The Shave Den – Coconut Lime Verbena shaving soap

Tags

6/10, citrus, coconut, Fruit, Glycerin, Lime, shaving soap, the shave den, verbena

The Shave Den’s Coconut Lime Verbena is a nice sweet fruity concoction. There is just enough coconut to give the sweetness to the scent, without it overpowering the citrus of the lime and the verbena. It’s a crisp pleasant scent.

Strength-wise, it’s following what I’ve mostly seen from the Shave Den, strong enough when sniffing the soap directly, but only weakly detectable in the lather itself. Of course, anyone who’s been reading my reviews with any regularity will know that this is by far my most common complaint with shave soaps of all types.

I’ve been yo-yoing back and forth between a 7/10 and 8/10 for lather quality on the Shave Den soaps, and on this one we’re back up to 8/10. I think the key, at least for us bowl-latherers, is to load a whole lot on the brush, and then load some more. Then add the water needed fairly gradually. It’s easy to over-shoot the amount of water required, but it definitely needs it in order to get sufficient glide. Also, for those who use a scuttle, if you’re not adding enough water, the lather will certainly be breaking down far too rapidly between passes. Anyways, one thing to take away from the Yo-yoing is that it can be tricky to get right.

• 9/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 7/10 Scent Strength
• 7/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

Overall, this is a 6/10. Definitely a good enough shave, but the scent needs more punch.

• Cost: A one ounce sample goes for $2.50, or $6.99 for a full 4 ounce puck (an extra $2 if you want a tub with it).

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Lord Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Glycerin, Aqua, Olive Oil, Bentonite Clay, Sodium Borate, Sweet Almond Oil, Sodium Palmate, Sorbitol, Sodium Cocoate, Palm Acid, Coconut Acid, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate, and fragrance.

Queen Charlotte shaving soap

Tags

6/10, floral, Queen Charlotte Soaps, shaving soap, wood

Our next offering is Queen Charlotte Soaps’ namesake scent. Since “Queen Charlotte” isn’t all that descriptive, we’ll start off with what they have to say about it:

A heavenly scent made from only the most rare absolutes and essential oils, Queen Charlotte starts with sweet top notes. As the scent grows, delicate floral notes come through. We have added just the right amount of earthy and woody notes to complete this exquisite scent.

This seems like a fairly accurate description. Sweet florals and woodsy undertones. It’s a very nice combination. And once again, one that I wish I could make out easier. It was a better than what I’ve seen from their Green Irish Tweed and the Key Lime, as at least I could make out a faint scent of the lather while shaving, but I do mean faint.

It’s definitely not a very thirsty soap; other than what was on the brush while loading, I found I only needed to add the tiniest bit of water to get the lather to a quite reasonable amount of glide, while staying quite thick. It made for a nice shave.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 6/10 Scent Strength
• 7/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

Overall, I give it a 6/10. Good shave, but again, there’s other soaps out there that give great shaves and deliver with the scent. I’ve got an order in for some of their creams, hopefully they pack a bit more punch.

• Cost: I paid $2.85 for a quarter ounce sample. A full sized puck starts at $17, a plus $7 if you want a wooden bowl or $2.50 for a plastic tub.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Lord Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Saponified tallow, water, saponified castor oil and shea butter, glycerin, saponified stearic acid, cocoa butter, and coconut oil, essential oil(s), saponified avocado oil, palm oil, and olive oil, aloe vera extract, kaolin clay, lanolin, vitamin E.

Geo F. Trumper – Violet shaving cream

Tags

4/10, floral, Geo F Trumper, shaving cream, violet

I found Geo F Trumper’s violet cream to be really lacking in slickness. To the point that upon my initial pass, having lathered it up to what usually works quite well for a consistency from most soaps, the razor was “skipping” across my cheek. More and more water eventually managed to wrest something usable out of it, but at the cost of what I consider to be an unacceptable degradation in lather thickness. All in all, it gave what I would consider to be a mediocre shave. And yes, if you’re keeping track, I do think this problem was worse than what I encountered with my last Trumper’s cream review.

The scent is, well, violets. Sweet and floral, I do kinda like it, although I recognize that there’s a lot of guys out there who would consider it to be far too feminine of a scent. As I said, I kind of like it, but I’ll give it a few bonus points for truth in advertising; if you’re looking for something that smells like violets, this smells like violets, and I can’t really ding it just based upon the fact that I’m not ecstatic about the aroma of violets.

But, as for the strength of the scent, it’s middling. As per usual, it’s quite strong in the pot, but when lathered up it loses a lot of its potency. It’s still there during the shave, but only just so.

