How Do You Clean Glass Surfaces using Shaving Cream?

Streak-free glass has troubled professionals and amateur cleaners for a long time. Companies release various new formulations of their products and promise to finally provide us with a perfect shine. Do shaving creams cleanse glass? Have we been doing this the wrong way since the invention of shaving cream in 1919?

How It Works

In reality, there isn't anything to consider here. Let's try it.

Spray a decent-sized blob of shaving cream onto a towel that is clean. Make sure to rub the shaving cream on the glass surface like the oven's door, microwave door, or bathroom mirror.

It appears a bit unclean; however, we're advised that we should "trust the process." After an unspecified period of time, the shaving cream rubs away, leaving the glass clean and sparkling.

Does It Work?

We have tried this method, and yes, it works. There are two mirrors on the vanity inside the bathroom. So we washed one with shaving cream and the other one using Windex.

The mirrors are identically sparkling; however, shaving cream was three times longer. It also was a mess. While we scrubbed and cleaned the shaving cream off the glass, small chunks threatened to fall onto the mirror. Sometimes, they did succeed in the end, particularly when we reached near the edges of my mirror.

It smelled good as we worked, and it was clean exactly as it promised. Is it really worth our time? No.

What the Pro Says

Shaving cream is a great cleanser for glass since soap, water, and alcohol constitute the majority of both items. Shaving creams also have moisturizing agents, such as Glycerine. (Fun facts: Glycerine is the secret ingredient in the bubble juice.)

Glycerine holds the water on the mirror, allowing it to stay moister, and also helps the soap adhere to the mirror when you scrub and polish.

Although shaving cream is able to remove dirt from glass, there's still an enormous gap between if you do it and how you should perform this.

• It's messy. (We have proof of this.)
• It will leave streaks when you're not working quickly.
• This surely is more expensive than dish soap or glass cleaner.
• Cleaning glass using shaving cream is a lot of work and costs more. What is the reason we are repeating this?

Better Ways to Clean Glass

If you're looking to clean glass at a reasonable cost, expert window cleaners will advise you all you require and the addition of a few drops of dish soap, a little water and a Squeegee. An ounce of dish soap is about the price of 5 cents and creates five gallons worth of window washing fluid. Why should you ever buy a $2 can of shaving cream?

Shaving cream residues contain antifogging qualities as they reduce the water's surface tension. The surface tension causes water to splatter onto the glass, which is the reason we aren't able to be able to see clearly through a foggy windshield.

If you wash your mirror in your bathroom using shaving cream, you can be sure it doesn't get clogged up when you're bathing. (Fun fact: Car wax can prevent your bathroom mirror from getting clogged up.) But, an antifog solution such as Rain-X can last for weeks with each application, which makes it cheaper than shaving lotion. For a window cleaner for commercial use that is fast and clear, we recommend Invisible Glass.

What's the bottom line? Shaving cream is only a last resort and not the first choice. If you're running out of Window cleaner and Rain-X and you're really looking to defog and clean your mirror at the moment -and you've got a bottle of Barbasol stored away, it's a good choice for the trick in an emergency.