Parker – Sandalwood Sheabutter Luxury Shave Bar

Tags

7/10, cocoa, sandalwood, shaving soap, shea

Now, I’m sure that most of you are aware of Parker due to reasonably popular line of razors, brushes, and stands. But, hey, apparently they make a soap as well. That’s indeed a soap, since this is apparently the only variation they do manufacture, although apparently they used to also carry a “nine herbs” variation.

Anyhow, the scent on this soap is supposed to be a sandalwood. And I get a bit of a hint of sandalwood, but overall it’s a much sweeter scent than I would have expected from just sandalwood. I suspect that’s because the sandalwood’s being overpowered by the scent of the shea butter. There’s also a slight hint of something spicy, which I suppose could be the tumeric. It’s a reasonably pleasant scent, but definitely not what I’d expect from most sandalwood soaps.

It is however, rather weakly scented. It doesn’t start off very strong, and fades a fair bit from there.

The lather is good; it’s a thirsty soap that does need a fair bit of elbow grease as well. Do that, and it makes for a very good shave; nice and thick lather, good glide. Also pretty darned good on the skin moisturization front as well.

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

All in all, I’m reasonably pleased with this product, but definitely wish it was more strongly scented. 7/10. Fairly reasonably priced at least.

• Cost: I purchased this from Maggard Razors, $7.75 for a 100g puck. There is also a “travel” version of the same product, which comes in a watertight container, where you get 50g for $6.25.

Gear used:

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

Ingredients: Aqua, Cocos Nucifera Oil (Coconut), Glycerin, Sorbitol, SLES, Propylene Glycol, Cacao (Cocoa) Butter, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Glycerin (No, I don’t know why they have Glycerin listed twice), Santalum Album (Sandalwood) Oil, Aloe Barbadensis (Aloe Vera), Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Almond) Oil, Olea Europaea (Olive) Oil, Curcuma Longa (Tumeric).

Kiss My Face – Lavender Shea Shaving Cream

Tags

8/10, floral, kiss my face, lavender, shaving cream, shea

Kiss My Face is another one of those creams which are ostensibly designed to be used without a brush (or at least the instructions on the side don’t mention the use of one), but which still end up lathering up quite nicely.

The scent is quite nice. While it’s mostly lavender, naturally, I also caught a fair amount of what seemed to me to be a citrus-y aroma (and after the fact, a glance at the ingredient listing told me why); at times it was even stronger than the lavender. I really rather liked the combination, it gave a quite nice bit of “pep” to the scent.

Strength-wise, it was pretty good. When initially applied to the face, it was really rather strong. I did notice a fair amount of fading during the shave, to the point that by the time I was reaching the end of each pass, it was mostly gone. But there wasn’t any issues of the smell fading between passes from the lather in my scuttle.

The lather quality was a fair bit better than I expected as well. If you just try to lather it up with a moistened brush, it’ll essentially look like you’re just stirring it really, with only a little bit of air working its way into the cream. But a splash or two of water, and it performs quite nicely, making a decent amount of some rather nice thick lather, with a goodly amount of glide. I didn’t notice it making my face feel any better or worse, moisturization / irritation wise.

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

Overall, I’ll give it 8/10; in addition to being quite nice, it’s also really rather affordable.

• Cost: $4.99 for the 100 mL (3.4 oz) tube shown, or you can upgrade to a 325 mL container (11 oz) for $7.95. Also, I suppose I should mention that KMF tends to be fairly readily available locally in the United States (although I haven’t found it in Canada). I think most Whole Foods carries it, and apparently some Krogers as well. Anyways, it’s worth a shot looking in the organic section.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
• 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, Retinyl Palmitate, Allantoin, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Nut Butter, 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) Extract, Cymbopogon Schoenanthus (Lemongrass) Leaf Extract, Citrus Aurantium (Lime) Fruit Extract, Citrus Aurantium Dulcis (Orange) Flower Extract, Saponaria Officinalis (Soapwort) Root Extract, Nasturtium Officinalis (Watercress) Leaf Extract, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Oil, Hydroxyethylcellulose.

As an aside: that’s a boatload of different plants!