La Toja shaving cream

Tags

7/10, cologne, La Toja, leather, shaving cream, smoke, wood

It’s time to cross the pond once again, this time for a product from Spain; La Toja shaving cream.

This cream seemed to like a fair amount of water, however I did over-do it at one point, so just be sure to add it in gradually while you’re building it up. It resulted in a lather that had a really good balance of thickness and glide, with a fairly wide sweet spot that would allow you a bit of adjustment to your liking. I didn’t really notice anything good or bad about it moisturization wise.

The scent was rather masculine; rather hard to describe, to my untrained nose I’d say it’s mostly leather notes I think, with some smokey / woody aspects, and perhaps some musk? Not too spicy, although maybe there’s a bit there. Doing some searching, it seems like most others also have trouble pinning down exactly what it is they’re smelling! Anyways, it was reasonably pleasant.

Not very strong however. It started off at what I would say is middling strength, but started fading swiftly thereafter, and didn’t stop until pretty much all scent was gone by the time I finished my pass.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 6/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality

Overall, I believe I’ll be rounding this one up to a 7/10. It performs decently in most respects, but there’s nothing I’d consider outstanding about it.

• Cost: While I normally don’t list sale prices, it seems Italian Barber might have this one on a semi-permanent sale price of $6.99 (from the original $9.99) for a 150g tube, since it’s still on for that price 9 months after I first ordered it. If anyone noticed the price going back up to the “regular”, let me know and I’ll fix this entry.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless

Ingredients: Aqua, Potassium Stearate, Potassium Palmitate, Glycerin, Potassium Cocoate, Sodium Stearate, Sodium Palmitate, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Lactate, Palmitic Acid, Stearic Acid, Parfum, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Myristyl Sulfate, Mineral Salts, Sodium Cetyl Sulfate, Laureth 10, Sodium Stearyl Sulfate, Sodium Sulfate, Sodium Chloride, Coumarin, Limonene, Linalool, Butylphenyl Methylpropional

Al’s Shaving Products – Sapone da Barba Al’s Private Stock

Tags

8/10, Al's Shaving Products, cedarwood, floral, geranium, Rose, sandalwood, shaving cream, wood

So, it looks like Al’s shaving products has released a shaving soap. To kick off the review, let’s have a look at what Al has to say about the scent:

Al’s Private Stock is a mix of strong floral notes of geranium and rose otto supported by West Indian sandalwood and cedarwood in the background.

The florals are far more prevalent to my nose than the woody notes are. For those of you familiar with Al’s shaving creams, you should be aware of how his creams tend to smell very different when lathered versus unlathered; that’s not the case for the Sapone da Barba; what you sniff is what you get. All in all I thought it was fairly pleasant, and reasonably strong, without any fading that I noticed.

The lather is produces is damned good stuff, as I would expect for one of Al’s products. While overall I think I slightly prefer the performance of his creams, this did still produce a cream with a good balance of glide and thickness (ending up just a tad thinner than the cream when enough water is added to get the lubrication needed, from what I can tell), and some decent moisturization properties to boot.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 9/10 Scent Strength
• 9/10 Quality of Lather

All in all, I’ll call this one a rather solid 8/10.

• Cost: This sample was free from a kindly redditor (probably the same fellow who supplied the sample for this review over at The Close Shave) who wanted to see what I thought. To actually purchase some, it’ll run you $25 for a tin.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Gillette NEW Ball-handle
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: No full listing is available, but Al has this to say: “Made with coconut oil and salts of long and medium chain fatty acids for the creamiest lather in addition to water, glycerin and botanical essential oils.”

Six Shooter Shaving – Classic (Lime) shaving cream

Tags

7/10, citrus, Lime, menthol, shaving cream, Six Shooter Shaving

You might be familiar with Six Shooter Shaving’s brushes, where the knot is attached to a handle that’s made up to look like the cylinder of a revolver, complete with the primer of 6 bullets attached (presumably gun-powder free). They’ve also got some DE razors with handles made up to look like the muzzle of a rifle. And, they also make a shaving cream.

It’s a lime scented cream, with a bit of a kick of menthol for the cooling sensation. It’s scented with lime essential oil, so it avoids that chemically/cleanser scent you get from a lot of artificially scented citrus products.

