Prairie Creations tallow cream: Bondage Nights

Tags

8/10, berry, cotton, Fruit, leather, linen, melon, musk, Prairie Creations, shaving cream, vetiver, wood

For my 2nd review of a Prairie Creations product (the first here), I’ve got some of their tallow based shaving cream. Now, one of the nicest things about this company is that they’ll custom create your soap or cream, with the ability to pick not only the scent you want, but how much of it they’ll be adding. As anyone who has followed my reviews probably can guess, I went with the heavily scented option.

The initial impressions of the scent are fruity and woodsy, and rather complex. Since my nose in inadequate at picking out distinct notes, here’s what they have to say about the scent:

The bold and daring night-time and masculine fragrance for the newly invented adventure hero, a sensual top notes of melons and berries leading to heart notes of leather, linen and cotton, and finally ending with deep woods, vetiver and musks.

I’d say that the melon and the berries are indeed the most obvious; after that, it’s a rather complex mix. While it isn’t something that I’d like as a cologne, it works well for a nice pick me up during the morning shave.

The strength was indeed heavily scented; it came on rather strong and only faded a little during the shave. I’ll be rounding up a bit for this, but I think it deserves top marks for the strength. Which is of course a warning for those of you who don’t like their soaps or creams quite as strong as I do, you might want to go for the regular of even the weak scented versions.

Performance wise, it’s rather good. To start off, the consistency is a rather thick cream, but not quite firm enough to be considered a “croap”.  It provided some great glide, although it didn’t work out quite as thick as I usually prefer. Lather stability was good once you had enough water, and the moisturization was also decent enough.

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

All in all, I’d recommend trying this out. It’s a clear 8/10.

• Cost: A 4 oz jar will set you back $12 (they’re now being sold in larger jars than the one I have shown).

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Travel Tech head on an Ikon wave handle
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless

Ingredients:

Liquid Used : Aloe Vera Juice
Oils Used : Castor Oil, Jojoba, Tallow
Other Ingredients Used : Fragrance, Glycerin, Kaolin Clay, Liquid Germall Plus, Raw Silk Fibers, Stearic Acid, Tocopherols

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La Toja shaving cream

Tags

7/10, cologne, La Toja, leather, shaving cream, smoke, wood

It’s time to cross the pond once again, this time for a product from Spain; La Toja shaving cream.

This cream seemed to like a fair amount of water, however I did over-do it at one point, so just be sure to add it in gradually while you’re building it up. It resulted in a lather that had a really good balance of thickness and glide, with a fairly wide sweet spot that would allow you a bit of adjustment to your liking. I didn’t really notice anything good or bad about it moisturization wise.

The scent was rather masculine; rather hard to describe, to my untrained nose I’d say it’s mostly leather notes I think, with some smokey / woody aspects, and perhaps some musk? Not too spicy, although maybe there’s a bit there. Doing some searching, it seems like most others also have trouble pinning down exactly what it is they’re smelling! Anyways, it was reasonably pleasant.

Not very strong however. It started off at what I would say is middling strength, but started fading swiftly thereafter, and didn’t stop until pretty much all scent was gone by the time I finished my pass.

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

Overall, I believe I’ll be rounding this one up to a 7/10. It performs decently in most respects, but there’s nothing I’d consider outstanding about it.

• Cost: While I normally don’t list sale prices, it seems Italian Barber might have this one on a semi-permanent sale price of $6.99 (from the original $9.99) for a 150g tube, since it’s still on for that price 9 months after I first ordered it. If anyone noticed the price going back up to the “regular”, let me know and I’ll fix this entry.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless

Ingredients: Aqua, Potassium Stearate, Potassium Palmitate, Glycerin, Potassium Cocoate, Sodium Stearate, Sodium Palmitate, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Lactate, Palmitic Acid, Stearic Acid, Parfum, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Myristyl Sulfate, Mineral Salts, Sodium Cetyl Sulfate, Laureth 10, Sodium Stearyl Sulfate, Sodium Sulfate, Sodium Chloride, Coumarin, Limonene, Linalool, Butylphenyl Methylpropional

J. Peterman 1903 Concentrated Shaving Cream

Tags

bergamot, cardamom, citrus, clary sage, cologne, elemi, fougère, frankincense, J. Peterman, labdanum, leather, shaving cream, smoke, tobacco, wood

To kick off the week, we’ve got J. Peterman’s 1903 Concentrated Shaving Cream.

True to its name, it’s a rather dense cream, which whips up quite easily; a bit thirstier than most creams out there, it did need a bit of fiddling with the right amount of water to get just right. It turned into a fairly thick lather, with some rather good glide. I did notice a bit of a lack of lather stability; there was some breaking down happening by the time I got near the end of each pass. After the shave, it left the face feeling rather nice.

The scent is akin to a rather spicy cologne. J. Peterman’s website makes up some story about “finding” it in a shop in Paris, but describes it as follows:

an “old woody fougère.” Clean citrus notes, bergamot, “green notes.” The middle notes: clary sage…cardamom. The dry-down: leather notes, smoky labdanum…elemi, tabac, frankincense.

I guess that sounds like a reasonable description to me. I found it to be a rather subdued spicy and smokey scent. Not too strong, but nice and steady nonetheless.

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

Overall? A solid 7/10. Decent enough all-around, nothing outstanding; I think I might like to try the cologne though.

• Cost: This sample was received from a kindly fellow redditor who wanted to know what I thought. If you’re looking to purchase some, it’ll run you $28 for a 7 oz tub. Unfortunately, they don’t ship internationally for some bloody reason, so offer valid for US residents only.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: No clue. Can’t find a listing anywhere.

