Barrister and Mann – Cheshire shaving soap

Tags

9/10, bermagot, black tea, citrus, earl grey, shaving soap, tea

Some of you might know that I’ve been looking for a good Earl Grey scented shaving soap or cream for a while. Well… I’m satisfied that search can be declared over.

I’ll put the disclaimer here: I was provided this sample by the manufacturer free of charge. Since, you know, he was aware that I’d been looking for a good Earl Grey scent, and there’s definitely worse business strategies than providing reviewers with something that you think they’ll enjoy.

Cheshire is a pretty damned good approximation of a classic Earl Grey tea; unlike some attempts out there, Barrister and Mann didn’t stop at the bermagot oil, but did their best to recreate the scent of the tea as well. Well, a sniff of the soap and a sniff of the tea bag, and I’m satisfied that this is probably about as close as you’re ever going to see. A damned fine job crafting a wonderful scent.

The strength too is quite good. It starts off rather strong, and during the course of the shave only fades to a “fairly strong”. Perhaps I would have preferred a tad more, but let’s face it, if they had done that there’d probably be others complaining it’s overpowered.

The lather is, well, the same as I’ve come to expect from B&M. It’s thirsty, so don’t make the mistake of being stingy with your water, otherwise you might end up with something that’s lacking for lubrication. Keep at it, and apply a little elbow grease, and you’ve got a nice slick lather that retains good thickness, with a decently wide sweet spot. And some decent moisturization properties to boot.

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

So, yes, I’ll say that I’m quite pleased with this soap. I think I’ll be sticking it at #3 on the top ten list. A rather strong 9/10 overall. And, a damned fine value for the price you pay.

• Cost: A 1/2 oz sample can be had as part of their 7 piece sample pack, for $11.50, on its own for $2, or you can go for the full-sized puck for $11.

Gear used:

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

Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Tallowate, Sodium Tallowate, Aqua, Glycerin, Citrus bergamia (Bergamot) Oil, Salvia sclarea (Clary Sage) Oil, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Oil, Pogostemon cablin (Patchouli) Oil, Potassium Ricinoleate, Sodium Ricinoleate, Coconut Milk, Potassium Kokum Butterate, Sodium Kokum Butterate, Unrefined Shea Butter, Potassium Cocoate, Sodium Cocoate, Lanolin, Allantoin, Silk Protein, Tocopherol Acetate.

savor – Earl Grey shaving soap

Tags

6/10, bermagot, citrus, earl grey, lemon, savor, shaving soap

The Earl Grey is what prompted me to make a purchase from savor in the first place. I suppose I should have read the description, since it’s not really an Earl Grey scented soap; it’s Bergamot with a dash of lemon, without an attempt to replicate the tea portion of an actual Earl Grey tea. That having been said, it’s still nice and citrus-y.

But it’s fairly weak at that; I’d say barely perceptible when lathered up and applied to the face.

Much like my previous experience with savor, the lather is typical of a decent melt-and-pour with a few tweaks made. Does the trick good enough, as long as you can get the water balance right (to get enough glide while maintaining viscosity). Nothing to write home about, but it’ll do the trick.

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

Overall, a 6/10. Not terrible, but kinda plain.

• Cost: The 85g / 3 oz puck shown will set you back $5.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Edwin Jagger DE81BL (Red)
• Blade: Crown Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Once again, the ingredient listing on the website and on the label differed, but this time I went to the trouble of e-mailing the proprietor to clarify which is which, and apparently the listing on the website was correct:

Ingredients: coconut oil x palm oil x castor oil x safflower oil x glycerin x purified water x sodium hydroxide x sorbitol x sorbitan oleate x soybean protein x wheat protein x fragrance x Shea butter

Czech and Speake – no. 88 shaving soap

Tags

6/10, bermagot, cologne, Czech and Speake, floral, geranium, Rose, sandalwood, shaving soap, vetiver, wood

As with a lot of soaps or creams based off of Colognes, I find it’s best to go straight to the horse’s mouth for a description rather than try and describe what it smells like myself:

No.88 has a fresh, woody top note of reviving and uplifting bergamot, the richness and warmth of geranium, rose otto, cassie and exotic frangipani. Combined with dry base notes of vetiver and sandalwood, this modern classic has a full-bodied, sophisticated sensuality.