The strength is what I’d say is decent. It starts off sorta strong, but does fade a bit throughout the shave, although it doesn’t get to the point where I was having trouble picking it up.

The lather produced yielded a rather good balance of thickness and glide; just be careful that you don’t over-do it with the amount of water added, it doesn’t need much. I did however notice a bit of a lack of lather stability; there was some definite noticeable breakdown of the stuff by the time I was getting around to finishing each pass. In the end though it did leave my face feeling rather nice and moisturized.

• 9/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 7/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality

Overall I’m giving it a 7/10. It definitely could have done better by bringing the strength of the scent up.

• Cost: A 2 oz bottle will run you $6.95, or you can go for the 4 oz for $9.95.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Gillette NEW Ball-handle
• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Water (Aqua), TEA Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Stearic Acid, Glycerin,  Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Allantoin,  Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Tocopheryl Acetate, Citrus Aurantifolia (Lime) Oil, Menthol, Tetrasodium EDTA, DMDM Hydantoin, PEG-14M.

Madame Scodioli – Ill Repute shaving soap

Tags

6/10, clove, Fruit, Madame Scodioli, mandarin, mint, pennyroyal, shaving soap, spice

Step right up folks and see the amazing Ill Repute shaving soap, hand-crafted by Madame Scodioli, the amazing bearded lady! Seriously, that’s the shtick of this particular etsy shop, products purportedly made by the bearded lady of a traveling circus.

The lather wasn’t really what I’d say is good. It seemed to be a case of lubrication or thickness; pick one. I couldn’t quite get a good balance of the two, even after a fair bit of experimentation with the amount of water used (although I think I did find an in-between spot that didn’t really have what I’d consider a good amount of either). While the base of the soap seems to be a typical melt-and-pour with some tinkering, in this case I don’t think the tinkering improved the performance. This coupled with the fact that I did start to feel a bit of a burning sensation by the end of my 2nd pass, and trust me, I have far from sensitive skin. Apparently that was a really bad problem when they first came out; it’s since been reformulated, but it doesn’t look like it’s eliminated the issue entirely.

The scent on the other hand was pretty nice. It’s described as their “own version of citrus and mint, Ill Repute is pretty and flirty with a hint of menace underneath”. The sweetness of the mandarin and the mintiness of the pennyroyal is given a subtle bit of zing with the cloves. All in all, it came together fairly well. It wasn’t extremely strong, but kept at a nice steady level throughout the shave.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 9/10 Scent Strength
• 6/10 Lather Quality

Overall, I think I’m going to be rounding down on this one: 6/10. While the scent is pretty good, I don’t think it’s nearly good enough to justify using it instead of something else that manages to pull off a great lather and a nice scent.

• Cost: The 6 oz bar of soap is available for $8, and can also be found in a round puck.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Yuma Safety Razor
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Saponified oils of coconut, palm and safflower, shea butter, glycerin (kosher), sorbitol, sorbitan oleate, soy bean protein, wheat protein, red kaolin clay, white kaolin clay, and fragrance oil.

Kell’s Original Hemp Blend Shaving Stick – Lavender

Tags

8/10, kell's original, lavender, shaving soap

Kell’s Original lavender in shave stick form; no surprises here folks.

It’s a reasonably nice lavender scent; I’m fairly certain we’re talking a fragrance version rather than any actual essential oil, but it’s what I think is a pretty good version thereof.

And it’s nice and strong; pretty much just shy of being too overpowering, without anything in the way of noticeable fading while you shave.

The lather performed pretty much exactly as I expected it based upon previous experienced with Kell’s Original. Quite nicely that is. Good performance of thickness, glide, and moisturizing properties; make sure you use a fair bit of water though. Nice volume produced as well.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 10/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality

So, all told, 8/10. A nice shave, be worth a shot if you like lavender.

• Cost: A 2.5 oz shave stick goes for $9. There are also sample pucks available at $2 for 1 oz, 2.7 oz cakes for $5.25, and 4oz in a tin for $8.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless

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).

Oh and they don’t mention it in the listing for some reason, but there’s also going to be some fragrance oil in there.

J. Peterman 1903 Concentrated Shaving Cream

Tags

bergamot, cardamom, citrus, clary sage, cologne, elemi, fougère, frankincense, J. Peterman, labdanum, leather, shaving cream, smoke, tobacco, wood

To kick off the week, we’ve got J. Peterman’s 1903 Concentrated Shaving Cream.

