Shaun, aka The Tech Guy, aka my boyfriend, is here with another must-read “manly” review. He’s twenty-eight with normal-to-dry skin and suffers from no more acne (much to my envy!).  He has no dedication whatsoever to his writing duties here on Temptalia, given his absence of years (or however long it’s been) but, thankfully, is more attentive to keeping the site alive and well.

Shaun enjoys long walks on the beach, vegging out on the couch watching chick flicks, and cuddling with Mellan. Or maybe not! He handles all the behind-the-scenes action here at Temptalia, from tech support to server woes.

I was recommended the Salux Beauty Skin Cloth after my Pulitzer Prize-winning review of the Bath Pouf. I bought the device on Amazon and received it soon after. The packaging is reminiscent of something you buy in a dollar store, and at a glance, the cloth looks like something you would dry your newly washed car with. I pulled said cloth out of its high quality packaging and felt the rough, stretchy, and plastic material. It felt kind of like the Bath Pouf, but only if the Bath Pouf was created by an evil genius because this material is very coarse.

I asked a friend of mine to tell me what it felt like, he said: “Feels like 20 grit sandpaper!” We promptly high-fived, grunted, and went along drinking beer afterwards. When he left, I looked up “20 grit sandpaper” because I had no idea what it meant. The only time I sand anything is when I’m filing down my nails. Apparently, 20 grit sandpaper is a coarser version of normal sandpaper. Who knew?

I finally got around to using the thing, and I can say one thing: I’m a whole lot smoother than I used to be. If you feel like you have lost some of your aerodynamics this could be a good buy for you, because it shaves down the uneven portions of your body. Sandpaper is a good analogy because this stuff is pretty rough. If you deem your body “supple” then I’d probably avoid this skin cloth.

Now, just because it’s rough doesn’t mean it’s bad. I found that it held lather extremely well as long as you do what the instructions say and keep it out of direct water contact. It does get a bit hard to manage when you are scrubbing the front of your body. It kind of wants to bunch up, which makes it kind of hard to use. The star quality is that this will be the only device you’ll need for your whole body. I used to use a branch with a pine cone on it to scrub my back, but no longer! You just grab the cloth on either side and do the shimmy-shake across your back. You’ll never have to wonder if you missed a spot on your back again!

One of the drawbacks of this cloth is that I have no idea where to put it. There’s no convenient string that hooks it to anything in your shower. So I kind of draped it over the bath tub faucet which feels kind of… Eww, to me. Let me know where you put yours, ladies!

Pros

• Good exfoliator
• Cleans your back better than any other tool I’ve tried
• Lathers well
• Machine washable (claimed on the package, I haven’t tried washing it)
• Cheap

Cons

• Might be too harsh for daily use
• No way to store it
• Binds up when using on the front of your body

Salux Beauty Skin Cloth

Shaun, aka The Tech Guy, aka my boyfriend, is here with another must-read “manly” review. He’s twenty-eight with normal-to-dry skin and suffers from no more acne (much to my envy!).  He has no dedication whatsoever to his writing duties here on Temptalia, given his absence of nearly seven months.  He says it keeps the public wanting more.

Shaun enjoys long walks on the beach, vegging out on the couch watching chick flicks, and cuddling with Mellan. Or maybe not! He handles all the behind-the-scenes action here at Temptalia, from tech support to server woes.

The Evolution of a Bath Pouf

All right, what is this thing called? You know… The spongey-majig? Bath… Pouf… Seriously, what is it really called? Bath pouf… So, I’ve been using something called a bath pouf for over ten years? I don’t know if I can go on.

(2 hours of reflecting and soul searching later…)

Yes, it’s true; I enjoy myself a good… Bath pouf… It is highly effective for exfoliation and administering shower gel to the various parts of my flesh! Wait until they hear about this at the next man meeting. Here’s the thing: there’s no good alternative to this to use in the shower!

You could use your hand, but I find that my hand doesn’t want to go certain places… And it tends to use up soap like it was hoarding it to sell on eBay. There’s the wash cloth, but I just find that thing limp and disgusting. I could use a loofa but my skin IS SENSITIVE. Plus, it’s a plant, and I barely want to eat plants let alone scrub my supple body with one.

