a man's face.

Along with the razor, I also gave my wife a bunch of creams to try with it. Some standard English top-shelf stuff, plus a few new creams I hadn't gotten around to trying yet.

Needless to say, she loved the DE and now uses it exclusively. As for the creams, she gave them all back to me except for one.

"I'll keep the Cremo-Cream," she said. "It's the best one by far."

Hmm. The best? I even went out to Whole Foods and got her a pump bottle of Kiss My Face shaving cream, the sweet smelling stuff that's supposed to be so good. But she stuck to her guns.

"It's okay, but the Cremo-Cream is much more lubricating. You can have the Kiss My Face. I'll just use the Cremo-Cream, thanks."

Kiss My Face, my ass. I got twelve tubs of Taylor, woman! But now I was curious.

Cremo-Cream is a very different beast than other shaving creams. Its biggest departure from the norm is that it contains no glycerin, which is practically the main ingredient in most top-shelf shaving creams. Hell, some of the most highly-regarded shaving soaps are pretty much pucks of solid glycerin. And there's other non-traditional ingredients like Macadamia seed oil, aloe leaf juice, and papaya extract.

And the differences don't stop there. For starters, it's a brushless cream -- you just slather it onto your face with your bare hands, not a brush. So you miss out on the most feel-good part of the whole wetshaving routine.

Second, the Cremo-Cream smells like a pina colada. Hey, I love my Taylor rose, my Trumper violet, even Taylor avocado. But pina colada? "if you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape.." I can enjoy the scent of fresh cut violets and still feel like a man, but the smell of pina coladas makes me feel like a kid working at the LA Four Seasons back in the 70s whose hotel manager just told him to take off his shirt and wear nothing but shorts and a bow tie to deliver a tray of drinks up to Peter Allen's orgy in the Mae West suite.

Be that as it may, my wife isn't known as the BOTO (brains of the outfit) for nothing. So when she tells me Cremo-Cream is that good, I have to try it, so this morning I did.

It was plenty weird not using a shaving brush for the first time in years, probably. Even back in my Mach3 days, I used a brush. But the Cremo-Cream's instructions are very specific -- just your hands. So I got out of the shower, splashed more hot water on my face at the sink, and slathered on maybe a quarter-sized blob of Cremo-Cream all over my face and neck.

Not surprisingly, it didn't lather up thick and opaque like the traditional English creams. But it felt incredibly slick on my skin, much moreso than my usual creams. And you know, that pina colada scent kind of grew on me, I have to admit. Not what I want to smell like all day long, but for a few minutes while I'm catching a shave, it's not a bad thing to whiff. Kind of pleasant, actually.

But the real surprise was the shave itself. This Cremo-Cream stuff is for real. My Merkur DE just glided over my face like it never has with any other cream or soap I've tried to date. Honestly, I was eerie how slick and frictionless the Cremo-Cream shave was, even compared with the high-end stuff I normally use. If you told me this stuff had little Teflon balls floating around in it, I'd believe you. It's that slick.

The shave I got was extremely close and smooth, like what I get from a hard shaving soap. But unlike a hard soap, my skin wasn't irritated at all -- in this respect, it was more like a shave with an extra comforting cream like Taylor's rose and avocado creams, or Trumper's violet.

In fact, the Cremo-Cream gave me such a close shave, my entire face had that same kind of freshly exfoliated tingle that I've only felt in the past when I've shaved or had someone else shave me with a straight razor. I kept rubbing my cheeks afterward, marveling at the shave, just like my reaction to that incredible straight razor shave I got at the Truefitt & Hill barbershop in Vegas. And my skin felt so smooth and moisturized afterward that I probably could've skipped the post-shave Trumper skin food and left my face alone.

My wife was right -- Cremo-Cream is excellent stuff. Not only is it the only brushless shaving cream I've tried that's worth a damn, but it actually delivers a quality of shave on a par with the best traditional creams and soaps. The fact is, there are quite a few highly-regarded English creams and soaps which don't shave nearly as well as Cremo-Cream. Heresy, I know. But it's true.

Old-school wetshavers will never go for this stuff, unfortunately. A brushless cream that smells like a pina colada is just too far out there for guys deep into Ye Olde customs. Which is a shame, because this stuff is right up there with the best. I didn't think there was anything new under the sun when it came to shaving cream because the best formulas are centuries old, but Cremo-Cream is the real deal.

If you can keep your mind focused on the results and forget about not being able to use your favorite brush, and the fact that your face smells like a frothy drink your mom would order while on a cruise because she's "feeling a little crazy!", you'll be floored by this very different, incredibly lubricating shaving cream. Highly recommended.