Anyways, I found it reasonably pleasant, although not enough so that I’d buy the cologne. The strength was fairly lacking, not at all strong to begin with, and faded to nothingness by the end of the shave.

The lather, however, was very good; nice and thick, very good glide, reasonably wide sweet spot for acceptable water content, and some decent moisturization.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 5/10 Scent Strength
• 9/10 Lather Quality

Overall, I think I’ll round down and give no. 88 a 6/10. The scent is just too weak to make it worth-while, especially considering that we’re talking a shaving soap that’s supposed to be based around a cologne.

• Cost: The sample I used was from Garry’s Sample Shop for $7.50. A set of three 25g travel-sized refills goes for £18, or £65 if you want the matching anodized aluminium travel dish, although I think that only comes with a single refill puck; a full 90g puck goes for £21, or £95 if you want its matching aluminium dish.

Gear Used:

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

Ingredients: Sodium tallowate, water, potassium palmitate, potassium stearate, sodium palmitate, sodium stearate, sodium cocoate, potassium cocoate, glycerin, palmitic acid, stearic acid, cocos nucifera, fragrance, lecithin, petrolatum, zea mays, tocopheryl acetate, CI 77891, CI 77499

Kell’s Original Hemp Blend Shaving Soap – Black Tea

Tags

8/10, amber, bermagot, black tea, cedarwood, citrus, floral, Fruit, Glycerin, Jasmine, kell's original, lemon, musk, Orange, shaving soap, tea

Kell’s Original Black Tea is one of those ones were it’s probably best just to start off by giving you the listing of how they describe the scent:

This smoky, sexy and sophisticated fragrance is reminiscent of roasted tea leaves with strong overtones of tobacco. With surprising top notes of Italian Bergamot, Sicilian Lemon and Southern Orange, the blend winds down with Black Tea Leaves, Star Jasmine, White Cedarwood, Amber Crystal and a rich musk. This is a bold and unusual scent sure to intrigue.

So, as you can see, it’s a fairly complex scent. I’m not going to lie, had someone asked me to sniff it and give a description, I’m not sure that “tea” would have popped up. But, knowing that’s what they’re going for, I can see how it hints at that. I’m not entirely sure that I pick up everything listed there, in particular I don’t get all that much of a citrus impression at all, be it lemon, orange, or bermagot. As an aside, I think I would greatly enjoy a shaving soap that manages to capture the essence of Earl Grey, a classic blend of black tea and bermagot.

Anyways, it’s a complex scent, but it’s rather enjoyable; I found it to be somewhat invigorating, it’s just spicy enough to give a little bit of a kick to the senses. It comes on just shy of “strong”, but manages to avoid fading noticeably from there.

As is expected now from Kell’s Original, the lather is quite nice. It’s provides good performance in thickness, glide, and moisturizing properties, provided that you remember to use enough water! Quite voluminous as well, a fully loaded brush will provide far more lather than is needed for a typical 3-pass shave.

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

All-in-all, 8/10. I’d definitely recommend at least trying out a sampler. Also available with aloe, although I haven’t tried that formulation.

• Cost: The sample puck used was $2 for 1 oz, also available are 2.7 oz cakes for $5.25, 4oz in a tin for $8, or a 2.5 oz shave stick for $9.

Gear used:

• Brush: Ecotools Kabuki Finishing Brush
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Bolzano Superinox
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

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)

The Shave Den – Signature scent shaving soap

Tags

7/10, bay rum, bermagot, citrus, Glycerin, shaving soap, the shave den

The Shave Den’s Signature scent is a bay rum spiked with bermagot.  Bay rum crossed with Earl Grey, it’s a bit like the Caribbean meets England. It’s a bold masculine aroma which I rather quite like. It comes on reasonably strongly, with not much in the way of fading while you shave.

