The sole purpose of a men’s grooming kit is to make your life easier. Whether you’re doing the bare minimum for a hygiene routine, or you're a dude who owns multiple beard oils, organizing your grooming kid streamlines your routine so you can get out the door fresh and easy.
It also doesn’t matter whether work’s got you in a different city every week, or you’re a total homebody — the platonic ideal of a men’s grooming kit is particular to each man’s needs. Let’s get started on yours.
So, What’s a Grooming Kit?
Do you wash your face with dishwashing liquid or secretly revel in an elaborate skincare routine? Does your approach to body hair skew toward The Art of Shaving, or do you hit your nose trimmer once a year and call it a job well done? Okay, those were trick questions.
No matter where you fall on the styling spectrum, a grooming kit is relevant to your life, because — and hold on to your hats for this groundbreaking lesson — personal care is personal. Therefore, your grooming kit needs to hold a complete set of whatever you require to get yourself washed, trimmed, deodorized, moisturized, and generally decent-smelling and presentable.
The Best Men’s Grooming Kits Have Everything on This List
All right, we know we just made a big stink about personal care being as singular and many-faceted as you are, but there are some basics every man needs in his styling arsenal. We’ve run the numbers; these items are inarguable:
- Natural Deodorant: No explanation needed. Aluminum-free, as previously discussed.
- Nail clippers: We’re not saying you have to get into manicures (though we would not judge you if you did), but do you have toenails and fingernails? We’re positive, you do. Everyone needs nail clippers, and more importantly, you need to know where they are. There’s no excuse for keeping some kind of three-toed sloth situation hidden in your socks.
- Trimmer: More on this in a moment, but even if you’re a perma-bearded dude, you need one trimmer of some kind. Every beard eventually needs a touch-up.
- Tweezers: We’re sure the eyebrows you were born with are perfect. But what if you get a splinter? An ingrown hair? One long eyebrow hair snaking its way up to your forehead? The answer is tweezers.
- Shampoo: We know you know why you need this.
- Face wash: Look for a product without sulfates, which are detergent and dry out your skin. Or feel free to cheat and just sub in time-saving face wipes.
- Body wash: A body wash that both smells great and comes in a bottle that doesn't waste a bunch of plastic is a body wash that belongs in your grooming kit.
- Moisturizer: If you’re feeling ambitious, get different options for your face and body; otherwise, just make sure your face is covered.
- Sunscreen is the overlooked hero of every men’s grooming kit. Buy sunscreen, add to grooming kit, and stop cooking your skin. You can also cheat and combine the last two items with an all in one moisturizer and sunscreen.
- Butt wipes: If your face is clean, but your ass isn’t, what’s even the point?
A tip: if you're stunned by scent options, that's understandable. There are too many. When in doubt, consider sandalwood. Warm and, well, woody, nobody hates sandalwood.
Dealing With Facial Hair: The Wide World of Cordless and Rechargeable Clippers, Beard Trimmers, and Shavers
Even if you don’t give a second of thought to manscaping, you can’t escape dealing with some kind of body hair. Scrunch up your nose and observe how far your nose hair sticks out. Now turn sideways and check out your ear hair situation. Does your beard need a date with the detail trimmer? What's happening on the top of your head? Enter the world of cordless, rechargeable, and hopefully, all in one clippers-shavers-trimmers.
Sorting through options on Amazon is a labyrinth of 20-piece stainless steel devices. Here are some tried-and-true gadgets to make detailing those edges easy:
Philips Norelco Nose trimmer 5000, $20: This lithium-ion powered precision trimmer comes with components for dealing with nose hair, ear hair, and eyebrows. The whole kit usually costs less than twenty bucks.
Braun Beard Trimmer BT7240, $70: A true all in one with clippers for your hair, beard trimmers in a variety of lengths, and it even comes with a razor.
Remington Beard Boss Full Beard Grooming Kit, $45: Besides the full scope of beard trimmers and hair clippers, this grooming kit unto itself comes with scissors, for the adventurous guy who can handle his haircuts.
Avoiding Water-Related Electric Shaver and Hair Trimmer Catastrophes
A couple of power clipper tips to keep you from being electrocuted:
- If the only outlet in your bathroom is in a weird location, like the far side of the tub, go for cordless. Most trimmers and clippers are either rechargeable or battery-powered these days. Just plug yours in elsewhere in your house when it needs some juice, and don’t forget to empty it before you do that.
- This should go without saying, but whatever gadget you go with, please keep your trimmer/shaver/clipper stored in your grooming kit somewhere reasonably waterproof. Lithium-ion batteries, charging cords, and splashing at your sink are a bad combo.
But I Already Have a Beard Grooming Kit
That’s awesome. If you’re a man with an organized arsenal of beard oil, shaving brushes, aftershave, and so on, you are a facial hair expert, and we salute you. Feel free to combine kits or admire your two separate neat and complete parcels of personal care stashed under your bathroom sink.
Speaking of neat, now we come to the sexy topic of grooming kit organization.
Men’s Grooming Kit Storage and Travel
There are no hard and fast rules in terms of storing your grooming kit. For some guys, a designated shelf not to be invaded by anyone else’s personal care suffices. For others, a Dopp kit holding everything together works better.
That said, since the whole point of a grooming kit is to make your personal care routine not a total pain in the ass, some version of everything you use should fit in its own travel case. Whatever hygiene rules apply at home also applies in the Caribbean.
To meet TSA travel regulations, find your favorite products in travel size or pick up those little plastic travel bottles that are usually next to the rest of the travel-sized personal care at your local drugstore.
To take this scaled-down grooming kit to the next level, label those little bottles with a waterproof pen. Seriously. There’ll be leftover bits in every one of them, and you won’t remember what’s what whenever the next vacation rolls around. Trying to identify your shampoo, conditioner, body wash, beard oil, etc. is nobody’s idea of a cool challenge.
Final tip — if you’re traveling overseas, your grooming kit needs whatever adapter fits the outlets in your destination. Eventually, you’ll need to trim your stubble, and being prepared is a lot easier than trying to find the right plug in a foreign country.
All right dude, now your grooming kit's complete. We hope you're feeling as good as you look.
