Derby Shaving Stick

Tags

4/10, derby, shaving soap

I’ve been stuck shaving with the Derby Shaving Stick for about two weeks now, primarily because I’d been far too lazy in getting a review out the door and couldn’t justify moving on to a new soap when I have such a backlog of them to write.

I say stuck, because, well, I don’t really like it all that much. Don’t get me wrong, it lathers up easily enough, once you manage to dial in the right amount of water to use for the right amount of product (which can be tricky to control like all shave sticks). I’d say it’s comparable to the performance of Arko or Palmolive in that regard.

But I didn’t really like the scent. It’s generic “soap” type scent. Overall, I found it to be unpleasant. It’s fairly strong too, at least when not lathered. When just sitting in the bathroom with the top of the wrapper peeled off, the scent of the soap permeated my bathroom. Fortunately, the scent dissipated a bit once lathered up, but only dropped down from “really strong” to “fairly strong”. So, I suppose, also comparable to Arko in this regard too, although I think the scent of the Derby is slightly more palatable.

• 4/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 8/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Quality of Lather

But yeah, overall, I’m not a fan. 4/10. But at least it is quite affordable, if that’s a major factor for you.

• Cost: This soap was $1.85 for the 75 g shaving stick.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Gillette 7 O’clock Black

Ingredient list: Potassium tallowate, potassium cocoate, stearic acid, sodium palm kernelate, aqua, disodium distrylbiphenyl disulfonate, CL77891, paraffinum liquidum, parfum, geraniol, benzyl alcohol, linalool, glycerin.

Whoos Shaving Soap – Death or Glory

Tags

7/10, amber, cardamom, cedar, cinnamon, clove, patchouli, sandalwood, shaving soap, teakwood, Whoos

Whoos’ shaving soap is, claims of being handmade nothwithstanding, fairly obviously a melt-and-pour soap. Not surprising really, seems like most of the soaps sold on etsy are!

It’s got the usual issues you see with a lot of the melt-and-pour soaps out there, the most notable being a sub-par lather stability. It can’t really be claimed to provide all that much cushioning, given that by the time you finish half of your pass, the other half has already started to fade. Unfortunately, adding enough water to fix the stability issues also thins it out too much. All in all, not enough to make it unusable by any stretch, but there’s far better soaps out there.

The scent is a nice spicy concoction; they say it’s got teakwood, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, cedar, amber, sandalwood, and patchouli. The spices are predominate, with the rest providing a nice backdrop.

It comes on quite strong when lathered up, and mostly stays that way without too much in the way of fading while you shave.

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

Overall, I’m willing to round this one up to a 7/10. Smells nice enough to make up a bit for the performance.

• Cost: A puck of the Death or Glory (or any of their other scents for that matter) will set you back $4.25. Or you can get a set of three pucks of any scent for $11.25.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Bowl: Hand painted by myself (Yes, I know it’s ugly).

Ingredients: Coconut oil, palm oil, safflower oil, glycerin, purified water, sodium hydroxide, sorbitol, sorbitan, soybean protein, wheat protein, bentonite clay, aloe, fragrance oil, mica.

 

Wickham Soap Company – Super Smooth Shaving Soap – Club Cola

Tags

9/10, caramel, citrus, Cola, shaving soap, vanilla, Wickham Soap Company

Offering up a brand new product out of England, we have Wickham Soap Company for the next review. The sample I recieved came in a little box, the product filling the box one of the softest soaps that I’ve come across. Probably still a bit too firm to truly be considered a cream. “Super Smooth” indeed.

Thus, it was easy enough to scoop out a little bit from the box to test it out. I was quite pleased with the results. It was very forgiving for the amount of water needed; while it definitely needed a bit more than a splash, it would have been difficult to over-water it, as long as you give it enough elbow grease. A very wide “sweet spot” for good performance before it starts thinning out appreciably. Great glide, great protective lather, great performance really, with some really solid lather stability to boot. And it ended up leaving my face feeling rather pleasantly moisturized after the fact as well.

The scent is described as being “An uplifting scent that has top notes of a citrus lemon nature, while the mid and base notes are that of vanilla and caramel.” All in all, I’d say that sounds rather accurate; I found it rather pleasant. The strength could have been better, once lathered and applied I’d say it is a fair bit shy of my ideal strength, although still reasonably noticeable, and with a relatively slow rate of fading.

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

Overall, I’d say this is an easy 9/10.

• Cost: The sample shown was provided by the manufacturer for the purposes of this review. You can get your own 25g samples for £3.95, of a full 160g tub for £14.50.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Bowl: Hand painted by myself (Yes, I know it’s ugly).

Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Potassium Cocoate, Potassium Lardate, Potassium Apricotkernelate, Water, Glycerine, Parfum

Lea Shaving Stick

Tags

6/10, lea, shaving soap

The Lea shaving stick performed pretty much indistinguishably from the Palmolive classic shaving stick; a good performance, good balance of glide and thickness, reasonably easy to lather up, and left the face feeling nice and moisturized. A nice all-around solid shaving soap.

The scent was also pretty close; a soapy-clean type scent, with maybe a bit of that faux lavender aroma that makes its way into far too many products. I saw another review describe it as reminiscent of powdered laundry detergent, that also seems like a reasonable description. It’s not really all that strong; probably a good thing I suppose.

One thing to note, this product apparently has undergone some reformulations; the one I reviewed is the new formula as of a 2012.

• 5/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 4/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality

Overall, I’ll say it’s a 6/10. Usable as long as you don’t really care about your shave smelling nice.

• Cost: I purchased the 50 g shaving stick for $5 from Shaveabuck.com.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant with an iKon stainless steel handle
• Blade: Shark Super Stainless

Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Tallowate, Potassium Cocoate, Aqua, Sodium Tallowate, Sodium Cocoate, Glycerin, Lanolin, Parfum, Cocamide DEA, Titanium Dioxide, Potassium Hydroxide, Geraniol, Tetrasodium EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Sodium Hydroxide.

Haslinger Meeresalgen Rasierseife (Seaweed shaving soap)

Tags

6/10, haslinger, seaweed, shaving soap

The next brand I’ll be trying out is Haslinger, who’ve been making shaving soaps out of Austria since 1890.

The scent of this soap is seaweed, made with real seaweed. I think I catch a little hint of that while sniffing it, but to be frank, overall, it just smells like soap. That’s while sniffing the puck itself; once lathered, it was essentially scentless.

The performance of the lather is quite good. With regards to the required moisture content, I’d say it’s about average. Not insanely thirsty like your Barrister and Mann or your Mike’s Natural, but it still needs a decent amount of water to do the job properly. But it does seem to have a reasonably large sweet spot, and it’s quite easy to whip up a nice thick lather, with good stability and good glide. I can’t say I noticed all that much in the way of moisturization properties however.

One thing I should note, for those who have allergies, the ingredient listing does include peanuts (Arachis Hypogaea). Or more likely peanut oil I suppose. But still, I’d suggest not putting it on your face if it could kill you.

• 7/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 3/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality

Overall, I don’t really recommend this soap. It’s relatively affordable, and performs well, but the lack of scent doesn’t add anything to the experience for me, and there’s better soaps out there that perform better. 6/10.

• Cost: I purchased this 60 gram puck from Italian Barber for $9.95.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Tallowate, Aqua, Propylene Glycol, Fucus Vesiculosus, Parfum, Arachis Hypogaea, Potassium Cocoate, Sodium Tallowate, Sodium Cocoate, Glycerine, Potassium Hydroxide, Tetrasodium EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Sodium Hydroxide, Cl 61585, Bencylsalicylat, Citronellol, Geraniol, Hydroxycitronellal, Amylcinnamal, Hexlycinnamaldehyde, Butylphenyl, Methylpropional, Linalool, Hydroxymethylpentylcycloheencarboxaldehyde.

Los Angeles Shaving Soap Company – Woody Lavender

Tags

9/10, floral, LA Shaving Soap Co., lavender, shaving soap, wood

So, any of my readers who are also subscribed to /r/wicked_edge are likely aware of the LA Shaving Soap Company, set up by fellow redditor jbisinla‘s fairly new soap line (up and running for the last 7 months). It’s certainly been gaining high praise, and after trying it I can see why.

First off, the lather is great. It whips up easily, into a nice thick creamy lather, with some great glide. Not too thirsty, but it seems to have a relatively wide sweet spot, so you’re probably not going to accidentally over-water it. Great stability,and left my face feelin’ nice.

The scent is just what it says on the tin; woodsy and lavender. The lavender provides a good contrast to the wood notes base, provided by essential oils of Ho Wood, Amyris (Torchwood) and West Indian Bay. It comes together quite nicely.

The strength is what I’d say is just spot on. It’s a nice and strong scent, without being what I’d say is overpowering, with little to no fading during the course of the shave.

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

Overall, definitely worth a 9/10, IMHO.

• Cost:This scent can be found as one of five scents in their sampler pack. Although availability does seem rather sporadic. Or you can get it in a 4 oz thin tin (increased surface area for easier loading) or a 4.5 oz tub for $16.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: Edwin Jagger DE81BL (Red)
• Blade: Big Ben Super Stainless
• Bowl: Hand painted by myself (Yes, I know it’s ugly).