True to its name, it’s a rather dense cream, which whips up quite easily; a bit thirstier than most creams out there, it did need a bit of fiddling with the right amount of water to get just right. It turned into a fairly thick lather, with some rather good glide. I did notice a bit of a lack of lather stability; there was some breaking down happening by the time I got near the end of each pass. After the shave, it left the face feeling rather nice.

The scent is akin to a rather spicy cologne. J. Peterman’s website makes up some story about “finding” it in a shop in Paris, but describes it as follows:

an “old woody fougère.” Clean citrus notes, bergamot, “green notes.” The middle notes: clary sage…cardamom. The dry-down: leather notes, smoky labdanum…elemi, tabac, frankincense.

I guess that sounds like a reasonable description to me. I found it to be a rather subdued spicy and smokey scent. Not too strong, but nice and steady nonetheless.

• 9/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 7/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality

Overall? A solid 7/10. Decent enough all-around, nothing outstanding; I think I might like to try the cologne though.

• Cost: This sample was received from a kindly fellow redditor who wanted to know what I thought. If you’re looking to purchase some, it’ll run you $28 for a 7 oz tub. Unfortunately, they don’t ship internationally for some bloody reason, so offer valid for US residents only.

Gear used:

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

Ingredients: No clue. Can’t find a listing anywhere.

Queen Charlotte Soaps – Green Irish Tweed type shaving cream

Tags

7/10, citrus, cologne, floral, Green Irish Tweed, iris, lemon, Queen Charlotte Soaps, sandalwood, shaving cream, verbena, violet

Today’s review is of Queen Charlotte Soaps’ Green Irish Tweed shaving cream. Now, I’ve reviewed their GIT soap before, and found it to be somewhat lacking, especially in scent strength. This fared better.

The cream’s lather was pretty good; fairly thick for a cream, it lathered up with a bit of elbow grease to something with a good balance of thickness and lather slickness, with a fairly wide “sweet spot” for acceptable water content to pull this off.

The scent seemed like a pretty decent Green Irish Tweed imitation (keeping in mind that I’ve never smelled the actual stuff!). For those who don’t know the scent, here’s how QCS describes it:

This is our rendition of Green Irish Tweed, the cologne created by Creed that is a favorite among the famous and royalty. With top notes of lemon and verbena, middle notes of iris and violet leaves, and base notes of Mysore sandalwood and ambergris, Green Irish Tweed smells refined and sophisticated.

Now, back to the soap version of the stuff, I could barely detect any scent whatsoever. This stuff is far better in that regard. This isn’t to say that it’s a strong scent, mind you, but at least you can tell it’s there, albeit with a fair amount of fading during the course of the shave.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 7/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality

All in all, it’s a decent enough if rather middle of the road cream. Not outstanding in any aspect, but it doesn’t fall flat anywhere either. 7/10 overall.

• Cost:I got this sample along with an order from MenEssentials, but you can also buy Queen Charlotte’s cream samples, 5 for $8. A full tub goes for $14.

Gear used:

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

Ingredients: Water, saponified stearic acid, glycerin, saponified tallow, palm oil, olive oil, and coconut oil, aloe vera extract, fragrance oil, kaolin clay, phenoxyethanol (and) caprylyl glycol, vitamin E.

Füme Traş Sabunu (shaving soap)

Tags

6/10, Fume, lavender, shaving soap

Next up, an entry a Turkish Entry, a shaving soap by the name of Füme. The site I purchased it from had listed both a “Cool” version and a “Lavender” version, however, as far as I can tell there was no visible difference in the packaging. The tub I got doesn’t list either of those terms (or a translation thereof). I’m just going to assume it’s the lavender version, since it smells a bit like that. If there actually is two different types.

The lather is honestly really rather good. It loads up and lathers quite easily, with an excellent balance of cushion and lubrication. Nothing that I really noticed with regards to moisturization, however.

The scent is mostly just a soapy scent with a touch, as I mentioned, of what I guess is a lavender note. Not really all that pleasant, although I wouldn’t call it “bad” smelling; not particularly strong however, which I suppose is a bonus.

• 6/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 7/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality

This’ll be a 6/10 overall. The scent of course doesn’t really seem to do much to add to the experience for me, but if all that you’re looking for is a cheap soap that performs decently, this might do the trick. I’d have a glance at the ingredient listing before purchasing however.