• 9/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 7/10 Scent Strength
• 4/10 Quality of Lather (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

So, overall, I’d say it’s a 4/10. The shave was sub-standard, and the scent isn’t good enough / potent enough to rescue it.

• Cost: I got the sample shown free along with one of my purchases to Italianbarber.com, as Joe often does with reasonably sized orders. A 200g pot goes for $29.99 and a 75g travel tube is $17.95.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor:Edwin Jagger DE81BL (Red)
• Blade: Lord Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Aqua (water), Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Acid, Glycerin, Parum (fragrance), Triethanolamine, Sodium Hydroxide, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, CI 19140 (FD&C Red 33), CI 42090 (FD&C Blue 1), Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Citronellol, Eugenol, Hexyl Cinnamal, Hydroxycitronellal, Butylphenyl Methylpropional

Man Cave Soapworks – Black Tea and Leather shave gel

Tags

5/10, leather, Man Cave Soapworks, non-lathering, shaving gel, spice, tea

Today’s review, by request, is Black Tea and Leather shave gel from Mancave Soapworks. T’is the first non-lathering gel I’ll reviewed thus far, and when I say non-lathering, I don’t mean “doesn’t lather well without a lot of water, but once you get that right lathers up quite nicely” like some other creams designed to be used brushless, I mean “doesn’t do anything whatsoever when a brush and water is used upon it.”

Needless to say, the shave performance is rather different from most. I will say it provides an extremely slick glide. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of having virtually no cushioning, not only being a gel but a relatively thin one.

Which isn’t to say that it gave a completely terrible shave, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for anyone remotely new to the whole wetshaving scene. Those a bit more experienced should be able to judge to what extent they rely upon the cushioning of their usual soap or cream.

As to be expected, you will also be using a lot more of the product on a daily basis than your average cream or soap. I ended up going through about 15 g of the stuff during the course of a 3 pass shave, and that was with laying it on relatively thinly. Thus I’d only expect to get about 8 shaves out of each jar.

The scent is a nice spicy concoction, the black tea being quite evident, with the leathery scent providing a nice base. All in all, it’s an overtly manly scent. Strength-wise, it’s fairly strong, quite noticeable throughout the shave (at least it avoids the problem that a lot of soaps have with the lathering process killing off their aroma).

• 9/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 9/10 Scent Strength
• 4/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

Overall, I’d give it a 5/10. The scent delivers, but the shave isn’t all that good. Personally, I’d just go with the aftershave balm in the same scent instead.

• Cost: The 4 oz jar goes for $8.

Gear used:

• Razor: Edwin Jagger DE81BL (Red)
• Blade: Lord Super Stainless

Ingredients: Aqua, alcohol, glycerin, polysorbate, carbomer, triethamine, methylparaben, propylparaben, fragrance, aloe gel, aloe oil.

Kell’s Original Hemp Blend Shaving Soap – Energy

Tags

9/10, blackberry, champagne, citrus, cucumber, energy, Fruit, Glycerin, grapefruit, Jasmine, kell's original, lemon, Lime, pineapple, shaving soap

Kell’s Original rather clearly based the scent of their “energy” soap upon the fragrance oil of the same name available from Brambleberry.com (as they appear to have done so with a number of their other scents as well). After all, they use the exact same description for the scent:

A stimulating blend of Citrus, including Grapefruit, Lemon and Lime, with hints of fresh Cucumber and Jasmine, and a touch of Pineapple, Blackberry and Champagne. Energy is an exciting mix that’s perfect for spring and summer.

That having been said, I can see why they didn’t want to mess with a formula that works. This is an absolutely wonderful scent. I can see why they call it energy, as it’s almost a bit of a pick-me-up in soap form, sniffing it seems to invigorate. It’s fruity and citrusy and sweet.

Strength-wise, we’re talking just shy of perfect. The soap itself is very strongly scented, and the lather doesn’t disappoint. It stays fairly strong throughout the shave.

The lather itself was also quite nice. It was a fairly thirsty soap, but absorbed the extra water while staying nice and thick, ensuring a slick glide in the process. It was also fairly voluminous in the amount produced. Left the face feeling quite nice.

• 10/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 9/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

9/10, and I think this might be in the current running for 2nd favourite soap to date. Well worth a shot. Also available with aloe, although I haven’t tried that formulation.

