Queen Charlotte Soaps – Green Irish Tweed type shaving cream

Tags

7/10, citrus, cologne, floral, Green Irish Tweed, iris, lemon, Queen Charlotte Soaps, sandalwood, shaving cream, verbena, violet

Today’s review is of Queen Charlotte Soaps’ Green Irish Tweed shaving cream. Now, I’ve reviewed their GIT soap before, and found it to be somewhat lacking, especially in scent strength. This fared better.

The cream’s lather was pretty good; fairly thick for a cream, it lathered up with a bit of elbow grease to something with a good balance of thickness and lather slickness, with a fairly wide “sweet spot” for acceptable water content to pull this off.

The scent seemed like a pretty decent Green Irish Tweed imitation (keeping in mind that I’ve never smelled the actual stuff!). For those who don’t know the scent, here’s how QCS describes it:

This is our rendition of Green Irish Tweed, the cologne created by Creed that is a favorite among the famous and royalty. With top notes of lemon and verbena, middle notes of iris and violet leaves, and base notes of Mysore sandalwood and ambergris, Green Irish Tweed smells refined and sophisticated.

Now, back to the soap version of the stuff, I could barely detect any scent whatsoever. This stuff is far better in that regard. This isn’t to say that it’s a strong scent, mind you, but at least you can tell it’s there, albeit with a fair amount of fading during the course of the shave.

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

All in all, it’s a decent enough if rather middle of the road cream. Not outstanding in any aspect, but it doesn’t fall flat anywhere either. 7/10 overall.

• Cost:I got this sample along with an order from MenEssentials, but you can also buy Queen Charlotte’s cream samples, 5 for $8. A full tub goes for $14.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Edwin Jagger DE81BL (Red)
• Blade: Lord Super Stainless

Ingredients: Water, saponified stearic acid, glycerin, saponified tallow, palm oil, olive oil, and coconut oil, aloe vera extract, fragrance oil, kaolin clay, phenoxyethanol (and) caprylyl glycol, vitamin E.

New York Shaving Company – Tonsorial shaving cream

Tags

7/10, amber, barber shop, citrus, floral, Fruit, iris, lavender, lemon, lime and mandarin, musk, New York Shaving Company, shaving cream, wood

My initial impression of New York Shaving Company’s Tonsorial cream was of a “barbershoppe” scent, which for those of you like myself who might have to look up the word Tonsorial, seems to be exactly what they were going for. They describe it as follows:

Warm and masculine, this scent opens with a citrus fusion of lemon, lime and mandarin. It emerges with lavender and iris, finishes with a warm musk and amber woods.

Personally, I think the notes that I pick up the most would be the amber and the citrus, but it’s a nice blend of all of the above. It’s fairly reminiscent of Taylor of Old Bond Street’s Shaving Shop, but without quite straying away from a clean scent to a sterile scent, as I mentioned in that review.

Strength-wise, it is indeed a lightly scented cream, however it does stay fairly steady throughout the shave, without any significant fading.

The lather was exactly what I recall from the review last week, so I’m just gonna copy it here: The lather provided a good shave. I was able to hit the sweet spot for a good combination of thickness and slickness each time, with a bit of tinkering; it seems to be a reasonably sizable but not large range of acceptable water content. Very good lather stability, decent moisturization.

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

So, it kinda looks like I like this cream almost exactly the same as I did the other New York Shaving Co cream I tried last week. So, overall rating’s the same too; 7/10.

• Cost: I haven’t seen samples of this scent readily available (this one was provided to me from Men Essentials). A 2 oz travel container goes for $12, or $18 for a full-sized 4 oz.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Ladas Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Dunno! Couldn’t find a current listing. Best I could give you is this from their website: “This rich cream contains such beneficial ingredients as Coconut oil, Glycerin, Organic Cocoa Butter & Organic Aloe.”