Kiss My Face – Key Lime Shaving Cream

Tags

8/10, citrus, Fruit, key lime, kiss my face, lemongrass, Lime

The scent is a refreshing aroma of tart lime; very nice. Although a glance at the label reveals that the underlying ingredients which made that scent are a fair bit more complex. but it definitely comes together as something that strongly reminds me of key limes. Unfortunately, it’s not really strong enough. It’s certainly noticable when lathered and put on the face, but not strongly so, and it faded away quite a bit while I was shaving.

The lather seems to be the same as any other Kiss My Face cream; requires a medium amount of water to get going, and a bit of elbow grease, but leaves you with a creamy lather with a pretty good balance of lubrication and cushioning. Nothing really out of the ordinary when it comes to moisturization.

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

All in all, we’re looking at a 7/10 for this one.

• Cost: $4.99 for the 100 mL (3.4 oz) tube shown, (although current on sale for half price) or a 325 mL (11 oz) hand pump type container for $7.95 (currently on sale for $6.45). Also, it’s one of those brands that is more likely to be available locally, especially at places that specialize in organic foods (both in Canada and the US).

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Big Ben Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Aqua, Myristic Acid, Glycerin, Stearic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Aloe Barbadensis (Aloe Vera) Leaf Juice, Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Allantoin, Salvia Officinalis (Sage) Leaf Extract, Arnica Montana (Arnica) Flower Extract, Hydrastis Canadensis (Golden Seal) Root Extract, Equisetum Hyemale (Horsetail) Extract, Alchemilla Vulgaris (Lady’s Mantle) Leaf Extract, Cymbopogon Schoenanthus (Lemongrass) Leaf Extract, Citrus Aurantifolia (Lime) Fruit Extract, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Flower Extract, Saponaria Officinalis (Soapwort) Root Extract, Nasturtium Officinalis (Watercress) Leaf Extract, Eucalyptus Globulus (Eucalyptus) Leaf Oil, Citrus Medica Limonum (Lemon) Peel Oil, Cymbopogon Schoenanthus (Lemongrass) Leaf Oil, Citrus Aurantifolia (Lime) Fruit Oil, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Flower Oil, Hydroxyethylcellulose

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Knockout Shave Cream – Sonny

Tags

7/10, cedarwood, citrus, floral, knockout shave, lavender, lemongrass, shaving cream, wood

The real question here, is which Sonny are they referring to? The Corleone? Or the Bono?

Sonny is a blend of Cedarwood, Lemongrass, and lavender. The Lemongrass is the strongest of the bunch with the lavender coming in for 2nd. It is a rather pleasant scent; I am a fan of lemongrass overall.

The strength was pretty much spot on, strong, with nothing noticeable in the way of fading. However, the strength probably contributed to one problem:

While I generally have fairly bullet-proof skin, I did notice a fair bit of irritation and a burning sensation from this one. Thus, I’d probably recommend avoiding it if you’ve got sensitive skin, as it’ll probably hit you harder than I. I’ll be docking some points directly from the overall score for this.

Since this cream uses Al’s Shaving Products main line as a base, a lot of you should know what to expect. A very darned fine shave, great thickness and lather slickness, as long as you’re sure to use enough water (and elbow grease)! Good moisturization, good lather stability; great shave.

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

So, normally this would probably be a 9/10, however due to the irritation I experienced, I’m going to downgrade it to a 7/10. Still usable, but there’s better stuff out there.

• Cost: I was provided my samples free of charge for the purposes of this review; you however can get samples (0.25 oz each) of the four current Knockout Shave scents for $7.50, or buy a 4 oz tub of the “Sonny” for $25.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Gillette Silver Blue

Ingredients: sodium and potassium salts of fatty acids (stearic, oleic, linoleum, palmitic, myristic and lauric), water, glycerin, essential oils (for fragrance).

Nanny’s Silly Soap Company – Grapefruit and Lemongrass vegan (original recipe shaving soap)

Tags

7/10, citrus, Fruit, grapefruit, lemongrass, Nanny's Silly Soap Company, shaving soap

Happy Boxing Day everyone! And welcome to anyone who’s here because of the Gizmodo article on weirdly specific review blogs. Since it’s a new year coming up, I think I’ll be spending the next little bit trying to knock off as many different vendors / artisans / manufacturers that I haven’t reviewed before. New year, new products!

So, to keep the trend going (since the last two reviews were brand new to me as well), I’ll be covering off a soap from Nanny’s Silly Soap Company, made by a lady named Sharon Baxter out of England, with some assistance by her grandson Luke.

They appear to be a typical soap company that branched out into shaving soaps, however unlike so many, actually bothered to do their research into what makes a good shaving soap.

The lather I found was pretty good. I did find it needed very little water for optimal performance, and was fairly easy to overshoot that amount, resulting in a thinner lather than I like. In fact, I found I did need to thin it out just a tad more than I liked to get the level of glide I like. I was still able to get what I’d say is a decent balance of the two, as long as the water usage was sparing. Just perhaps not what I’d say is ideal. It had some really good moisturization on the other hand, which I suppose should be expected with a healthy amount of shea and coccoa butter included.

The scent I found to also be quite pleasant; I found you probably got more of the lemongrass than the grapefruit out of it. It wasn’t a strong scent; when first applied to the face, you got a good whiff of it, but it died down a lot fairly shortly thereafter. That having been said, what did stick around really stuck around. I found myself noticing the occasional scent of it a good hour or two after the fact, as did the girlfriend.