• Cost: The sample puck used was $2 for 1 oz, also available are 2.7 oz cakes for $5.25, 4oz in a tin for $8, or a 2.5 oz shave stick for $9.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Hemp blend ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Olive Oil (Grade A extra virgin), Safflower Oil, Glycerine (vegetable origin), Hemp Seed Oil (unrefined), Purified Water, Sodium Hydroxide (saponifying agent), Sorbitol (moisturizer), Sorbitan oleate (emulsifer), Soy bean protein (conditioner), Wheat Protein (conditioner)

Mama Bear Soaps – Toasted Coconut

Tags

7/10, coconut, Fruit, Glycerin, Mama Bear Soaps

Mama Bear’s Toasted Coconut scent is a pleasant coconut aroma, that avoids being overtly sweet, unlike a lot of the coconut scents out there. Which isn’t to say that I inherently like the less sweet versus the sweetness better mind you, but it’s a nice change of pace.

Strength-wise it’s ok. It’s not terribly strong either when lathered on the face, or just the soap itself, however it’s still noticeable while shaving, without significant fading, just not strongly so.

As for the lather, here’s the Mama Bear boilerplate review: Lathers up nice and thick to begin with; be sure to add a decent amount of water to get enough glide, but not too quickly as it’s easy to over-shoot the mark and be left with something too runny; if you’re using a scuttle, the heat will cause the lather to break down between passes, but a few extra drops of water and a quick stir will fix that up nicely. Gives a perfectly nice shave.

• 9/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 8/10 Scent Strength
• 7/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

7/10 overall. I’d say it’s worth a sample. And…. I just noticed it’s currently unavailable on the website. Hmmm. How embarrassing. However, their Facebook page specifically mentioned yesterday how they were whipping up some more Toasted Coconut, so I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that’ll be fixed up shortly.

• Cost: When I bought it, the samples were a dollar. Likely will be again. Not sure what the cost of the full tubs or the mug soaps would be.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Castor Oil, Safflower, Glycerine (kosher, of vegetable origin), Purified Water, Sodium Hydroxide (saponifying agent), Sorbitol (moisturizer), Sorbitan oleate (emulsifier), Soybean protein (conditioner), Wheat protein and fragrance either natural or synthetic.

Truefitt and Hill – 1805 shaving cream

Tags

8/10, citrus, cologne, floral, shaving cream, truefitt and hill, wood

I finally got around to cracking open the first sampler from Truefitt and Hill, the third of the “big Ts” of British shavery (alongside Taylor of Old Bond Street and Geo F. Trumpers). And I must say, I’m rather impressed; I might end up not being quite as much of a TOBS fanboy.

The scent is a sweet floral and citrus concoction (accent on the florals) with a little bit of a woodsy aroma thrown in (I see it described most other places as “Oceanic”. Frankly, I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, doesn’t really smell like any ocean I’ve sailed upon, but hey, sometimes terminology is weird). Named after the year the company was founded, it’s apparently their best selling fragrance. Personally, I really quite liked it, although the girlfriend though it was too flowery (so I guess I won’t end up getting the cologne).

Strength-wise, it was pretty good. The cream itself is quite strongly scented, although it gets muted somewhat once lathered. When applied to the face, it initially comes on quite strong, however rather quickly fades to something that’s weak but noticeable.

As for the performance of the cream, it’s definitely quite nice. It lathers up to a quite thick luxurious cream, while being reasonably slick. Not too much water is needed, so be careful not to over-do it. It left the face feeling quite nice afterwards.

• 10/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 8/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

Overall, I give it a 8/10. Great shave, nice scent, probably woulda given it a 9 if it was a bit stronger.

• Cost: $10.50 for a sample pack of 14 of their shaving creams, aftershave balms, and the pre-shave oil. Another 9 bucks gets you a sample of each of their colognes as well. $30 for a 190g tub of the cream, or $22 for a 75g tube.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Aqua, Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Acid, Glycerin, Parfum, Triethanolamine, Sodium Hydroxide, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Limonene, Linalool, Hydroxyisohexyl 3-cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, Benzyl salicylate, Eugenol, Citronellol, Geraniol

Mike’s Natural Soaps – Pine & Cedarwood

Tags

8/10, cedar, Mike's Natural Soaps, pine, shaving soap, wood

For my 2nd review of Mike’s Natural Soaps, I’ve got his Pine / Cedarwood scent.

The shave itself was still quite quite nice, although I didn’t have I didn’t have quite as much luck as last time getting the perfect blend of lather slickness and thickness. It was still great, mind you, just not absolutely wonderful. As the last time though, it definitely needed a fair bit more water than most, maybe I just ended up giving it a bit too much.