Ingredients: Vegetable Stearic Acid, Distilled Water, Coconut Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Vegetable Glycerin, Essential Oils (Lavender, Ho Wood, Amyris, Pimenta Racimosa (West Indian Bay)).

William’s Mug Shaving Soap

Tags

4/10, shaving soap, william's mug soap

Williams Mug Shaving Soap is probably the one soap that I’ve seen that has the widest retail availability of any soap on the market. Or at least in North America. I’ve seen it available in drug stores and grocery stores and Wal-Marts in at least a few provinces and states.

After having tried it, I suspect the primary reason behind its availability doesn’t have much to do with its performance. It’s not really all that good. The balance of thickness and glide wasn’t all that good; I found I had to thin it out far too much to get the glide I need, and even that was easy to overshoot. And the stability of the lather left something to be desired. What lather I could whip up certainly didn’t stick around long enough.

One thing I will give this soap: it’s the example that proves the point that you can’t tell how good a soap is solely by a few ingredients. Normally, I’d expect a soap whose top 2 ingredients are stearic acid and tallow to be a quality product. Just proves the point that there is no magic ingredient which makes a good shaving soap: it’s the sum total of everything.

As for the scent, it’s a fairly neutral soapy scent. My girlfriend declared it to be an “old lady soap” smell when she sniffed it. Personally, I found it to be so-so. Not unpleasant mind you, but not exactly a great smell to my nose. It is however, rather weak. Pretty much all of that was discerned by sniffing the puck itself, since once lathered up, it was neigh undetectable.

• 7/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 3/10 Scent Strength
• 4/10 Lather Quality

Anyways, I think it’s safe to say I don’t really like this soap at all. 4/10. In fact, given the ubiquitousness of the soap, I think that it’s doing a disservice to the art of wetshaving; I suspect a fair number of men try this soap because it’s available easily to them, and abandon the idea of shaving with a soap and brush because of the poor performance. Without having a chance to realize that perhaps that’s not par for the course.

• Cost: As for why it’s available everywhere? It’s cheap as heck. I picked it up for something like $1.75 at the local Save-on-foods. I’m sure you can find it just as cheap somewhere else.

Gear used:

• Brush: Ecotools Kabuki Finishing Brush
• Razor: 1966 Solid Nickel Gillette Tech
• Blade: Shark Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Tallowage, Sodium Cocoate, Water/Eau, Glycerin, Fragrance/Parfum, Sodium Chloride, Titanium Dioxide, Steari Acid, Pentasodium Pentetate, Terasodium Etidronate. May also contain Sodium Palm Kernelate.

Parker – Sandalwood Sheabutter Luxury Shave Bar

Tags

7/10, cocoa, sandalwood, shaving soap, shea

Now, I’m sure that most of you are aware of Parker due to reasonably popular line of razors, brushes, and stands. But, hey, apparently they make a soap as well. That’s indeed a soap, since this is apparently the only variation they do manufacture, although apparently they used to also carry a “nine herbs” variation.

Anyhow, the scent on this soap is supposed to be a sandalwood. And I get a bit of a hint of sandalwood, but overall it’s a much sweeter scent than I would have expected from just sandalwood. I suspect that’s because the sandalwood’s being overpowered by the scent of the shea butter. There’s also a slight hint of something spicy, which I suppose could be the tumeric. It’s a reasonably pleasant scent, but definitely not what I’d expect from most sandalwood soaps.

It is however, rather weakly scented. It doesn’t start off very strong, and fades a fair bit from there.

The lather is good; it’s a thirsty soap that does need a fair bit of elbow grease as well. Do that, and it makes for a very good shave; nice and thick lather, good glide. Also pretty darned good on the skin moisturization front as well.

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

All in all, I’m reasonably pleased with this product, but definitely wish it was more strongly scented. 7/10. Fairly reasonably priced at least.

• Cost: I purchased this from Maggard Razors, $7.75 for a 100g puck. There is also a “travel” version of the same product, which comes in a watertight container, where you get 50g for $6.25.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Ladas Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Aqua, Cocos Nucifera Oil (Coconut), Glycerin, Sorbitol, SLES, Propylene Glycol, Cacao (Cocoa) Butter, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Glycerin (No, I don’t know why they have Glycerin listed twice), Santalum Album (Sandalwood) Oil, Aloe Barbadensis (Aloe Vera), Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Almond) Oil, Olea Europaea (Olive) Oil, Curcuma Longa (Tumeric).

Simple Luxuries – Rainforest Sage solid shampoo, soap & shaving bar

Tags

3/10, sage, shaving soap, wood

This is a terrible shaving soap.