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

Overall, I think I’ll give this Nanny’s Silly Goat soap a 7/10. I found this one to be a bit tough to judge; in pretty much all the areas I base the scores upon, it was on the cusp of being rounded up. That having been said, while it’s a solid soap, I wasn’t blown away in any aspect, so I suppose an average score will do.

• Cost: Nanny’s has some samples available, but it seems like what’s available at any given time is rather sporadic. When I bought this sample, it was £0.80, currently unavailable. The full sized product will run you £5.75 (so a bit under $10 USD) for a 100g jar.

Gear used:

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

Ingredients: Aqua, potassium palmitate*, potassium stearate (vegetable), potassium cocoabutterate, potassium shea butterate, potassium cocoate, potassium castorate, glycerine (vegetable), stearic acid (vegetable), kaolin. Essential oil blend.  Limonene, citral, geraniol. *Organic and sustainably grown in Columbia.

Jody’s Naturals lemongrass shaving bar

Tags

4/10, Jody's Naturals, lemongrass, shaving soap

So I often spend Canada day at a community BBQ / festival along the Gorge inlet. It’s a gorgeous spot (pun intended), and the event is usually quite fun. They’ll have bands playing on the stage, a bunch of food and various other vendors set up along the road, and a classic car show as well. I’m walking along, and notice one of the vendors is a soapmaker. And lo and behold, they’ve got a shaving soap! So, naturally I needed to pick it up.

Unfortunately, it turns out to be pretty terrible.

This soap did not produce a nice thick lather like I prefer. And what little lather I was able to get out of it broke up swiftly. Very swiftly, in fact I think I’m safe in saying that this soap had the worst lather stability of any soap I’ve come across yet. If it wasn’t for the fact that the ingredient listing is slightly different, I’d frankly assume that there was no difference between this and their regular bar soaps. But it definitely appears to have just been made with the ingredients they had on hand, instead of branching out into some of the other fats and oils that tend to make good shaving soaps (stearic acid, tallow, etc) or doing the experimentation that might have been able to get a good balance with the ingredients they were working with. At least the glide was decent, although still far from exemplary.

Scented with lemongrass essential oil, it makes for a pleasant aroma, although it doesn’t start out very strong, and it fades fast… well about as fast as the lather disappears.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 6/10 Scent Strength
• 4/10 Lather Quality

Overall, I can’t really recommend this soap. Seems like an example of someone not really doing the research into what’s different between the requirements for regular soap and shaving soap. 4/10.

• Cost: I can’t recall exactly how much I paid, but I reckon it was probably the $5 they’re charging on their etsy site, which gets you a bar in a tin of approximately 2 oz. Also available in cedarwood and lavender.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: 1966 Solid Nickel Gillette Tech
• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Water, Palm oil, Coconut oil, Olive oil, Castor oil, Sodium hydroxide (lye), Shea butter, Lemongrass essential oil.

Tabula Rasa – Herbs shaving cream

Tags

9/10, herbal, lemongrass, shaving cream, shaving soap, soft soap, tabula rasa

Now, this next one up isn’t exactly the easiest to find. But I consider it to be worth it. Tabula Rasa’s Herbs scent seems predominately dominated by lemongrass, with a few hints of some other herbal scents. So, if you like lemongrass, you’ll rather like this one. I certainly did.

Strength-wise, it’s spot on I’d say. Once lathered and applied to the face, it’s very noticeable without being over-powering. There’s only a slight amount of fading near the end of each pass, but other than that I’d say the strength is perfect, IMHO.

As for the shave itself, this one also knocks it out of the park. As with most “croap” samples, I treated this one more like a cream, by scooping a little out of the sample container into my scuttle and building the lather there. After all, it’s kind of hard to load a brush in a tiny plastic cup like that. With just a little bit of water, it very easily whips up into a wonderfully thick and slick lather, which gave just a top notch shave. Tabula Rasa does a great job of aiding you in the daily chore of making a “blank slate” out of your face.

For comparison, it’s very reminiscent of Al’s Shaving Products’ Saigon scent. They both give great shaves, and they both have a nice and strong and very similar scent.

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

Overall, a very strong 9/10. I’d highly recommend at least trying a sample if you get your hands on one. But that might be difficult. Plus Al’s Saigon is cheaper. Maybe get that instead of the Herbs, and get some of the other scents (Mmmm Dark Lavender) for Tabula Rasa.

• Cost: Beats me. I got the sample off someone who had had it thrown in free after he ordered a few jars straight from the manufacturer. This scent can’t currently be found online anywhere; the only North American distributor of the brand is Lee’s Safety Razors, where he sells the scents he has for $29 a tub. He doesn’t currently sell this scent, however, but mentions that he should be getting four new ones in in March; hopefully this is one of them. Otherwise, you can try to contact Xenia, who makes the soap off her website. Although it’s all in German, I’ve been told that when corresponding via e-mail that her English is just fine.

Gear used:

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

Ingredients (note: this is for the unscented version, I presume only minor differences for the “herbs” scent): Aqua, Stearic Acid, Glycerin, Cocos Nucifera Oil, Argania Spinoza Kernel Oil, Hordeum Vulgare Wax, Butyrospermum Parkii Extract, Mangifera Indica Butter, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Borate.