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.

Green Mountain Soaps – Nick’s Red Jacket (shave off entry)

Tags

8/10, cedarwood, clove, Discontinued, Fruit, nutmeg, oakmoss, Orange, peppermint, Scent Off 2013, shaving soap, spice, Spruce, tobacco, wood

Edit: This particular scent is no longer available.

Ho Ho Ho! And now, with a fair bit of delay because I’ve been feeling both lazy and ill lately, we’re up to the final Scent Off 2013 entry. From Green Mountain Soaps – Nick’s Red Jacket. Here’s what the rest of the judges had to say about it. And here’s what the manufacturer had to say about the scent:

Triple milled shaving soap with a special scent developed for the holidays. Essential oils of Spruce, Sweet Orange, Peppermint, Texas Cedarwood, Nutmeg, Clove, Tobacco Absolute, Carrot Seed & Oakmoss evoke the scent of Christmas Eve clinging to St. Nick’s jacket on Christmas Eve on his journey home to the North Pole.

Of all the scents listed in the description, the Peppermint really predominates. To the point that, while you can tell that there’s “something else” there, it’s difficult to really be able to distinguish what that something else might actually be, with probably the orange and the spruce as somewhat distant runners up.

Overall it’s a pleasant scent; I do like peppermint, and it certainly fits the seasonal theme. The scent was at a good strength level; started out fairly strong, with only a bit of fading throughout each pass.

I’d call the lather fairly good. While it wasn’t all that difficult to find the right amount of water for a good balance of lather thickness and glide, it did seem to have some lather stability problems, with noticeable breakdown starting to happen before got from one cheek to the other.

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

All in all, I’m going to be giving this final entry in the scent off a 8/10.

• Cost: A 1 oz sample is available for $5.50, or a 2.5 oz puck for $9. Unfortunately, the last time I checked, they only shipped within the United States, so any of us who live elsewhere might be a bit out of luck.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Yuma Safety Razor
• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Tallow, Distilled Water, Stearic/Palmitic Acid, Coconut Oil, Sodium Hydroxide (lye), Castor Oil, Cocoa Butter, Glycerin, Potassium Hydroxide, Olive Oil, Borax, Bentonite, essential oils

Al’s Shaving Products – Scent of the Month: Al’s Spice Shaving Cream

Tags

8/10, Al's Shaving Products, allspice, Cardamon, cinnamon, clove, Coriander, geranium, lemon, nutmeg, pepper, shaving cream, spice

Heya folks. Long time no see; sorry I’ve been a bit busy lately, haven’t gotten around to writing up any reviews. But the next on our plate is a cream from one of my favorite artisans; one of Al’s Shaving Products scents of the month: Al’s Spice (pun intended methinks).

If initially asked to describe this scent, I would have told you it’s like a bay rum, without the rum or the bay. It’s got a focus on the spices that often show up as supporting characters to many bay rum scents out there. Here’s what Al has to say about it:

Al’s Spice character is inspired by the Caribbean. Al’s Spice opens with notes of lemon and geranium and coriander. Cardamon, pepper and nutmeg follow in a rampant parade of exuberance. Clove, cinnamon and allspice support the incredible presence of this powerful yet classy offering. Al’s Spice’s scent is reminiscent of your last trip to Grenada (Island of Spice) very spicy with a bracing and invigorating character and a clean refreshing finish.

All in all, that seems mostly accurate, although I will say that the spice aspects of the scent predominate to my nose, with only a faint bit of the citrus and the floral aspects. Overall, I quite liked it. As did the girlfriend, which helps since we’re often in disagreement there!

The strength was also pretty good; it had great staying power, staying at a medium-strong level throughout your shave.

I would have liked just a tiny bit more oomph to it. It’s not strongly scented, but not weak either. Once applied, it does manages to last the shave without much in the way of fading.

The lather was the usual from Al: top notch. A thirsty cream, you’ll want to make sure you’re using enough water. Don’t overdo it on the amount of cream you use, with enough water you’ll get a lot of volume out of just a little bit of cream. Otherwise it’s hard to mess up, with a wide sweet spot for a good balance of glide and thickness, and some nice moisturization to the face as well.

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

Overall I’ll say this merits a strong 8/10.

• Cost: This sample was provided gratis for the purposes of this review. A 4 oz tub is available for $20.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant w/Ikon SS wave handle
• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: “The forumula of Al’s Shaving Cream is Triethanolamine and preservative (parabens) free and only contains sodium and potassium salts of fatty acids (stearic, oleic, linoleic, palmitic, myristic and lauric) in addition to water, glycerin and botanicals.”

New York Shaving Company – Old St. Patrick’s

Tags

7/10, benzoin, bergamot, cedar, cinnamon, Coriander, cypress, geranium, ginger, lavender, musk, New York Shaving Company, nutmeg, patchouli, shaving cream, vanilla

New York Shaving Company’s Old St. Patrick is a clean fresh scent; I’m not quite sure why they called it Old Saint Patrick’s, I had assumed before trying it that this might be their attempt to emulate Creed’s Green Irish Tweed, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. It’s a rather complex scent, one which I’d say overall is rather pleasant, if rather hard to describe. Here’s how they describe it:

A fresh gentlemen’s fragrance that opens with an enveloping fusion of nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and bergamot notes, and emerges into a perfect blend of coriander and cypress with subtle lavender and geranium undertones. It finishes with a base of patchouli, musk, and cedar softened with vanilla and benzoin.

Maybe it was Irish Spring soap they were going for there, I’ll admit I can’t quite say as it’s been forever since I’ve used that soap.

The strength is middling; it wasn’t all that strong, but it didn’t fade significantly during the shave, staying nice and steady at that lightly scented stage. Which I know some of you definitely prefer!

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, overall I’ll say it’s a pretty good shaving cream, I’ll give it a 7/10. Apparently they re-formulated their product within the last year or so, so if you tried it in the past and didn’t like it, it might be worth a shot again.

• 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.”