As for the lather, again, it does the trick, but it can be picky. I usually find I have to error a bit on the side of too much water, as having it a bit thin is usually better than not having enough lubrication. You should load the brush heavily and add water gradually, because it can be easy to overshoot the water content you’re looking for. It does however produce quite a lot of lather; volume definitely not a problem with this one.

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

I’ll be giving this a 7/10 overall. It’s a decent enough all-around soap.

• Cost: A one ounce sample goes for $2.50, or $6.99 for a full 4 ounce puck (an extra $2 if you want a tub with it).

Gear used:

• Brush: Ecotools Kabuki Finishing Brush
• Razor: Edwin Jagger DE81BL (Red)
• Blade: Gillette 7 O’clock Black
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Glycerin, Aqua, Olive Oil, Bentonite Clay, Sodium Borate, Sweet Almond Oil, Sodium Palmate, Sorbitol, Sodium Cocoate, Palm Acid, Coconut Acid, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate, and fragrance.

The Strop Shoppe – Baker Street

Tags

10/10, baker street, bermagot, citrus, floral, Jasmine, juniper, patchouli, shaving soap, strop shoppe, wood

Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die:
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game’s afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears–
Only those things the heart believes are true.

A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane
As night descends upon this fabled street:
A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.
Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five.

– 1895 by Vincent Starrett

With their Baker Street soap, the fine folks over at the Strop Shoppe attempted to evoke images “of sitting rooms, pipes, and foggy London streets” to start off your day with “The Game Afoot”.

And I would say they succeeded marvellously. The blend of Bergamot, Juniper, Jasmine, and Patchouli have combined wonderfully to create a scent that could easily be something that Mr. Watson or Sherlock Holmes would have worn. This is my 2nd favourite scent, behind TOBS’s Jermyn Street.

And they didn’t skimp on the scent either. The soap itself smells quite strongly, and the lather carries the aroma rather nicely, staying noticeable throughout the entire shave, without fading. I might have liked perhaps just a fraction stronger, but I am hardly complaining.

The shave itself was likewise great. It lathers up very easily into a thick creamy voluminous foam, with quite a wide “sweet spot” for the amount of water it needs to balance the thickness with the slickness. During a normal shave, it left the skin feeling quite and moist afterwards. The only downside I saw was some irritation when I left it sitting on my face for a while (when I was testing how long the scent would last), but that took longer to emerge than the average shave takes me anyways, but those with sensitive skin might want to be a bit wary.

I’m not sure if it’s on purpose or not, but the cakes sent out fit just perfectly into the wide-mouthed mason jars I use to store most of my soaps (when I don’t feel like paying extra for a jar from the manufacturer). A nice bonus. One note, this review was of the original vegan-friendly vegetable-oil based configuration. This scent is also one of ones being offered in a tallow-based soap or in their “special edition” with shea and cocao butter.

• 10/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 9.5/10 Scent Strength
• 9/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

Normally, I might be debating whether or not to give it a 9/10 or a 10/10, but seeing as how this is currently my favourite shave soap to date, I’ll go ahead and round up. 10/10. Sir Conan Doyle would be proud.

• Cost: $9.95 for a 4 ounce puck from their website. Edit: If you want to avoid their website (as there are semi-frequently significant delays in shipping / customer service issues I’ve heard reported), the tallow version can be found in the US for $10.99, or from Canada both the regular (which this review was based upon) and the tallow can be found for $11.50.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Merkur Progress
• Blade: Shark Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Stearic Acid, Glycerin, Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Rice Bran Oil, Fragrance.

Saponifying agents : Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide.

May contain : Sunflower Oil (Used as a substitute for Rice Bran Oil when needed).