Tag Archives: 4/10

Derby Shaving Stick

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by in Soap, Turkish

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Derby

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.

Gear used:

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

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William’s Mug Shaving Soap

27 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in American, Soap

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William's Mug shaving 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:

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.

Man 5 shaving cream – Dynamic

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Cream, Turkish

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Man 5 Dynamic

So, to follow on from a local soap which is terrible, next up we’ve got a cream from halfway around the world, which still isn’t very good at all! Hailing from Istanbul, Turkey, Man 5 shaving cream is, well, quite similar to the bulk of the cheap shaving creams that I’ve seen coming out of Eastern Europe.

The performance of the lather was, eh, I’d say sub-par. I wasn’t quite able to get as good of a balance between the required lubrication and the thickness of the lather, but it was certainly still useable, definitely on the thin side. Also needed a fair amount of elbow grease to get it to that level too. Nothing either good or bad to write about its moisturization, and the lather stability also left something to be desired. To call it a so-so shave would probably be pushing it.

The scent, well, it smelled pretty much exactly like the Ikar Tornado that I reviewed last week; reminded me of a herbal scent, with a fairly harsh chemical-y citrus layer. Not something I’d say smelled natural, or pleasant.

It was a bit stronger than the Ikar, lingering longer during, and even after the shave.

  • 5/10 Scent Pleasantness
  • 8/10 Scent Strength
  • 6/10 Lather Quality

So, what can I say? All told, with both a poor lather and unpleasant scent, I’m gonna knock it down to a 4/10.

Gear used:

Ingredients: Stearic acid, Aqua, Glycerin, Coconut Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Silicate, Sodium Hydroxide, Parfum, Cetearyl Alcohol, Sodium Borate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Potassium Chloride, Methylparaben, Aloe Barbadensis, Benzyl Salicylate, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexone Carboxaldehyde, Linalool, Limonene.

Jody’s Naturals lemongrass shaving bar

18 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by in Canadian, Soap

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Jody's Naturals - Lemongrass

So I often spend Canada day at a community BBQ / festival along the Gorge inlet. It’s a gorgeous spot (pun intended), and the event is usually quite fun. They’ll have bands playing on the stage, a bunch of food and various other vendors set up along the road, and a classic car show as well. I’m walking along, and notice one of the vendors is a soapmaker. And lo and behold, they’ve got a shaving soap! So, naturally I needed to pick it up.

Unfortunately, it turns out to be pretty terrible.

This soap did not produce a nice thick lather like I prefer. And what little lather I was able to get out of it broke up swiftly. Very swiftly, in fact I think I’m safe in saying that this soap had the worst lather stability of any soap I’ve come across yet. If it wasn’t for the fact that the ingredient listing is slightly different, I’d frankly assume that there was no difference between this and their regular bar soaps. But it definitely appears to have just been made with the ingredients they had on hand, instead of branching out into some of the other fats and oils that tend to make good shaving soaps (stearic acid, tallow, etc) or doing the experimentation that might have been able to get a good balance with the ingredients they were working with. At least the glide was decent, although still far from exemplary.

Scented with lemongrass essential oil, it makes for a pleasant aroma, although it doesn’t start out very strong, and it fades fast… well about as fast as the lather disappears.

  • 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
  • 6/10 Scent Strength
  • 4/10 Lather Quality

Overall, I can’t really recommend this soap. Seems like an example of someone not really doing the research into what’s different between the requirements for regular soap and shaving soap. 4/10.

Gear used:

Ingredients: Water, Palm oil, Coconut oil, Olive oil, Castor oil, Sodium hydroxide (lye), Shea butter, Lemongrass essential oil.

