Arturro Barbiere Vetiver shaving soap

Tags

8/10, arturro barbiere, shaving soap, soft soap, vetiver

So this is a follow up on my latest review. That one was the unscented version of Arturro Barbiere’s shaving soap, which I thought was quite nice for an unscented soap.

Here we have the Vetiver version of the shaving soap. The vetiver is a quite pleasant scent; it has the nice deep earthy scent that I think of when I think of vetiver (which I’ve only ever really encountered in shaving soaps mind you), as well as perhaps a very slight bit of a fresh green note that I haven’t noticed in many other vetiver scented products.

It was strong enough that it was noticeable throughout the shave, but I definitely would have preferred if it had a bit more “oomph” to it.

As for the performance of the soap itself, as far as I could tell it was identical to the unscented version. Which shouldn’t exactly be a shock to anyone. Relatively soft, it has a nice wide sweet spot with regards to the amount of water you can use and still get a good shave out of. Works reasonably well with very little, but does improve if you add it to what I would consider to be a moderate amount of soap. You don’t need a lot, but you’re probably not going to be able to accidentally overshoot it all that much.

All in all, a good balance of lubrication and protection, and good moisturization properties to boot.

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

All said, I’m going to give it an 8/10. It provided a very pleasant shave, although I definitely would have liked it better if it was a bit stronger.

• Cost: They come in either a 100g plastic tub for about $9 USD or a 150g tin for around $12 USD, depending upon the exchange rate at the time. Purchases are made either via e-mail at arturrobarbiere@interia.eu, or via the contact form on his website.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: Feather AS-D2
• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: coconut oil, stearic acid, vegetable glycerin, distilled water, shea butter, beeswax, potassium hydroxide, natural fragrance oil.

Arturro Barbiere “Pulire” unscented shaving soap

Tags

6/10, Arturro Barbiere. unscented, shaving soap, soft soap

I was contacted by Artur, the fellow behind the polish Arturro Barbier line of soaps about doing a review. So, he sent off a pair of soaps, their Vetiver scented one (which I’ll be covering in a few days), and this unscented “Purile” soap.

The soap is relatively soft. It reminds me a lot of Wickham Shaving Soap, both in appearance and consistency and performance. Like the Wickham, I found it had a relatively wide sweet spot. It would work reasonably well with just the water on a moistened brush, but the performance did improve when a moderate amount of water was added to the mix. It didn’t seem easy to over-shoot the amount needed. It provides a very good balance of glide and thickness, and left my skin feeling soft and moisturized as well. All in all, a pretty damned good shave.

So, it’s a pretty good soap for an unscented. Those of you who follow my reviews with any regularity will know that I consider the scent to be a rather important part of the overall shave process. The scent of this soap is, well, extremely neutral. It doesn’t smell of much at all, which I suppose is the point. Sometimes even with unscented stuff you can make out what ingredients went into it, but I didn’t really find that to be the case here.

• 6/10 Scent Pleasantness
• 3/10 Scent Strength
• 9/10 Lather Quality

So, if you’re specifically looking for an unscented soap, I’d definitely recommend that. If not, obviously I wouldn’t. Overall, taking the unscented-ness into account, I think I’ll have to give it a 6/10, because after all, it’s not something that I’d go out of my way to use when there’s scented products available. That having been said, I’ll be reviewing the Vetiver version in a couple of days, and I’m sure it’ll fare better.

• Cost: They come in either a 100g plastic tub for about $9 USD or a 150g tin for around $12 USD, depending upon the exchange rate at the time. Purchases are made either via e-mail at arturrobarbiere@interia.eu, or via the contact form on his website.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Astra Superior Platinum
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: coconut oil, stearic acid, vegetable Glycerin, distilled water, shea butter, beeswax, potassium hydroxide,

The Strop Shoppe – 1887 Limited Edition with Lanolin

Tags

8/10, Discontinued, shaving soap, soft soap, spice, strop shoppe, tobacco, wood

So, anyways, one thing that I need to keep in mind when I get a limited edition soap to review is that they’re limited. And I should probably review them faster than slower. I bought this soap back in June of last year, and stuffed it under the sink on my “to-do list”. In the meantime, they stopped making it, and you’ll have trouble finding it. So, sorry, here’s a review for a product you might not be able to get.