Don’t even suggest to me the bar of soap! That thing collects hair like a broom at a hair salon (BOOM). Plus, it usually slips out of your hands and drops on your foot, then followed by: expletives, slipping in the shower, breaking your neck, and you taking a dirt nap! Do you want to single-handedly be responsible for the downfall of mankind?! Bar of soap… Pfft!

Let’s get on to the bath pouf! The bath pouf has three life-cycles. First is the cocoon phase. It is way too tight and doesn’t receive shower gel quite right. The lather-building is poor and the scrubbing is made difficult because of its lack of surface area! This is very scientific. However, once you’ve worked in the pouf it becomes a wondrous thing.

This cycle we like to call: ????? The magic of metamorphosis renders the bath pouf into a being of utmost perfection. It builds lather like a champ and covers your body perfectly with the right amount of exfoliation to scrub ratio. It is the perfect device for delivering your shower gel to your body!

The third phase is the saddest of all: the sunflower phase. Right when you’re getting into the tender years of your showering with your pouf, it grows old and tired and begins spreading out further and further until it has become an amorphous blob of sponge that can no longer be rendered as anything useful. The little rope around it breaks and becomes gross and slimy. It doesn’t hold its shape and becomes less useful in terms of exfoliating.

Here are some tips for you and your loved ones–feel free to read them to each other while sitting in front of a fire drinking a fine bourbon or cognac.

1. Always wash the soap out of your pouf! If you don’t, the rope gets really slimy and feels so disgusting that you might as well just throw it out.
2. If the rope breaks you can kind of re-tie it around the pouf and maybe get a few more showers out of it before it becomes unbearable to use. The rope is the lifeblood of the pouf, once it is becomes useless, the pouf loses all its majesty!
3. To build a good lather, rinse it before use, then pour your soap on. Douse it a bit more with water and squeeze it a few times. This will give you a nice lather!
4. Give it room to dry! You don’t want this thing to act like a petri dish. Plus it will wear out quicker if it’s constantly soaked.
5. Buy many, and buy a few in manlier colors. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to cry myself through the shower while washing myself with a lavender pouf. Your guy will use it, but he’ll be more covert-ops about it if it is the color of lilac.

Tell me what you and/or your man use for body cleaning in the comments!

Shaun, aka The Tech Guy, aka my boyfriend, is here with another must-read “manly” review. He’s twenty-seven with normal-to-dry skin and suffers from no more acne (much to my envy!).  Lately, he’s been smelling a lot like generic man.  Which is that “man” scent I’ve come to identify with men’s body washes these days.

Shaun enjoys long walks on the beach, vegging out on the couch watching chick flicks, and cuddling with Mellan. Or maybe not! He handles all the behind-the-scenes action here at Temptalia, from tech support to server woes to being my shoulder to cry on.

So, this is going to be the most epic standoff in the history of epic standoffs. In one corner, we have the manly and slightly insecure Old Spice Swagger Body Wash ($4.49 for 12 oz.) And in the other corner, we have the pinkest of the pinks in Dial Cherry Seed Oil & Mint Body Wash ($5.49 for 16 oz.).

Names

Dial might have a history setting mark in this category. The total name of this product is as follows: Dial Nutriskin with Fruit Oil Ultra Hydrating Body Wash Cherry Seed Oil & Mint. About three of those words mean anything to me and one of them is “&.” Old Spice on the other hand is much more mundane: Old Spice Swagger Body Wash. Dial should cut down on the words, but maybe that appeals to the female crowd? Do you ladies like to read while you wash your body? I prefer to look forlornly at my stomach wondering why there isn’t a six pack of abs there.

Grade

• Dial: A Bronze Star
• Old Spice: A Silver Star

Packaging

Old Spice’s packaging once again employs the grips on the side where you’d never grip the bottle while in usage, and it also feature a gray dot in the middle of its otherwise mostly red packaging. I’ve been staring at this dot for an hour… WHY ARE YOU THERE DOT? WHAT’S THE POINT OF YOU?! YOU SHOULD NOT EXIST!!! On my bottle, the label is not smooth on the bottle. There’s a wrinkle on it, and it’s driving me nuts, so it gets -1 point already. Dial’s packaging shape is curvy and very feminine. I like the label with the liquid and the cherry. DON’T JUDGE ME! It has no grips on the bottle and gets very slippery when wet.