The scent was, well, spot on. It’s a fine recreation of pine and cedar-wood (as to be expecting, since it’s made from the essential oils of those two woods), with the pine dominant. It’s nice enough but not really something that I think I’ll find myself turning to all that often. A bit too raw I guess, I think it would have been better tempered with some other scents (I suspect I’ll like their Orange, Cedarwood, and Black Pepper scent better when I get around to reviewing it). That having been said, I’ll give it a couple bonus points for accuracy; if you’re looking for just a woodsy smell, this’ll do the trick.

Strength-wise, it came on strong enough when first applied to the face, but mostly faded after about 10 seconds.

• 9/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 7/10 Scent Strength
• 9/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

If you’re looking for something woodsy, this is worth a shot. 8/10.

• Cost: $8.00 for a 4 ounce bar, $1.00 for a half ounce sample.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Feather Hi-Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Distilled water; saponified tallow and stearic acid; vegetable glycerin; saponified kokum butter, avocado oil, and shea butter; lanolin, essential oils; saponified coconut oil;  kaolin clay, vitamin E.

The Shave Den – Mojito soap

Tags

6/10, citrus, Glycerin, Lime, mint, shaving soap, the shave den

The Shave Den’s Mojito scent is a nice sweet minty concoction, or in their own words “lime and spearmint blend, inspired by the Cuban cocktail of the same name”. As I’ve only had one Mojito in my life, I can’t really recall how well it might match, but it smells pleasant enough for sure.
Strength-wise, I’m detecting a trend. It’s strong enough when smelling the little cake of soap itself, but it doesn’t follow to the lather. It’s a bit better than previous two I’ve tried, but still not good enough. It’s faintly detectable for most of the shave, fading to nothing near the end of each pass.

On this one, I wasn’t quite able to get enough glide, but not quite as much as I would have liked, or at least not without also adding too much water for it to not become too runny and thin to provide sufficient cushioning. It seemed like too much of an either / or choice with lubrication or thickness of lather. There might be a “sweet spot”, but it isn’t wide enough to hit easily.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 7/10 Scent Strength
• 6/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

Overall, it gets a 6/10. Not a great shave, and the scent doesn’t add enough to the experience to make up for it. And now off to this year’s Remembrance Day ceremony.

• Cost: A one ounce sample goes for $2.50, or $6.99 for a full 4 ounce puck (an extra $2 if you want a tub with it).

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Edwin Jagger DE81BL (Red)
• Blade: Lord Platinum
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Glycerin, Aqua, Olive Oil, Bentonite Clay, Sodium Borate, Sweet Almond Oil, Sodium Palmate, Sorbitol, Sodium Cocoate, Palm Acid, Coconut Acid, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate, and fragrance.

Mama Bear Soaps – British Leather

Tags

6/10, cedarwood, citrus, cologne, floral, Glycerin, leather, Mama Bear Soaps, musk, Rose, shaving soap, vanilla, vetiver, wood

Mama Bear’s British Leather is, from what I can recall, a fairly decent re-creation of English Leather, the classic cologne scent (it’s been a while since I’ve smelled that). As per usual, my nose isn’t up to picking out unique scents amongst an aroma this complex, but they say that it is a “mix of bergamot, lemon, orange with notes or rose, honey, orris and ferns” with base notes of “cedarwood, leather, vetiver, musk and vanilla.” I see no reason not to believe them there. It’s a reasonably nice scent, and I’d bump it up a couple points if you’re a big fan of the cologne.

Strength-wise it doesn’t really cut it though. It’s easy to pick out when smelling the soap itself, but when lathered up and applied to the face, there’s pretty much nothing.

As for the lather, here’s the Mama Bear boilerplate review: Lathers up nice and thick to begin with; be sure to add a decent amount of water to get enough glide, but not too quickly as it’s easy to over-shoot the mark and be left with something too runny; if you’re using a scuttle, the heat will cause the lather to break down between passes, but a few extra drops of water and a quick stir will fix that up nicely. Gives a perfectly nice shave.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 6/10 Scent Strength
• 7/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

6/10 overall. The scent really isn’t strong enough to enhance the shaving experience.

• Cost: $9.99 for a bowl worth. For some reason the samples aren’t currently available, although I suspect that’s an oversight that will be rectified once they get back from vacation in a few days.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Edwin Jagger DE81BL (Red)
• Blade: Lord Platinum
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Castor Oil, Safflower, Glycerine (kosher, of vegetable origin), Purified Water, Sodium Hydroxide (saponifying agent), Sorbitol (moisturizer), Sorbitan oleate (emulsifier), Soybean protein (conditioner), Wheat protein and fragrance either natural or synthetic.