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.

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

Jabonman Vetiver-Tangerine-Litsea Cubeba shaving soap

Tags

8/10, citrus, Fruit, jabonman, shaving soap, tangerine, vetiver

I really liked the smell of this shaving soap; the earthiness of the vetiver paired really nicely with the sweetness of the tangerine, and a bit of the tartness of the Litsea Cubeba (which for anyone who like me didn’t know, is a largely lemony-scented essential oil). Combined, they reminded me a lot of lemongrass, but a bit deeper and a bit sweeter.

The strength was good; it came on nice and strong at the start, with a bit of fading during the shave, but not too much.

Lather-wise, I found it better than I found the last Jabonman soap I tried. A few other posts about the soap seem to indicate that one of the keys is putting a bit of elbow grease into building the lather. It ended up with something nice and thick, with some decent glide. Decent moisturization, which this time I can’t attribute to the lanolin, as this formulation doesn’t contain any.

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

This one merits an 8/10. I just kind of wish the sample I had had enough for a few more shaves.

• Cost: Apparently it’s about 10.50 Euro a puck, plus shipping and handling. Jabonman doesn’t have a website, but if you e-mail the manufacturer, Manual Garcia at magafe_es@yahoo.es, he can give you an accurate price list. But he does rely upon google translate, so you might want to avoid convoluted language.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Gillette Old Style with WWI US Service Set
• Blade: Shark Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: (Note: I’m not positive that this listing is for this scent, but it’s the closest I was able to find on-line) Palm stearic, coconut oil, argan oil, almond oil, jojoba oil, castor oil, rosehip oil, shea butter, glycerine, sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, water, aloe vera, rhassoul (a moroccan clay), aromas

Jabonman Coconut

Tags

7/10, coconut, jabonman, shaving soap

I’d heard great things about Jabonman soaps, made by a fellow out of Spain. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite willing to spring too much for an untested product, what with the shipping from Spain to Canada to take into account. Fortunately, a nice redditor over at the Shave Bazaar was offering some samples, so I pounced upon that opportunity.

Overall, I’m rather pleased. I had a bit of trouble with the lather initially, it seemed to me to be a bit difficult to find the right balance for the amount of water to use. It’s a bit on the thirsty side, but also fairly easy to over-shoot. That having been said, I was eventually able to find a good balance, one that gave quite a nice amount of both lubrication and cushioning. It left the face feeling rather nice, which I suspect is up to the high lanolin content.

The scent is, well, nice and coco-nutty. Not excessively sweet, but with what seems to be a hint of vanilla rounding out the aroma. Thus far, I think it’s the nicest coconut scent I’ve tried. Strength-wise, it was certainly not over-powering, but it stayed throughout the shave without significant fading.

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

7/10, but to be honest, I think the lathering issues I had could probably be easily resolved with just a bit more experience with the soap, which would bump it up to a 8/10.

• Cost: Apparently it’s about 6 Euro a puck, plus shipping and handling. Jabonman doesn’t have a website, but if you e-mail the manufacturer, Manual Garcia at magafe_es@yahoo.es, he can give you an accurate price list. But he does rely upon google translate, so you might want to avoid convoluted language.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Merkur Progress
• Blade: Bolzano Superinox
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an ingredient listing online.