Granted, I had a few clues that this would probably be the case. First off, I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a proper shaving soap that functions well as a shampoo or a bar soap. I mean, they’re both soaps, but intended to be used in completely different manners. 2ndly, the lack of a full ingredient listing doesn’t inspire confidence. 3rdly, the fact that it was made by a local person who clearly specializes in “regular” soaps indicates to me that chances are high that they haven’t looked into what actually makes a quality shaving soap. And last of all, for god sake, they use comic sans as the font on their label.

I should note here that this shouldn’t be confused with the Simple Luxuries soap being sold online out of Newark; they haven’t been foolish enough to claim that their shampoo bars are good for shaving as well.

Anyways, regardless of the fact that I knew it’d probably be terrible, when you’re doing reviews sometimes you just have to take a hit for the team.

The lather was, well, not all that lather-like. It got some decent glide, but was completely unable to sustain any sort of thickness. The stability of what lather I was able to produce was the worst I’ve seen out of anything thus far. Seriously, when I applied it to my face, the lather was degrading at such a rate that I could feel it popping away; kinda tickled.

The scent is fairly nice, but very weak. Sniffing the bar itself, you can smell the sage & the mint, but when lathered up (if you can call it that), you get pretty much nothing on the scent front.

• 7/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 4/10 Scent Strength
• 3/10 Lather Quality

3/10 overall. Don’t think much more needs to be said.

• Cost: I purchased this at the Victoria Soap Exchange (link is to a similar but not identical product listing from the same soapmaker). I forget exactly how much I paid, but I think it was around the $6 range, for a 120 g bar that I hope actually works as a body wash / shampoo because otherwise I’m going to have to throw it out. You can’t buy it online, but suffice it to say that you’re not missing out on much.

Gear Used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant (with iKon handle)
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Bowl: Hand painted by myself (Yes, I know it’s ugly).

Ingredients: No full ingredient listing was given, however the following ingredients are mentioned on the package: Essential oils (mint; sage), Olive Oil, Sweet Almond Oil, Glycerin, Milk, Coconut Oil, Castor Oil. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume there was probably also some type of hydroxide, mostly / all sodium being the most likely bet IMHO. Dunno what else is in there.

Elvado – Key Lime Shaving Soap

Tags

9/10, citrus, elvado, Lime, mint, shaving soap

Next up on the list of new soaps, one that’s actually new, instead of just new to me. I think I first heard about Elvado a couple months back, after hearing about them working with Seth over at Men Essentials for the creation of a line of Men Essentials branded soaps. Their parent company seems to have actually started out as a medical supply company, before branching out into skin care, and then shaving “software”. One interesting little tidbit I guess!

Anyhow, their Elvado line of shaving soaps seems to be a modified version of a melt-and-pour base, with the addition of a fair bit of shea butter. Rather akin to Honeybee Soaps in that regard, and to be honest, the performance reminded me of it as well. First off, you do need to use a fair bit of water, and some elbow grease to get what I’d say is a good balance of thickness and glide; I found I generally had to sacrifice a bit of thickness in order to get the glide I needed. As this also mostly fixed the lather stability issues I found the soap had at lower water contents. So, yeah, don’t be stingy!

One area in which I think it performed a fair bit better than Honeybee soaps was the moisturization; my face felt better afterwards that I recall getting from Sue’s product.

I’m not sure why they named it “Key Lime”, as I wouldn’t think just from the name that the scent includes a mint aroma.  Maybe shoulda called it “Key Lime Mojito”?! But it most certainly does, and the lime and the mint smells do come together exceptionally nicely. They’re balanced great, such that neither overpowers or dominates the other.

As for the strength of the scent? I’d say just about perfect. It was nice and strong when first applied, without being overpowering, and saw very little in the way of fading.

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

Anyways, overall I’m rather pleased with the performance of this soap. I feel reasonably comfortably rounding up to a 9/10.

• Cost: I was provided this tub free for the purposes of the review by the folks at Elvado. You can get a 115 g tub for $16, or if you find them more convenient, a 71 g shaving stick for the same price.

Gear used:

• Brush: Ecotools Kabuki Finishing Brush
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant (with iKon handle)
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Bowl: Hand painted by myself (Yes, I know it’s ugly).

Ingredients: Cocos Nucifera (Coconut Oil), Elaesis Guineensis (Palm Oil) , Cathamus Tintorius (Safflower Oil), Glycerine (Kosher of vegetable origin), Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Purified Water, Fragrance (Parfum 100% Natural), Sodium Hydroxide, Sorbitol, Sorbitan Oleate, Glycine Soja (Soy Bean Protein), Titanium Dioxide (Mineral Whitener)