QEDman – Spearmint and Tangerine shave stick

Tags

7/10, citrus, Discontinued, Fruit, mint, QEDman, shaving soap, shaving stick, Spearmint, tangerine

Edit: as below, this line is no longer available.

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So, apparently the owner of the place that made the QEDman soaps for QEDman has retired. They’re down to one last scent available in the shaving stick, the wild orange, and three scents available for the tubs; Anise & Lavender, Grapefruit & Peppermint, and this one, Tangerine & Spearmint.

The lather is decent enough; a good balance of lubrication and thickness; you’ll want to be reasonably generous with the amount of water used. Somewhat narrow sweet spot to get the balance just right, but some good moisturization.

The balance on the scent is definitely predominately the spearmint, which shouldn’t be all that unexpected, considering it’s generally considered a much strong scent than tangerine. You can detect hints of the sweetness of tangerines underneath the minty-ness. Fairly pleasant, although I would have preferred more tangerine.

The strength is reasonable to start, without much in the way of fading. Not strong per se, but definitely not weak.

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

Anyways, it’s a nice enough soap, with good performance in all areas, but nothing to write home about in any aspect. 7/10 overall.

• Cost: As mentioned, the shaving stick in this scent is no longer available, however a 5oz jar can still be found for $13.50. While they do ship to Canada and some other places outside the US, the shopping cart feature only works within the US, so you’ll need to e-mail for a quote.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Big Ben Super Stainless

Ingredients: Saponified 100% food grade coconut, palm, castor, and safflower oils, with kosher vegetable glycerin, soybean protein, aloe vera extract, and essential oils.

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Elvado – Key Lime Shaving Soap

Tags

9/10, citrus, elvado, Lime, mint, shaving soap

Next up on the list of new soaps, one that’s actually new, instead of just new to me. I think I first heard about Elvado a couple months back, after hearing about them working with Seth over at Men Essentials for the creation of a line of Men Essentials branded soaps. Their parent company seems to have actually started out as a medical supply company, before branching out into skin care, and then shaving “software”. One interesting little tidbit I guess!

Anyhow, their Elvado line of shaving soaps seems to be a modified version of a melt-and-pour base, with the addition of a fair bit of shea butter. Rather akin to Honeybee Soaps in that regard, and to be honest, the performance reminded me of it as well. First off, you do need to use a fair bit of water, and some elbow grease to get what I’d say is a good balance of thickness and glide; I found I generally had to sacrifice a bit of thickness in order to get the glide I needed. As this also mostly fixed the lather stability issues I found the soap had at lower water contents. So, yeah, don’t be stingy!

One area in which I think it performed a fair bit better than Honeybee soaps was the moisturization; my face felt better afterwards that I recall getting from Sue’s product.

I’m not sure why they named it “Key Lime”, as I wouldn’t think just from the name that the scent includes a mint aroma.  Maybe shoulda called it “Key Lime Mojito”?! But it most certainly does, and the lime and the mint smells do come together exceptionally nicely. They’re balanced great, such that neither overpowers or dominates the other.

As for the strength of the scent? I’d say just about perfect. It was nice and strong when first applied, without being overpowering, and saw very little in the way of fading.

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

Anyways, overall I’m rather pleased with the performance of this soap. I feel reasonably comfortably rounding up to a 9/10.

• Cost: I was provided this tub free for the purposes of the review by the folks at Elvado. You can get a 115 g tub for $16, or if you find them more convenient, a 71 g shaving stick for the same price.

Gear used:

• Brush: Ecotools Kabuki Finishing Brush
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant (with iKon handle)
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Bowl: Hand painted by myself (Yes, I know it’s ugly).

Ingredients: Cocos Nucifera (Coconut Oil), Elaesis Guineensis (Palm Oil) , Cathamus Tintorius (Safflower Oil), Glycerine (Kosher of vegetable origin), Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Purified Water, Fragrance (Parfum 100% Natural), Sodium Hydroxide, Sorbitol, Sorbitan Oleate, Glycine Soja (Soy Bean Protein), Titanium Dioxide (Mineral Whitener)

Wm. Neumann & Co – Old Fashioned Soda Shaving Cream

Tags

9/10, Birch, cinnamon, citrus, clove, Coriander, floral, Fruit, lemon, mint, Neroli, nutmeg, Orange, shaving cream, soda, spice, Star Anise, vanilla, Wintergreen, Wm. Neumann & Co, wood

Now, some of you have probably noticed that I’ve been pretty lazy with getting these reviews out lately. For that, I apologize. It’s had one side effect; rather than trying several soap or cream a couple times, without getting updates out, I’d just been reusing and reusing one of them. So, rather than getting the usual 2 – 3 tries that other soaps and creams get, this upcoming cream has gotten used about ten times that. One of my most thoroughly reviewed products ever!

