• Top Ten List
  • About – Shave Soap and Cream Reviews

Palpz's Shaving Soap Reviews

~ For all your wet shaving needs

Palpz's Shaving Soap Reviews

Tag Archives: garden variety soap co

Garden Variety Soap Company – Bergamot Cedarwood shaving soap

15 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Palpz in American, Soap

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

6/10, bergamot, cedarwood, citrus, clove, garden variety soap co, juniper, Lime, patchouli, shaving soap, wood

2014-08-14 23.43.22

So I received this puck of shaving soap after getting an inquiry from the soap maker about doing a review. I frankly kind of wish she had contacted me prior to coming up with the formulation; perhaps I could have helped to steer her in a bit of a better direction.

As we often see from people who are already making soap that decide to delve into making shaving soaps, it looks like it’s basically hand soap with bentonite clay added. I suppose I can’t blame them terribly; after all that’s pretty much what comes up on the first page or so if you google “How to make shaving soap”. The problem being that they’re all listed on soap oriented websites, and not anyone with any real “cred” with regards to shaving. I’d liken it to someone who was trying to figure out how to bake a cake following a recipe on an breakfast website telling egg lovers how they can alter their omelet recipe by adding some flour, instead of actually listening to the advice on a baking site.

Which isn’t to say that some type of clay can’t be a small component of a good shaving soap (as seen in Mike’s Naturals amongst others), but it sure as heck can’t be the only thing that you’re using to try and make it into a shaving soap instead of something else.

Anyways, enough of a generic rant, about this soap in particular: it seriously lacked lather stability. If you do use it, I’d suggest tailoring your lather mix to be on the water-heavy side, so at least you get a very good amount of glide, since you’re not really going to be able much to speak about in the way of thickness. It did at least have some decent moisturization properties, but that’s not really enough to salvage the performance.

The scent was pleasant; the bergamot seems to be predominate with the cedar and the other scents providing a nice base. There’s a bit of sweetness to the mix as well, which might be from the shea / cacao butter. All together, it came together for a nice combination.

It was about a middling strength; not strong, but not weak, with fairly decent staying power.

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

Anyways, I’ll be giving this a 6/10; I can’t really recommend it due to the unsatisfying shave it provided.

  • Cost: As mentioned, I was given this puck free of charge for the purposes of this review. You can get your own 4 oz puck for $8.

Gear used:

  • Brush: The Colonel
  • Razor: Merkur 37C Slant
  • Blade: Personna DE
  • Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Water, Sunflower Oil, Castor oil, Coconut oil, Sodium Hydroxide, Palm Oil, Shea Butter, Cacao Butter, Bentonite Clay, Essential Oil Blend (bergamot, cedarwood, juniper, patchouli, lime, clove)

Recent Posts

  • Kapo Shaving Cream – Classic
  • Elegant Rose artisan shaving soap – Woodland Spice
  • Speick Shaving Cream
  • eShave Mandarin shave soap
  • Arturro Barbiere Vetiver shaving soap

Categories

Al's Shaving Products American Arko Barrister and Mann British Canadian Cream General Geo F Trumper German Honeybee Soaps Italian J&E Atkinsons Jabonman Kell's Original Kiss My Face Mama Bear Soaps Man Cave Soapworks Mike's Natural Soaps Mystic Water Soaps for Men Queen Charlotte Soaps RazoRock savor Soap Spanish Strop Shoppe Taylor of Old Bond Street The Shave Den Truefitt and Hill Turkish

4/10 5/10 6/10 7/10 8/10 9/10 Al's Shaving Products Almond amber bay rum bergamot bermagot black tea cedar cedarwood cinnamon citrus clove coconut cologne Coriander crisp Discontinued floral Fruit Geo F Trumper geranium Glycerin grapefruit Green Irish Tweed green tea herbal honeybee soaps Jasmine juniper kell's original lavender leather lemon lemongrass Lime Mama Bear Soaps Man Cave Soapworks Mango menthol Mike's Natural Soaps mint musk mystic water non-lathering nutmeg Orange patchouli pine Queen Charlotte Soaps RazoRock Rose sandalwood Scent Off 2013 shaving cream shaving soap soft soap SOTM spice strop shoppe tangerine Taylor of Old Bond Street tea the shave den tobacco truefitt and hill vanilla verbena vetiver wood

Past posts

June 2022
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930  
« Mar    

Top Posts & Pages

  • Crabtree & Evelyn - Nomad shaving cream

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Palpz's Shaving Soap Reviews
    • Join 97 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Palpz's Shaving Soap Reviews
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...