Grade

• Dial: 4/5 Points
• Old Spice: 3/5 Points

Lather and Smell

I’m tired of beating this dead horse about male body wash and general scents of male products, but it doesn’t smell like anything but generic man smell!@$ I wish I had a better way to describe it. Dial on the other hand smells pretty synthetic. Like someone in the lab doctored up what they think cherries smell like and threw it in a bottle. I got no mint scent from it. Both lather up nicely, but Old Spice’s bottle seems conducive to over usage due to its “manly” spout.

Grade

• Dial: B-
• Old Spice: B

Ingredients

These days you expect to find the declaration of independence on the back of every bottle of anything, but in this case Old Spice actually has a respectable amount of ingredients in its body wash. Dial, on the other hand, has an ingredient list that eclipses the length of the last Harry Potter book. What is also entertaining is that Dial has to use a very tiny font size to even fit the list on the bottle, while Old Spice actually uses one that is legible without a magnifying glass.

Grade

• Dial: Two Thumbs Down
• Old Spice: One Thumb Up, One Thumb Turned Sideways

Final Grade

• Dial: 70%
• Old Spice: 71%

Recommendation: I wouldn’t really recommend either of them, although, they are both serviceable, but I’m running back to my Celebrate Love Shower Gel.

I’m on Twitter (@shauntechguy), viewing of Shaun The Tech Guy’s Twitter can lead to nausea, heartburn, upset stomach, indigestion, and diarrhea. YAY, PEPTO-BISMOL! Also check out our cool Dog Blog at: Paws and Kisses.

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Shaun, aka The Tech Guy, aka my boyfriend, is here with another must-read “manly” review. He’s twenty-seven with normal-to-dry skin and suffers from no more acne (much to my envy!).  I told him to review this, and he said “Absolutely not!” in his girliest voice, and then, I was going to review it this morning… and here he comes along to steal my thunder and review it himself!

Shaun enjoys long walks on the beach, vegging out on the couch watching chick flicks, and cuddling with Mellan. Or maybe not! He handles all the behind-the-scenes action here at Temptalia, from tech support to server woes to being my shoulder to cry on.

Hello, yeah I just got out of the shower? What? Yes, I tried the new Philosophy Celebrate Love Shower Gel. How’d I like it….? Uh…. Okay, it’s the greatest fragrance I’ve ever smelt. Review it?!? Are you crazy? I’ll be tarred in feathered by the male community! What?! No! Don’t take that away! FINE, I’ll review it! What? Yeah, tacos… Okay, I love you too. No, don’t make me say that…… FINE! I love you too… snookums. Bye.

Ahem, sorry I was on the phone with Christine. This is a hard one for me, because I basically have to turn in my man pass, and never be allowed to do anything manly again. There goes spitting and scratching! Thanks a lot ladies!

Philosophy Celebrate Love is the greatest thing I’ve ever smelt. There, I said it. It smells like a sweet fruity berry, I can barely describe it. It’s flat out wonderful. If it was a food, I’d eat it everyday. I’ve reviewed the Philopsohy Shower Gel  line before, and while most of their soaps make you want to eat them, this one makes you want to stand in the shower for hours frolicking in the wonderfulness that is Celebrate Love soap.

The lather is great, and the strength of the smell isn’t overwhelming, it’s just pleasantly there. Even if you fell off a ladder, stubbed your toe, broke up with your significant other, and lost your job, coming home to shower with this would brighten your spirits.

The one knock on the product is that the smell doesn’t linger for very long on your skin. Maybe my man funk cancels out the wonderfulness, but for me the smell doesn’t stay on nearly long enough.

Recommendation: Buy it in crates! Christine just informed me this is a Nordstrom exclusive… Wait, no don’t buy it! I’m going to buy it all, BWHAHAHAHA!

Yes, I’m on twitter @shauntechguy. No, I won’t call you snookums even if you follow me on there. What, that’s the only way you’ll follow me?! Fine, snookums!

Shaun, aka The Tech Guy, aka my boyfriend, is here with another must-read “manly” review. He’s twenty-seven with normal-to-dry skin and suffers from no more acne (much to my envy!).

Shaun enjoys long walks on the beach, vegging out on the couch watching chick flicks, and cuddling with Mellan. Or maybe not! He handles all the behind-the-scenes action here at Temptalia, from tech support to server woes to being my shoulder to cry on.