Wm. (William) Neumann & Co’s schtick is that the descendant of a pharmacist from the turn of the last century found a notebook wherein said gentleman had found the recipes for a bunch of custom scents that the fellow had created.

So I was prompted to purchase this product after seeing Mantic’s review of it. He says that he smelled Cola and Root beer, with a bit of cream soda; his wife got a citrus cream soda vibe. Personally, I’d say it’s cola, root beer, with a bit of Dr. Pepper. It’s a sweet, slightly tangy scent that I think if I were to sniff it blind and be asked what it smelled like, I would probably reply with something similar to “Old Fashioned Soda”. Really suits what they were going for. They describe it as a “secret combination of Orange, Lemon, Nutmeg, Coriander, Neroli, Cinnamon, Wintergreen, Clove, Birch, Star Anise, and Vanilla”, which seems like a reasonable description to me; it comes together quite nicely.

The strength of it was pretty good. It starts off pretty much perfect, although it does experience fairly significant fading as the shave progresses. Still, it was “strong enough” for the time it took to finish off each of my cheeks and the neck, which isn’t too shabby.

As for the performance of the cream itself, it’s very good, although I did find it a bit tricky to get just right. In particular, I found it was fairly easy to over-do it with the amount of water added, leaving a lather that’s too thin. Not too much water is needed at all, and a bit easy to overshoot. That said, when you do get it right, it does result in a very fine lather with some great glide and cushioning, and some good moisturization to boot.

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

All in all, I’d say it’s a pretty damned fine cream. Fine enough that I believe it deserves a spot on the top ten list; I think I’ll be putting it at number 8 for the time being. 9/10.

• Cost: $24 for 8 oz (236 mL) of the shaving cream, in a container with a hand pump. They do also make a shave soap, an aftershave (which they can’t ship outside the US due to its alcohol base), and an aftershave balm in the same scent.

Gear used:

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

Ingredients: Water, stearic acid, glycerin, myristic acid, potassium hydroxide, cocos nucifera (coconut) oil, olea europaea (olive) oil, aloe barbadensis (aloe vera) leaf juice, hydrolyzed silk, fragrance (contains natural oils), menthol, tocopheryl acetate (vitamin e), butyrospermum parkii (shea) butter, retinyl palmitate (vitamin a), allantoin, camellia sinensis (green tea) extract, aphanizonmenon flos aquae (blue-green algae) extract, urtica dioica (nettle) extract, stellaria media (chickweed) extract, ulmus rubra (slippery elm) extract, silybum marianum (milk thistle extract), althaea officinalis (marshmallow root) extract, hydroxyethylcellulose.

Madame Scodioli – Ill Repute shaving soap

Tags

6/10, clove, Fruit, Madame Scodioli, mandarin, mint, pennyroyal, shaving soap, spice

Step right up folks and see the amazing Ill Repute shaving soap, hand-crafted by Madame Scodioli, the amazing bearded lady! Seriously, that’s the shtick of this particular etsy shop, products purportedly made by the bearded lady of a traveling circus.

The lather wasn’t really what I’d say is good. It seemed to be a case of lubrication or thickness; pick one. I couldn’t quite get a good balance of the two, even after a fair bit of experimentation with the amount of water used (although I think I did find an in-between spot that didn’t really have what I’d consider a good amount of either). While the base of the soap seems to be a typical melt-and-pour with some tinkering, in this case I don’t think the tinkering improved the performance. This coupled with the fact that I did start to feel a bit of a burning sensation by the end of my 2nd pass, and trust me, I have far from sensitive skin. Apparently that was a really bad problem when they first came out; it’s since been reformulated, but it doesn’t look like it’s eliminated the issue entirely.

The scent on the other hand was pretty nice. It’s described as their “own version of citrus and mint, Ill Repute is pretty and flirty with a hint of menace underneath”. The sweetness of the mandarin and the mintiness of the pennyroyal is given a subtle bit of zing with the cloves. All in all, it came together fairly well. It wasn’t extremely strong, but kept at a nice steady level throughout the shave.

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

Overall, I think I’m going to be rounding down on this one: 6/10. While the scent is pretty good, I don’t think it’s nearly good enough to justify using it instead of something else that manages to pull off a great lather and a nice scent.

• Cost: The 6 oz bar of soap is available for $8, and can also be found in a round puck.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Yuma Safety Razor
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Saponified oils of coconut, palm and safflower, shea butter, glycerin (kosher), sorbitol, sorbitan oleate, soy bean protein, wheat protein, red kaolin clay, white kaolin clay, and fragrance oil.