• Cost: $4.75 for a 300 g tub. Plus, you know, whatever it takes to ship it from Turkey (which is free on orders over $50).

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: 1966 Solid Nickel Gillette Tech
• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum

Ingredients: Cetyl Alcohol, Ceteateth-12, Potassium Hydroxide, Sles 70, Glycerine, Aculyn 28, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Silicate, Allntoin, Methylparaben, Euxyl-K100, Perfume, Water

Mike’s Natural Soap – Orange, Cedarwood, and Black Pepper

Tags

8/10, black pepper, cedarwood, Fruit, Mike's Natural Soaps, Orange, shaving soap, spice, wood

Next up, from a line of soap I haven’t touched since December; Mike’s Natural Soaps’ Orange, Cedarwood, and Black Pepper.

The lather is exactly what I expect out of Mike’s Natural: absolutely wonderful. It’s quite a thirsty cream, so use plenty of water and enough elbow grease, and you’ll work up a lather with great cushion, very good glide, which leaves your face feeling nice and moisturized to boot. As per usual, top marks for lather.

The predominate scent is most definitely the orange, with the black pepper coming up a close second bringing some kick to it, with the cedarwood serving to balance things out a bit between the other two. I find it fairly pleasant, if not something to write home about, but I’ll give it a bonus point because the girlfriend really likes it.

The strength is damned good as well; comes on good and stays without noticeable fading.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 9/10 Scent Strength
• 10/10 Lather Quality

So, all in all, I’d say it’s a very solid 8/10.

• Cost: $8.50 for a 4 ounce bar, $1.25 for a half ounce sample.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Ladas Super 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, fragrance and/or essential oil(s); saponified coconut oil;  kaolin clay, vitamin E.

Penhaligon’s Opus 1870 Shaving Cream

Tags

6/10, black pepper, cedarwood, cinnamon, cologne, Coriander, floral, Incense, musk, Penhaligon, Rose, sandalwood, shaving cream, spice, wood, Yuzu

Yes, yes, I know. I’ve been lazy about writing reviews lately. I’m sorry! So, here’s a new one! Penhaligon’s Opus 1870 Shaving Cream! Which, judging by the fact that I can’t find any information about it on Penhaligon’s website, appears to be discontinued. It still seems somewhat available elsewhere, but if you’re a fan you might want to stock up.

It lathers up quite nicely, although you shouldn’t go by how it looks when doing so. With just a tiny bit of water, it lathered up into something that looked like it was good to go, but was still rather severely lacking in lubrication; more water and a bit more elbow grease fixed that up quite nicely, resulting in a nice thick cream, with plenty of cushioning and good glide. All in all, a rather good shave.

The scent was a bit lacking. First off, I compared it to its corresponding cologne, which I recently got a sampler of. While similar, it’s not quite there. Here’s what it’s supposed to smell like:

Opus 1870 is a complex and elegant woody chypre. Opening with a luxurious accord of sweet citrus and fiery black pepper, the heart is lit by the delicacy of English Clove Rose and evocative incense. The base notes are glorious, smoky waves of aromatic cedarwood and sandalwood. Opus 1870 is wonderfully warm and comforting, a fragrance to wrap yourself in on cold winter nights.

There’s a bit of an additional scent that I’m picking up, it seemed to me to be somewhat silty; it reminded a bit of of J&E Atkinson’s I Coloniali mango shaving cream. Also, I didn’t really detect any of the black pepper notes that’s so noticeable in the cologne. However the florals and the woods seemed about the same.

But, all that which was noticeable was fleeting; it wasn’t strong to begin with, and I found it quickly faded.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 6/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality

Overall, I’ll say 6/10. Frankly, the lather isn’t nice enough to buy it just for the lather, and the scent isn’t nice enough / strong enough to buy it just for the scent. I wouldn’t bother unless you’re absolutely a fan of the EtD already.

• Cost: I had a sample sent to me by a kindly redditor who wanted to know what I thought of the cream. Otherwise, the cheapest listing I found was on amazon for $41.36, for a 150 mL / 5 oz tube.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: 1966 Solid Nickel Gillette Tech
• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Not sure! Probably rather similar to that of the Blenheim Bouquet, but I can’t find a listing online.