Man Cave Soapworks – Mountain Man shaving soap

Tags

6/10, basil, cologne, Glycerin, juniper, lemon, Man Cave Soapworks, patchouli, sandalwood, shaving soap

Mountain Man is billed as a “woodsy mix of basil, juniper, lemon, sandalwood and patchouli”. All in all, I didn’t find it too bad, but it’s definitely far too sweet of a scent for something that I would consider calling “Mountain Man”. Frankly, the sweetness was enough to mostly drown out the other scents.

Strength-wise, it wasn’t all that good. There was just enough there that you caught a bit of a whiff while shaving, but to actually get a good appreciation of what it smelled like you needed to go straight to the puck of soap.

And the lather, eh. It did the trick, nothing special. It’s your typical melt-and-pour shaving soap.  It provides a perfectly reasonable shave, with a decent balance of thickness and glide. Nothing to write home about, just a nice solid shave, which left the face feeling nice.

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

So, anyways, I’ll give this one a 6/10. Not bad in any aspect, but it doesn’t particularly stand out at all, IMHO.

• Cost: A 4 oz puck in the jar as pictured goes for $8, with just the refill being $4.50.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Gillette Travel Tech
• Blade: Shark Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Safflower Oil, Glycerin (kosher, of vegetable origin), Purified Water, Sodium Hydroxide (saponifying agent), Organic Shea Butter, Bentonite Clay, Sorbitol (moisturizer), Sorbitan oleate (emulsifier), Soy bean protein (conditioner), Wheat Protein (conditioner), fragrance

Mama Bear Soaps – Citrus Basil

Tags

4/10, basil, citrus, Glycerin, Mama Bear Soaps, shaving soap

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.

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

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

• Cost: The sample was a dollar. Pucks go for 9.99.

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.