Taconic – Eucalyptus Mint shaving cream

Tags

6/10, eucalyptus, mint, shaving cream, taconic

I found the lather of this Taconic sample to be kinda so-so. When mixed to the thickness I liked, it had a few stability problems, and didn’t really last a full pass, about 2/3rds of a pass before it was visibly fading. This was rectified by adding some water, but it had thinned out a fair amount as a result. It doesn’t seem to have a very wide sweet spot with regards to acceptable water content. On the moisturization front, it was perhaps a bit above average.

The scent is a nice enough mint smell; I can’t really tell about the Eucalyptus in there or not. There’s definitely some noticeable cooling going on as a result of the mint. It’s not too strong, but a nice decent baseline that doesn’t really fade during the shave.

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

Overall, I’m going to give it a 6/10. Personally, I wouldn’t really recommend it, there’s better stuff out there.

• Cost: Maggard Razors sells the sample packs shown, which gets you a 1/4 oz sample of each of Taconic’s 3 scents, for $2.75. The full 4 oz jar will go for $15.75.

Gear used:

• Brush: Ecotools Kabuki Finishing Brush
• Razor: Gillette Old Style with WWI US Service Set
• Blade: Crown Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Organic coconut oil, stearic acid, distilled water, vegetable glycerin, organic safflower oil, potasium hydroxide, organic honey, sodium hydroxide, benzoin, sodium borate, phenoxyehanol, caprylyl, glycol, essential oil.

savor – Formula N shaving soap

Tags

7/10, floral, Fruit, Glycerin, Mango, mint, papaya, savor, shaving soap, tropical

AKA, wherein Greg reviews a shaving soap that was never intended to be applied on anything above the waist.

Formula N is a nice fruity scented shaving soap. They bill is as “a completely natural blend of essential oils and floral waters. Like a tall glass of fresh-squeezed juice papaya and mango juice with a sprig of sun-warmed mint and a fresh bouquet of flowers nearby.” I’m not going to argue with that, it’s definitely got a strong tropical vibe to it. Anyways, it’s not exactly a “manly” scent, nor was it intended to be, but I really do rather like it.

Strength-wise, it’s not too shabby. It’s not overtly strong when lathered up and applied to the face, but you don’t see much in the way of fading during the shave either.

The lather is pretty much exactly what I expected out of it. Your typical glycerin-based melt-and-pour. Does the trick good enough, as long as you can get the water balance right (to get enough glide while maintaining viscosity). Which you should be able to do easily enough once you’re used to these soaps.

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

I think it’s safe to say this is a good 7/10. Decent enough shave, nice scent, good strength, and not all that expensive? Yeah, why not.

• Cost: The 85g / 3 oz puck shown will set you back $4.50.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Gillette 7 O’clock Black
  
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ok, and here’s a bit of an issue. The ingredient listing on their website is different than the ingredient listing on the package. So, I’ll give you both.

Ingredients according to the website: coconut oil x palm oil x castor oil x safflower oil x glycerin x purified water x sodium hydroxide x sorbitol x sorbitan oleate x soybean protein x wheat protein x natural fragrance x color

Ingredients according to the packaging: Coconut oil, palm oil, safflower oil, sodium hydroxide, sorbitol, goat’s milk, sorbitan oleate, soybean protein, wheat protein, color, natural fragrance.

Not massive differences, just the addition of the goat’s milk, and the switching of the order for the color and the natural fragrance.

The Shave Den – Mojito soap

Tags

6/10, citrus, Glycerin, Lime, mint, shaving soap, the shave den

The Shave Den’s Mojito scent is a nice sweet minty concoction, or in their own words “lime and spearmint blend, inspired by the Cuban cocktail of the same name”. As I’ve only had one Mojito in my life, I can’t really recall how well it might match, but it smells pleasant enough for sure.
Strength-wise, I’m detecting a trend. It’s strong enough when smelling the little cake of soap itself, but it doesn’t follow to the lather. It’s a bit better than previous two I’ve tried, but still not good enough. It’s faintly detectable for most of the shave, fading to nothing near the end of each pass.

On this one, I wasn’t quite able to get enough glide, but not quite as much as I would have liked, or at least not without also adding too much water for it to not become too runny and thin to provide sufficient cushioning. It seemed like too much of an either / or choice with lubrication or thickness of lather. There might be a “sweet spot”, but it isn’t wide enough to hit easily.

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

Overall, it gets a 6/10. Not a great shave, and the scent doesn’t add enough to the experience to make up for it. And now off to this year’s Remembrance Day ceremony.

• Cost: A one ounce sample goes for $2.50, or $6.99 for a full 4 ounce puck (an extra $2 if you want a tub with it).

Gear used:

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

Ingredients: Glycerin, Aqua, Olive Oil, Bentonite Clay, Sodium Borate, Sweet Almond Oil, Sodium Palmate, Sorbitol, Sodium Cocoate, Palm Acid, Coconut Acid, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate, and fragrance.