Fitjar Soaps – Isrose (aka Frost Rose; Scent off entry)

Tags

7/10, 8/10, floral, menthol, pine, Rose, Scent Off 2013, shaving cream, shaving soap, wood

Next up in the scent off is a product coming to us from the town of Fitjar in Norway. Fitjar Såpekokeri (aka Fitjar Soap) offered forth both a cream and a soap, which I’ll be doing in one review, in a scent they call Isrose, or “Frost Rose”. This is the first products I’ve tried from them. I’d heard mostly quite good things, and they seem to have lived up to their reputation. Here’s what everyone else had to say about it.

The soap is good; not great, but quite good. It lathers up quite easily,
however does thin out a bit when enough water is added to give it what I
think it a good level of glide. I didn’t really notice anything in the
way of moisturization after the fact. I did have quite good lather
stability however.

Upon a trying it a few more times, I’ve actually switched my initial
opinion; the cream seems to be working better than the soap; it does
require a bit more elbow grease, but it gave what I considered to be a
superior balance of glide and lather thickness. Good stability, still
not much noticable on moisturization.

As for what they had to say about their scent off entry:

The inspiration for this scent is from frost roses on the windows of my log cabin in Telemark. One of the most magical Christmases I have ever had was spent here. The Frost roses were exquisitely beautiful, and they looked a bit like the pine trees that grow right outside the window. So the Christmas scent Frost Rose became a blend of sweet rosa damascena aand rose geranium, spicy pine and icy menthol.

The aroma of rose with the touch of pine is pretty nice, with a reasonable strength level. However, I’m not sure that the menthol is all that suitable for what’s supposed to be a seasonal scent winter/autumn scent. It reminds one of winter, but it’s not something that I’d want to be using during winter. Even living in a spot with one of the mildest winters in Canada, I’m still not eager to try and cool my face down further in the mornings once we get to this time of year!

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 8/10 Scent Strength
• 9/10 Lather Quality for the cream; 8/10 for the soap

Overall, I’d say that I’ll give the soap a 7/10 and the cream a 8/10.

• Cost: The cream can be had for 155 NOK (about $25.50 USD) for a full 175 mL jar, or a 20 mL sample (shown) is available for 20 NOK (~$6.40 USD). The soap is available for 111 NOK (~$18.25 USD) for a 100g refill; extra if you want a plastic bowl with an aluminium lid, or a wooden bowl.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Gillette 7 O’clock Black
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients (shaving cream): Potassium stearate, potassium cocoate (from organic oconut oil), glycerin, olea europea (organic virgin olive oil), essential oils(rosa damascena, rose geranium, pine, menthol).

Ingredients (shaving soap): Glycerin, sodium stearate, sodium cocoate (from unrefined, organic oconut oil), coconut fatty acid, lauric acid, cocus nuciferi, olea europea (organic virgin olive oil), sorbitol, sodium laurate, sodium laurate sulphate, sodium lauryl sulphate, pentasodium pentetate, tetrasodium etidronate, essential oils (rosa damascena, rose geranium, pine, menthol).

Six Shooter Shaving – Classic (Lime) shaving cream

Tags

7/10, citrus, Lime, menthol, shaving cream, Six Shooter Shaving

You might be familiar with Six Shooter Shaving’s brushes, where the knot is attached to a handle that’s made up to look like the cylinder of a revolver, complete with the primer of 6 bullets attached (presumably gun-powder free). They’ve also got some DE razors with handles made up to look like the muzzle of a rifle. And, they also make a shaving cream.

It’s a lime scented cream, with a bit of a kick of menthol for the cooling sensation. It’s scented with lime essential oil, so it avoids that chemically/cleanser scent you get from a lot of artificially scented citrus products.

The strength is what I’d say is decent. It starts off sorta strong, but does fade a bit throughout the shave, although it doesn’t get to the point where I was having trouble picking it up.

The lather produced yielded a rather good balance of thickness and glide; just be careful that you don’t over-do it with the amount of water added, it doesn’t need much. I did however notice a bit of a lack of lather stability; there was some definite noticeable breakdown of the stuff by the time I was getting around to finishing each pass. In the end though it did leave my face feeling rather nice and moisturized.

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

Overall I’m giving it a 7/10. It definitely could have done better by bringing the strength of the scent up.

• Cost: A 2 oz bottle will run you $6.95, or you can go for the 4 oz for $9.95.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Gillette NEW Ball-handle
• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Water (Aqua), TEA Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Stearic Acid, Glycerin,  Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Allantoin,  Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Tocopheryl Acetate, Citrus Aurantifolia (Lime) Oil, Menthol, Tetrasodium EDTA, DMDM Hydantoin, PEG-14M.

Proraso Blue Aloe & Vitamin E Shave Cream

Tags

7/10, aloe, licorice, menthol, Proraso, shaving cream

So, I guess it was finally time to get around to reviewing some Proraso. Proraso’s Blue formulation is the newest cream they carry, having only come out late last year.

The scent is a bit difficult to describe. The most common example thrown out there is that it’s licorice / anise-scented, which makes sense given that there is indeed some licorice root extract in the cream, but it’s not just a licorice scent. It is tempered by something that I’d consider a fresh / green scent, which might be due to the aloe. There’s a also bit of menthol, although apparently not nearly as much as you’ll find in the Proraso Green.

Overall, I found it to be a pleasant scent. It wasn’t all that strong, just enough to be noticeable it you go trying to pay attention to it, but I couldn’t really tell it was there for most of the shave.

The cream lathered up easily, requiring very little water for a really thick lather that had good glide. I found this cream to be a fair bit above average in the moisturization department, which I’ll chalk up to the inclusion of the aloe juice, and perhaps the vitamin E.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 6/10 Scent Strength
• 9/10 Quality of lather

Overall, I’ll say 7/10. Scent just doesn’t have the oomph to do it for me, but it’s a good shave otherwise.

