Dear Gil Pritchard:

As CEO of Avalon Natural Products, you are positioned to pass my thanks to the appropriate vice president, management, and marketing teams.

From my ankles and all the way up, thank you for correctly executing on the single one thing that all the other shave cream and foam manufacturers have gotten entirely, stupefyingly wrong.

You and the Alba Botanicals team put the shave cream in a plastic tube.

Yes! Thank you! At last! For years I've wondered why it has never occurred to Gillette or Colgate or SC Johnson to follow this simple train of thought, as you clearly did:

Our Heroes: Where do women shave?
Chorus: In the shower.

Our Heroes: Is it dry in the shower or is it wet?
Chorus: It is wet.

Our Heroes: How do we package our shave cream?
Chorus: In metal cans, in cans with metal rings.

Our Heroes: What happens to our packaging in the shower?
Chorus: It rusts. Vile, it rusts.

Our Heroes: Do women like touching nasty, rusty, flaking metal things in the shower? Do women enjoy squeezing things onto themselves out of rusty cans?
Chorus: No, they do not.

There's so much to love about your packaging. It has endeared itself to me in its admonishment that the product is best used sparingly. Not only are you a green company, but you know the value of a penny, and best and most honorably of all, you didn't ask a copywriter to lie for you and say that we need to generously lather when we really don't.

Thank you so much for my rust-free shower. (Thank you also for the shave cream itself, which performs as promised as so few things do. Though I am not sure why the mango vanilla delivers for me a smoother finish than does the coconut lime.)

I wish you much continued brand success and business relationships that you can be proud of. I hope that all the Alba people are rewarded for these great products with workdays where they know that their contribution is valued and where they enjoy the company of those they work with.

Bravo Alba and thank you!

Sincerely,
Ann Elizabeth


Shaving Links and Bonus Track:
Alba Botanica
A history of shaving from QuikShave (Sandpaper?!)
The Symbolic Nature of Feminine Body Hair
"Rust" by Echo and the Bunnymen