Arko – Shaving stick

05 Sunday May 2013

Posted by in Arko, Soap, Turkish

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Arko

So, Arko. I’ve heard a lot about Arko’s shaving stick, before I gave it a shot. It seems to be a “love it or leave it” proposition. Most of what I heard about it lead me to believe that I wouldn’t like it. I was right. The smell. It’s chemically, like a cross between medicine and cleaning product. I’ve heard comparisons to Borax tossed around, as well as urinal cakes, and “Ivory soap on steriods”. A bit more  kind of a comparison was probably to lemon pledge. Actually, yeah, I think the urinal cake comparison is probably the most apt (unused at least!). Strength-wise, it was definitely noticeable and never really faded all that much. Naturally, what  might be a good thing for a soap that smells nice is a bad thing for a soap that doesn’t.
But, anyways, Arko is mostly a popular soap mostly despite its scent, , not because of it, although there are indeed some people who like it. It performs well, and is insanely cheap to boot. It lathers up quite easily (I should note that it’s supposed to be particularly good for folks with hard water), nice and thick, good glide. Takes about what I’d say is a medium amount of water, and has a decently large “sweet spot”. I can’t say I noticed much in the way of moisturization after the fact. But still, a good shave and cheap.

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

Anyways, I still don’t like it. 4/10, the performance of the lather is
not, IMHO, good enough to rescue the stench..

Gear used:

Ingredients: Potassium Tallowate, Stearic Acid, Potassium Cocoate, Aqua, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Glycerin, Parfum, Paraffinum Liquidium, Cl 77891, Tetrasodium EDTA, Etidronic Acid, Disodium Distrylbiphenyl Disulfonate, Amyl Cinnamal, Citronellol, Geraniol, Hexyl Cinnamal, Linalool.

Queen Charlotte Soaps – Vostok shaving cream

10 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by in American, Cream, Queen Charlotte Soaps

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QCS - Vostok Cream

To follow up yesterday’s QCS Vetiver soap review, I’ve now got the first of the shaving creams I’ve tried from Queen Charlotte Soaps; thus far I like it better than the soap samples. It seems to have a bigger “sweet spot” of water needed for a good combination of lather thickness and lubrication. It used, well, about an average amount for most other creams that I’ve come across. It’s a fairly thick cream, not sticky or goopy, honestly I would almost call it a really soft soap, consistency-wise at least.

As a reminder, I redid the lather quality scoring system, what used to be a 9/10 has been split into 9/10s (former “high 9s”) and 8/10s (former “low 9s”).

The scent, well, it’s menthol and peppermint. I generally like a bit of menthol, and enjoyed giving this cream a sniff.

It’s when I lathered it up and put it on my face that I rather stopped enjoying it. It’s strong. Very strong. “Enough menthol to make my eyes water” strong. I know that’s kinda this cream’s gig, and I should have expected what was coming. I mean, they say outright that “Vostok is a face-freezing blend of ice-cold peppermint and blizzard-like blasts of sub-zero menthol. We do not believe there exists a colder shaving product”. But I was still a bit unprepared for just how much freezing-action hit my face. It was just bloody cold.

If that’s what you’re going for, fill your boots. But I don’t think I’ll be trying this one again any time soon. Maybe to make a bit of superlather if I want to add a bit of a kick to some other scent, making sure not to use too much of course.

  • 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
  • 13/10 Scent Strength
  • 8/10 Lather Quality

This wasn’t really what I consider to be a very pleasant shave. 4/10. Your mileage of course, may vary if you really like the cooling action.

Gear used:

Ingredients: Water, saponified stearic acid, glycerin, saponified tallow, palm oil, olive oil, and coconut oil, aloe vera extract, essential oil(s), kaolin clay, phenoxyethanol (and) caprylyl glycol, vitamin E. Vostok contains menthol crystals.

Mama Bear Soaps – Citrus Basil

02 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in American, Mama Bear Soaps, Soap

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Mama Bear - Citrus Basil

I really rather didn’t like Mama Bear’s Citrus Basil shaving soap. The scent was not really what I would consider to be a good combination; if it reminded me of anything, it’s cheap bar soap.

Strength-wise it was… middling, which considering I didn’t like the aroma is probably a good thing.

As for the lather, here’s the Mama Bear boilerplate review, since there’s not really any difference in performance that I’ve noticed between different scents: 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.

So, I’m going with a 4/10 overall. I didn’t like it, your mileage may vary I suppose.

Gear used (Roadshow edition!):

  • Brush: Wee Scott
  • Razor: Bic Comfort Twin
  • Scuttle: A empty tub that formerly contained the Body Shop’s Maca Root shaving cream.

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.

Geo F. Trumper – Violet shaving cream

24 Saturday Nov 2012

Posted by in British, Cream, Geo F Trumper

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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.

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:

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