Daily Archives: Sat 15 Sep, 2012 at 6:40:39 AM PDT

Taylor of Old Bond Street – Jermyn Street soap

15 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by in British, Soap, Taylor of Old Bond Street

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I have been saying for quite some time that Taylor of Old Bond Street’s Jermyn Collection soap is my favourite soap of them all. After re-visiting it for this review, however, I can’t really say that’s still the case. TOBS touts the scent as:

A modern fresh fougere fragrance with bergamot, lemon, lime and lavender supported by a heart of geranium, neroli and amber resting on a substantive base of musk, patchouli and vanilla.

And I will say now, that this is still by a decent margin the most pleasant scent that I’ve found in a shaving soap/cream. It’s still the only one of which I’ve felt the need to purchase the corresponding cologne. It’s a complex, sophisticated, manly scent, that I absolutely adore, and would utterly fail if I were to attempt to describe it. TOBS’s description certainly sounds on the mark.

But, that’s the soap itself. Unfortunately, it doesn’t transfer well to the lather. It’s extremely weakly scented on the brush, let alone when spread over the face. Even the lather left behind on the puck itself after loading your brush manages to smother the scent of the pure soap.

As for the lather performance, other than smothering the lovely scent, it does a great job of acting as a shave soap. It builds up nice and thick, and lets your razor glide like a dream.

Overall, well, that’s tough to say. I think this is a case where it’s either rather low, or still rather high, but definitely not middling. I’m going to default to rather high, because I do still rather enjoy shaving with it. 9/10. Especially recommended if you have sensitive skin, as that’s what the Jermyn Street collection was designed for. When I run out, however, I’ll probably be trying out the cream next!

  • Cost: A 100g puck can be had for $16.95 on its own, or $39.95 with the black wooden bowl pictured above. In retrospect, I’m not sure I’d pay bloody $23 for the bowl, but it was one of my first shave soap purchases and I wanted at least one nice bowl. But now-a-days, you may have noticed I just use an array of wide-mouthed mason jars. This will just be what I leave out for when company comes! And I’ll hope that they don’t look at the absolute disaster of piles of soap jars and tubs under the sink.

Gear used:

Ingredients: Potassium palmate, sodium palmate, potassium palm kernelate, sodium palm kernelate, glycerin, aqua, parfum, palm kernel fatty acid, sodium chloride, prunus amygdallus dulcis oil, allantoin, pentasodium pentate, tetrasodium etidronate, titanium dioxide.