The Key to Finding Luxury Grooming Products for Less
The renaissance of men’s grooming products has been swift, and with it comes a variety of both luxury and budget grooming products. Now that more and more men are embracing a much-needed grooming regimen, it’s important for a little bit of schooling on the matter, especially knowing how to find quality products and not splurging for something of little value.
At Johnny Slicks, we pride ourselves on our handcrafted, organic grooming products. We make our shampoo, conditioner, pomade, beard oil, etc. with only the finest ingredients and from our own lab, so you know that you are getting quality with every order. We do not outsource or drop-ship from overseas, rather, we deliberately source our ingredients from places that we trust and do everything else in-house. That cannot be said about most men’s grooming companies or their products. If you’re already convinced, hop over to our product pages and you can skip the rest of this blog post. If not, or if you already own our products and are simply curious as to what we have to say, read on.
What to Look for in Men’s Luxury Grooming Products
Marketing Tactics
When looking for men’s luxury grooming products, you’ll want to pay close attention to the terms found on the label and the ingredients contained in those products. Anyone can design a nice-looking product and market it as a luxury, but you’ll find real luxuriousness in the details, which mostly lay in the ingredients and the production process. Here are some common terms to look for: “handcrafted,” “locally sourced,” “free trade,” and other variants that show that the product has been made with care and not on a conveyor belt by a machine in a faraway country with ingredients produced in a lab.
The terms “natural” and “organic” are also helpful to see, but they can often be misleading. What’s natural to some may not be natural to others, and “organic” has become a meaningless buzzword for many companies – but not Johnny Slicks!
Readable Ingredients
In addition to how each product is marketed, including what companies are legally allowed to say about their products, you should always look at the list of ingredients. This will say more about the product than anything else can.
Men’s luxury grooming products should include these kinds of ingredients: beeswax, coconut oil, tea tree oils, argan oil, jojoba oil, aloe leaf juice, etc. If you read an ingredient and can easily pronounce it, that’s a good start. Identifying an ingredient as something you can find in nature is another indicator of quality. Some ingredients are less well known but do lend to a quality product, such as decyl glucoside, which is a mild cleanser derived from plants. Also, it’s generally a good thing if a men’s grooming product contains butter, e.g., cocoa or shea butter.
In summary, if you can tell that a product is locally sourced and handcrafted, and you can read the ingredient list with relative ease, you are on your way to identifying a men’s luxury grooming product. Many boutique grooming product producers will market and sell their products for much less than luxury prices, and in most cases, their products will be much higher quality, and better for your hair and skin, than what a “luxury brand” will sell theirs for.What to Avoid in Men’s Luxury Grooming Products
Now that you know what to look for, here are some things to avoid. Never buy a product just because it looks high-end. Many high-end products flaunt an expensive shell but are filled with cheap fillers. To avoid this, see where the product is sourced and what ingredients are used. Like we taught you in the last section, if you cannot easily process the ingredient list, the product probably isn’t worth buying. Here is a list of ingredients to avoid if you want a men’s luxury grooming product and not a worthless tub of water and preservatives:
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Parabens
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Triclosan
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Phthalates
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Sulfates
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Aluminum and other heavy metals
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Formaldehyde
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Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT)
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Coal tar dyes
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PEG compounds
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Siloxanes
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Plastic microbeads
If an ingredient doesn’t pass the sniff test, then it’s probably not something you want to rub into your skin every day. Therefore, you should not consider it a luxury product.
Conclusion
It’s always a great time to take hair and skincare seriously, especially for a man who may have been taught otherwise. For those looking for luxury grooming products but who don’t want to pay luxury prices, look to the ingredients and try something handcrafted. Johnny Slicks products will always outperform a drop-shipped product filled with preservatives that simply comes in a fancy box, and that’s a guarantee.