I haven’t used a straight razor in a long time. In fact, I tend to put off shaving as much possible. I tried Gillette’s ProGlide ($12.99) with a bit of reluctance because of the bad memories of shavings past. They came to me in the night much like the story of Scrooge. Each one was scarier than the last, but I persevered!

The main complaint I have with the straight edge is that it seemingly takes forever and is morbidly inconvenient. Maybe it was the razor, or maybe it was just the passage of time, but this was one of the quicker shaves I’ve had in a while. There’s no doubt about it, the straight edge does a far superior job than the electric razor does. This particular model came with a vibration feature, and I don’t know what it is about the term “vibration” but I feel… Dirty about it…

I used it reluctantly and induced Christine into a double blind test. How did I do this–no doubt you’re wondering–first, I did the two finger eye poke ala Ric Flair (ladies love wrestling references right?). After jabbing her eyes and doing the Ric Flair strut, I grabbed her hands and put them on either side of my face. She determined that the buzzed side was a bit smoother, and then she proceeded to point towards the ceiling. Upon observing what she was pointing at, I took a knee to the most sensitive area on a man’s body. The solar plexus.

This razor is very… Car-like (thanks reader, Proximity!): it’s chrome and has various gripping mechanisms all over its exterior. The problem with the chrome is upon getting it wet, it becomes slippery and could cause major or minor facial reconstruction upon slippage.

After three or four usages, the green strip at the top of the replaceable portion of the razor is already half white. This indicates that it is nearing the end of its lifetime. This is a bit quick for me, however, no one is forcing you to replace the cartridge, but getting only five or six shaves at full strength is a bit on the weak side.

Recommendation: It might be time to give the straight edged razor a try again electric fans. I think I’ll be sticking with it for the time being. This particular razor seems like a solid and reasonably price option. Give it a shot.

As has been said in the past, I am on twitter (@shauntechguy) and beside seldom updates, followers will receive a signed copy of my coming-of-age tale: The Tech Guy in You!*

*While Supplies Last**
**Supplies No Longer Last

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Shaun, aka The Tech Guy, aka my boyfriend, is here with another must-read “manly” review. He’s twenty-seven with normal-to-dry skin and suffers from no more acne (much to my envy!). Can you tell he’s on an AXE kick? ‘Cause I think he maybe raided the entire shelf…

Shaun enjoys long walks on the beach, vegging out on the couch watching chick flicks, and cuddling with Mellan. Or maybe not! He handles all the behind-the-scenes action here at Temptalia, from tech support to server woes to being my shoulder to cry on.

Here marks the end of our tour of AXE products (hopefully). We’ll finish off with AXE Snake Peel Shower Scrub ($5.49). I guess what they were going for is some sort of body exfoliator, but they did not accomplish their goal. Instead of exfoliation, it feels like you’ve been to the beach and are trying to get the sand off. I assume that’s what they mean by “desert minerals,” because, once again, the ingredient list reads like Egyptian hieroglyphics. Three wavy lines means water!

AXE seems to continually mold things to be gripped in the most awkwardly way possible.  Instead of the man grip of doom, they mold the bottle in a way that no mortal man could squeeze. I guess it should be called the Zeus grip, because only Zeus would be able to squeeze out any product based on the grip AXE wants you to use. Look at that, this review is turning into an Egyptian and Greek history lesson.

Smell-wise… Generic man-smell… I wonder where these smells are thought up, because every one of them smells practically identical. After heavy usage of this product, it made Christine have a sneezing fit, so I guess if you are partial to repelling women away from you, then this might be for you. This product should be used by the likes of Brad Pitt and that guy who plays the lead in Twilight–Edward Von Vampiro or whatever his name is.

Recommendation: Useful if you’ve never used a real body exfoliant. Not that I’d know anything about that… *whistles* …. *runs*

Just in case you haven’t heard, I’m on twitter (@shauntechguy) and apart from hilarious updates I go into detail about the sordid life of a Temptalia Tech Guy. Filled with adventures such as: Complaining about coding, complaining about the server, and complaining about making videos.