• Cost: The 1/4 oz sample shown was from Garry’s Sample Shop, for $2. A full sized 150 mL tube can be found for $7.50.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Gillette NEW Ball-handle
• Blade: Bolzano Superinox

Ingredient list (my apologies if I messed some of this up, I was typing it out by hand off of a rather low-res picture of the ingredient listing; couldn’t find another one online!):  Aqua, stearic acid, cocos nucifera oil, potassium hydroxide, glycerin, lactic acid, parfum, sodium hydroxide, aloe barbadensis leaf juice, glycyrrhiza glabra root extract, tocopheryl acetate, sodium lauroyl sarcosinate, menthol, pentaerythrityl tetra-di-t-butyl hydroxyhydrocinnamate, sodium metasilicate, tetrasodium EDTA, hydroxyethylcellulose, hexyl cinnamal, linalool, butylphenyl methylpropional, sodium hydroxymethylglycinate

Queen Charlotte Soaps – Vostok shaving cream

Tags

4/10, menthol, peppermint, Queen Charlotte Soaps, shaving cream

To follow up yesterday’s QCS Vetiver soap review, I’ve now got the first of the shaving creams I’ve tried from Queen Charlotte Soaps; thus far I like it better than the soap samples. It seems to have a bigger “sweet spot” of water needed for a good combination of lather thickness and lubrication. It used, well, about an average amount for most other creams that I’ve come across. It’s a fairly thick cream, not sticky or goopy, honestly I would almost call it a really soft soap, consistency-wise at least.

As a reminder, I redid the lather quality scoring system, what used to be a 9/10 has been split into 9/10s (former “high 9s”) and 8/10s (former “low 9s”).

The scent, well, it’s menthol and peppermint. I generally like a bit of menthol, and enjoyed giving this cream a sniff.

It’s when I lathered it up and put it on my face that I rather stopped enjoying it. It’s strong. Very strong. “Enough menthol to make my eyes water” strong. I know that’s kinda this cream’s gig, and I should have expected what was coming. I mean, they say outright that “Vostok is a face-freezing blend of ice-cold peppermint and blizzard-like blasts of sub-zero menthol. We do not believe there exists a colder shaving product”. But I was still a bit unprepared for just how much freezing-action hit my face. It was just bloody cold.

If that’s what you’re going for, fill your boots. But I don’t think I’ll be trying this one again any time soon. Maybe to make a bit of superlather if I want to add a bit of a kick to some other scent, making sure not to use too much of course.

• 8/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 13/10 Scent Strength
• 8/10 Lather Quality

This wasn’t really what I consider to be a very pleasant shave. 4/10. Your mileage of course, may vary if you really like the cooling action.

• Cost: Queen Charlotte’s cream samples are 5 for $8, but with a surcharge for certain scents, bringing the price for this particular sample to $2.10. A full tub will run you $16.

Gear used:

• Brush: Ecotools Kabuki Finishing Brush
• Razor: 1966 Gillette Tech
• Blade: Gillette 7 O’clock Black
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Water, saponified stearic acid, glycerin, saponified tallow, palm oil, olive oil, and coconut oil, aloe vera extract, essential oil(s), kaolin clay, phenoxyethanol (and) caprylyl glycol, vitamin E. Vostok contains menthol crystals.

Mama Bear Soaps – White Grapefruit Ice Mentholated Shaving Soap

Tags

7/10, citrus, Glycerin, grapefruit, Mama Bear Soaps, menthol, shaving soap

First up, a slight policy change announcement. Up to now I’ve been giving each soap I’m trying out at least two days worth of shaves. This was primarily in order to ensure that I didn’t accidentally give a soap a bad review based upon me just having a bad shave, or bad luck once with building lather.

But I’ve also noticed that a lot of brands seem to have a lot of consistency in the behaviour of their lather, with the only real variation being in the scents. So, in order to allow me to get through the backlog of soaps I’ve got to review a bit faster, if I decide this is the case, I’ll only be giving soaps of that type 1 day of shaving per scent. As this has definitely been the case with Mama Bear Soaps (and as I’ve still got almost 2 months worth of Mama Bear reviews to do even with the 1 a day amendment), they’ll be the first to be added to this list. I suspect I’ll probably be adding at least Honeybee Soaps, and The Shave Den to this list shortly as well.

So, on to today’s review: Mama Bear’s White Grapefruit Ice. She says that “Grapefruit is great for oil skin.. combined with the menthol, this is a great summer soap for those who want something for their oily skin that is cooling and refreshing…” So naturally I waited until a chilly day in fall to test out this soap.

The grapefruit is quite nicely done, which makes sense considering it’s apparently done with 100% essential oils, instead of artificial fragrances. And the menthol adds quite a nice kick to both the scent, and in the cooling sensation on the skin. The aroma was noticible throughout the shave, but not strongly so.

As for the shave itself, as I mentioned, consistent. Load your brush a lot, add water slowly, and you’ll end up with a nice thick lather with a decent amount of glide; just be sure not to over-shoot on the water. If you’re using a scuttle, expect to have to re-whip the lather between passes (add a few drops of water too), as I’ve found the heat to increase the rate at which the lather breaks down.

• 9/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 8/10 Scent Strength
• 7/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

So overall, I give it a 7/10. As per usual with Mama Bear, trying it won’t hurt the pocket much… until you decide to try them all.

• Cost: $11.99 for a 5 oz puck, plus a bit extra if you want a plastic tub or wooden bowl; $4.69 for a 1.5 oz “mug soap”, or $1.00 for a sample sliver.

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.