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The Gnarly Whale: All-Natural Unisex Beauty Products You’ll Both Love

If your bathroom is anything like mine, you probably have a shower stuffed with beauty and hair products — and a medicine cabinet and drawer or closet filled with them, too. There’s men’s aftershave, shampoos and conditioners for all types of hair situations, lip balms, face washes, detanglers, gels, face washes, and just, well, everything. Who can feel me on this?

I’ll admit, most of them are mine — not my husband’s. So when I got a pitch to try The Gnarly Whale, a line of all-natural and vegan beauty products that are designed for men and women, I immediately thought: Hey, that would be fun for Fit Bottomed Dudes’ Week! Because not only am I looking to sub out a lot of our usual beauty products with more natural versions but also the idea of unisex beauty products that we BOTH can use and love is super appealing. Less clutter and less stuff around, which equals more space. Yay!

unisex-beauty-products

Over the last few months Ryan and I have tried a bunch of The Gnarly Whale unisex beauty products in all kinds of different scents: lip balm, face and body scrubs, shampoo and this cool spray that gives your hair all kinds of body and waves. Although Ryan wasn’t nearly as pumped at the new unisex beauty products as I was, he did give them a go.

The Gnarly Whale Lip Balms Review

For The Gnarly Whale lip balms ($3.50), he wasn’t a huge fan, but then again, Ryan probably “needs” lip balm once or twice a year, so this wasn’t a huge surprise. I, on the other hand, am a bit of a lip-balm addict, and I really, really liked the Champagne flavor. Made from scratch with simple ingredients like coconut oil, mango butter and grapefruit seed extra, they’re super moisturizing and give just a tiny bit of sheen when on. I also tried the Pumpkin Cheesecake flavor — way too sweet and fruity for me, but if you’re into beauty products that smell good enough to eat, you will love it.

The Gnarly Whale Face & Body Scrubs Review

Made for the face and the body, we both found the exfoliating sugar scrubs ($10) to be totally refreshing — especially the Peppermint scrub. Made of actual sugar, olive oil, organic blue agave and essential oils, these have actual big grains of sugar that help you smooth out rough or dry skin. Dye- and fragrance-free, we both found that these were gentle on the skin (as long as you didn’t rub too hard) but were still tough enough to really clear pores and shed dead skin. I probably use this one more than Ryan, but he tries to use either the Peppermint or the Lemongrass on his face at least once a week or so to deep clean. Also, since there is sugar in these, they actually are sweet — I know because apparently I can’t do a scrub on my face without trying to eat it.

The Gnarly Whale Shampoo Review

Of all the The Gnarly Whale unisex beauty products we tried, the shampoo ($17 for 8 ounces) was probably my least favorite — but also the one Ryan used the most. So there you go. The scents we tried — Cranberry Fig (a little more “girlie”) and Eucalyptus Spearmint (more masculine) — definitely smelled super great, and I loved that the ingredient list wasn’t a mile long. Although you were only supposed to use a small amount to suds up, I just never found that they lathered up that well. Despite the lack of lather though, I did feel that these cleaned my hair well. Maybe too well. My hair tends to get pretty dry and this shampoo didn’t help to moisturize it at all — I really wish they had a conditioner. Ryan tends to have oilier hair than me, though, so although he also wanted a little more lather, he was okay with the amount of moisture in the shampoo. Different hair strokes for different folks!

The Gnarly Whale Beach Waves Review

Okay, so Ryan didn’t try this one at all, but I did! I have naturally wavy hair and am always looking for something good to help separate my curls and waves and cut back on frizz, and the Beach Waves ($12 for 8 ounces) did pretty well — especially on days that I conditioned my hair deeply or used Beach Waves in conjunction with a little Moroccan oil. In yummy flavors like Pumpkin and Thai Coconut it definitely added a fun scent to my usual hair routine, and the sea salt and coconut oil in the spray did help tame my curls and — as The Gnarly Whale bottle says — “rock those waves.”

Do you and your loved one share any unisex beauty products? —Jenn

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