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Shaun, aka The Tech Guy, aka my boyfriend, is here with another must-read “manly” review. He’s twenty-seven with normal-to-dry skin and suffers from no more acne (much to my envy!).   Can you tell he’s on an AXE kick?  ‘Cause I think he maybe raided the entire shelf…

Shaun enjoys long walks on the beach, vegging out on the couch watching chick flicks, and cuddling with Mellan. Or maybe not! He handles all the behind-the-scenes action here at Temptalia, from tech support to server woes to being my shoulder to cry on.

Well, the sponge (aka AXE Detailer Shower Tool; $5.99) is part of my AXE product tri-fecta. And frankly? I don’t like it! It’s too small for my hand, and it will probably only fit the creator’s hand correctly. It has these grips that if your fingers are positioned correctly create the man grip of doom. I don’t know who would wash themselves with a grip like this, but it looks like how you’d grip a sword on the way to battle.It has hard plastic around perimeter and once it gets a bit of suds on it becomes too slippery to get a decent grip on. It has little cut in grooves to try and combat this, but they fail miserably.

The sponge itself is too small to get any large area of the body efficiently and leaves you with a “I missed a spot” feeling. The funny thing is that it’s not good in “tight” areas either. It’s too unwieldy because of the hard plastic and doesn’t form well enough to get the intimate curves of a man’s flesh.

On the opposite end there’s a scruffy sandpaper like side that is apparently used for buffing the rough edges on your body. I don’t know where the typical guy would use this, but I have scruffy elbows and tried using it on them. It feels like what you’d expect sand paper to feel on your body–like pain. It didn’t seem to do anything about my rough edges, because I still scratched Christine when I was elbowing her out of the way to get to the last piece of pie.

Recommendation: Might be useful to someone if you’ve never used the all powerful MESH POUF BATH SPONGE.

FYI – I’m on Twitter at: @shauntechguy. Followers receive benefits such as: The ability to read my tweets, a significant boost in self-confidence, weight loss, increased intelligence, and telekinesis!*

*Individual results may vary.

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Shaun, aka The Tech Guy, aka my boyfriend, is here with another must-read “manly” review. He’s twenty-seven with normal-to-dry skin and suffers from no more acne (much to my envy!).  After much brouhaha over AXE commercials, he decided to give it a try himself (I really think he was hoping for hilarity to report back with)–but let me tell you, I kept sneezing every time he wore this!  Not offensive necessarily but really got my allergies going.

Shaun enjoys long walks on the beach, vegging out on the couch watching chick flicks, and cuddling with Mellan. Or maybe not! He handles all the behind-the-scenes action here at Temptalia, from tech support to server woes to being my shoulder to cry on.

I’ve never been one of THOSE guys… You know, the club going, glittery shirt, spiky hair kind of guy? But I’ve heard a lot of negative stuff about AXE and its various products that are seemingly targeting THAT guy. So, being on the outside looking in… And I don’t mean the guy in the line outside of the club looking in… COME ON, I’VE BEEN WAITING OUT HERE FOR THREE HOURS! Ahem, I decided to give AXE Body Spray a try.

First, if you are a guy, you have to realize that this isn’t an antiperspirant.  It’s not going to stop you from sweating when you are cutting a rug and showing unsightly spots around the pit region of your brand new glittery Ed hardy shirt. As for the smell, I took a whiff of various models and picked one with the least offending odor. To me, it just smells like generic man smell. I couldn’t differentiate it with any other man body spray.

The usage is a bit odd. They tell you to spray six inches away from your body, and while this gives you full coverage it also sprays about half of it into the atmosphere causing a hole in the ozone layer directly above you. I think this is the reason why most guys who use this stuff end up turning a bright orange color.

If you don’t douse yourself in the stuff, it lingers for a decent amount of time and will cover any frosted tip or hair wax smell that you may be harboring. On the bottle it claims that there’s “citrus extract,” but a quick look at the ingredient list yields a list of words so foreign to the human eye that it might as well be in KLINGON! Star Trek reference! BOOYAH!

RECOMMENDATION: It’s not for me. I don’t think it’s a bad product, but I would rather have a deodorant that prevents sweating and doesn’t potentially blind me if I go too medieval with the spray can.

Just FYI, you can follow me on twitter @shauntechguy. If I ever decide to take over the world all of my twitter followers will be exempt from slave labor. Just keep that in mind.

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