Hi Elizabeth,

> As a hobby I make my own creams for personal
> use. My husband has recently become quite a
> fan and likes the citrus based and
> sandalwood scented ones. Prior to using
> these creams, he used to use the store
> bought after shaving creams. Now he's really
> hooked on the creams as they've all got
> ingredients that are natural and you can
> really add a lot of exotic oils to these
> creams depending on your skin type. They are
> not by any means 'cheap' to produce.

Elizabeth, I think creams and lotions - if you can make them - can be potentially very lucrative. The main benefit is that these are "repeat purchase" products. If you have a customer who likes your product, they'll buy from you again and again! You don't just sell something once, but it becomes a continuous stream of income.

I can't help much with your questions, because I've got a beard and just use a beard-trimmer to keep it neat. :) But when I've shaved in the past, I didn't use moisturizer.

In general though, I think men are using more moisturizer and other similar products nowadays than they used to.

I have quite dry skin, and when I was a teenager I used to wash my face with normal soap. Unfortunately, I found this made the skin around my nose peel due to dryness - it looked pretty awful, like some kind of terrible skin disease. My mother suggested moisturizer as a solution, and it worked. So I would wash my face with soap, then put moisturizer on my nose, and the skin stopped peeling - I looked normal again. Nowadays, I use a moisturizing soap to get the same effect. However, this is specific to me, because I seem to have quite dry skin in general.

Good luck with your business, Elizabeth! I think you're probably getting into a potentially very lucrative area, because of the repeat-purchase nature of the business. :)

- Dien Rice