Truefitt and Hill – Grafton Shaving Cream

Tags

8/10, amber, cologne, floral, grafton, herbal, leather, shaving cream, truefitt and hill, wood

I was prompted to bust out my sample of Truefitt and Hill’s Grafton shaving cream after stumbling across this post, wherein various folks on Shavenook declare Grafton to be identical to Taylor of Old Bond Street’s Mr. Taylor scent.

Naturally, I lathered up, took a sniff, and followed up with a sniff of my bottle of Mr. Taylor’s cologne. And while I’ll agree that they’re quite similar, I thought I picked up a bit more spice in the bouquet of the Mr. Taylor. For what it’s worth, T&H describe their Grafton as “Warm and spicy, Grafton has a fresh herbaceous opening combined with a spicy floral heart, leading onto a rich, woody, amber background with a hint of leather”, compared to TOBS on Mr Taylor: “A fresh fougere accord with herbaceous top notes of lavender, bergamot, green notes resting on a heart with geranium and soft green fern. The base of this fragrance is ambery with cedar, leathery, moss and musky.” So, yeah, definitely sounds like they were at least shooting for something similar, if not exactly the same.

Anyhow, the scent was quite nice, if the above sounds like something you’d like.  Strength-wise, it was pretty darned good; about what I’d call the perfect strength  right off the bat, however I did notice some not-insignificant level of fading during  the shave.

As for the lather, it’s on par with most of the other T&H I’ve tried (I think the slightly lower quality shaves I had with the Lavender might be an abberation). You can coax a quite thick lather out of it with a decent level of lubrication; don’t overdo it on the water however or it will thin down a fair bit. And reasonable moisturization properties.

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

I assess this one to be a solid 8/10. I’d say everyone should at least
give the T&H sampler pack a try.

• Cost: The cost of the aforementioned sample pack is $10.50 for 14 of their shaving creams, aftershave balms, and the pre-shave oil. Another 9 bucks gets you a sample of each of their colognes as well. $30 for a 190g tub of the cream, or $22 for a 75g tube.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Merkur Super
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredient List: Water, Stearic Acid, Mystric Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Acid, Glycerin, Fragrance, Triethanolamine, Phenoxyethanol, Butylparaben, Ethylparaben, Isobutylparaben, Sodium Hydroxide, Methylparaben, Propylparaben.

Man Cave Soapworks – Black Tea and Leather shave gel

Tags

5/10, leather, Man Cave Soapworks, non-lathering, shaving gel, spice, tea

Today’s review, by request, is Black Tea and Leather shave gel from Mancave Soapworks. T’is the first non-lathering gel I’ll reviewed thus far, and when I say non-lathering, I don’t mean “doesn’t lather well without a lot of water, but once you get that right lathers up quite nicely” like some other creams designed to be used brushless, I mean “doesn’t do anything whatsoever when a brush and water is used upon it.”

Needless to say, the shave performance is rather different from most. I will say it provides an extremely slick glide. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of having virtually no cushioning, not only being a gel but a relatively thin one.

Which isn’t to say that it gave a completely terrible shave, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for anyone remotely new to the whole wetshaving scene. Those a bit more experienced should be able to judge to what extent they rely upon the cushioning of their usual soap or cream.

As to be expected, you will also be using a lot more of the product on a daily basis than your average cream or soap. I ended up going through about 15 g of the stuff during the course of a 3 pass shave, and that was with laying it on relatively thinly. Thus I’d only expect to get about 8 shaves out of each jar.

The scent is a nice spicy concoction, the black tea being quite evident, with the leathery scent providing a nice base. All in all, it’s an overtly manly scent. Strength-wise, it’s fairly strong, quite noticeable throughout the shave (at least it avoids the problem that a lot of soaps have with the lathering process killing off their aroma).

• 9/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 9/10 Scent Strength
• 4/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

Overall, I’d give it a 5/10. The scent delivers, but the shave isn’t all that good. Personally, I’d just go with the aftershave balm in the same scent instead.

• Cost: The 4 oz jar goes for $8.

Gear used:

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

Ingredients: Aqua, alcohol, glycerin, polysorbate, carbomer, triethamine, methylparaben, propylparaben, fragrance, aloe gel, aloe oil.

Mama Bear Soaps – British Leather

Tags

6/10, cedarwood, citrus, cologne, floral, Glycerin, leather, Mama Bear Soaps, musk, Rose, shaving soap, vanilla, vetiver, wood

Mama Bear’s British Leather is, from what I can recall, a fairly decent re-creation of English Leather, the classic cologne scent (it’s been a while since I’ve smelled that). As per usual, my nose isn’t up to picking out unique scents amongst an aroma this complex, but they say that it is a “mix of bergamot, lemon, orange with notes or rose, honey, orris and ferns” with base notes of “cedarwood, leather, vetiver, musk and vanilla.” I see no reason not to believe them there. It’s a reasonably nice scent, and I’d bump it up a couple points if you’re a big fan of the cologne.

Strength-wise it doesn’t really cut it though. It’s easy to pick out when smelling the soap itself, but when lathered up and applied to the face, there’s pretty much nothing.

As for the lather, here’s the Mama Bear boilerplate review: 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.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 6/10 Scent Strength
• 7/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

6/10 overall. The scent really isn’t strong enough to enhance the shaving experience.

• Cost: $9.99 for a bowl worth. For some reason the samples aren’t currently available, although I suspect that’s an oversight that will be rectified once they get back from vacation in a few days.

Gear used:

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

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.