The Limited Edition / Lanolin formula performs exquisitely. It’s got a very wide sweet spot, and provides great thickness and glide. There are absolutely no issues with lather stability, and it left my face feeling great and moisturized to boot. Anyways, it’s pretty much what I expected out of the Strop Shoppe. For quality wise, at least.

One thing I’ll note is that there appears to be an inconsistency about the packaging. At the top, it says it is “Special Edition: Extra soft – Double butter Formula, Cocoa Butter – Shea Butter.” The ingredient listing at the bottom however doesn’t list any Cocoa Butter or Shea Butter. I presume that this was probably just a left-over from their special edition that they failed to remove when they made up the label for the Limited edition. This is, unfortunately, also something that I’ve somewhat come to expect from the Strop Shoppe; they’re great at making soaps, but the little details of running a business sometimes seem to slip past them. For example, their current listing of a Limited Edition says in the description that it’s made with tallow and lanolin, but the ingredient listing doesn’t mention lanolin at all.

The scent is nice enough. I’ve seen it described elsewhere as “woodsy, spicy, and tobacco”, which doesn’t seem all that far off. The spicy portions develop a bit more once lathered up. All in all, it’s a nice cologne-y scent. The strength is decent; coming on at about a medium strength, without much in the way of fading.

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

Overall, I’m willing to round up and give it a 9/10.

• Cost: As mentioned, it’s not really available anywhere anymore. I had purchased this one $17.50 from MenEssentials.ca.

Gear used:

• Brush: Ecotools Kabuki Finishing Brush
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Bolzano Superinox
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Glycerin, Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Lanolin, Fragrance.

Boellis Panama 1924 Shaving Soap

Tags

7/10, Almond, Boellis Panama 1924, shaving soap, soft soap

Boellis Panama 1924 is one of those top shelf products which, while I could understand why others seem to really like it, I’m not really all that enthused about.

It provides a very good shave. It’s a relatively soft soap, but not one of those that’s all sticky. It lathered up fairly easily, giving a great combination of thickness and slickness, with a reasonably wide sweet spot for acceptable water content. And it left my face feeling rather nice and moisturized. All in all, a rather nice lather.

The scent is almond, as we ever so often see out of Italian shaving soaps, although it doesn’t really have that maraschino cherry sweetness that so many of them do. And it’s quite light. There’s the kicker for why there’s others out there that I’d prefer; the scent isn’t strong enough to really provide all that much towards the enjoyment of the shaving experience.

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

Overall, I’ll give it a 7/10. Shaves well, but overall I think it’s outgunned by say, Cella or RazoRock Cacao.

• Cost: I haven’t seen any samples of this readily available. A 175 g bar will set you back $50.

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: Aqua, stearic acid, palmitic acid, tallow, cocos nucifera, potassium hydroxide, potassium carbonate, tetrasodium EDTA, parfum

RazoRock – Nonno Michelino sandalwood shaving soap

Tags

9/10, Discontinued, RazoRock, sandalwood, shaving soap, soft soap

Edit: this soap has since been discontinued.

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Today’s shave is RazoRock’s Nonno Michelino sandalwood. The scent is a rather nice rendition of sandalwood, using fragrance rather than essential oils. The strength is pretty damned good; it comes on with what I’d consider to be a bit above medium strength, but manages to stay there without any significant fading whatsoever, not only for long enough for me to finish a pass shaving, but long enough for me to start this post and finish typing this paragraph.

The lather quality, is also the extremely high quality I’ve come to expect from RazoRock. A rather soap “croap”, it loaded up and lathered very easily; real thick, however be sure to add sufficient water for good glide. The soap can handle the extra water without thinning out as long as you give it a bit of elbow grease. And was pretty decent in the moisturization department as well.

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

Anyways, a rather darned fine entry from RazoRock, or more accurately Tcheon Fung Sing via RazoRock, as Paola Barile over at TFS is the producer of the La Familglia line (she’s also responsible for the Barbiere di Figaro line). Overall? 9/10. And a steal at that price. My favourite sandalwood to date.

• Cost:I got this one in a den-clearance sale off of /r/shave_bazaar, but it’ll normally go for $6.99 for 125 mL.

Gear used:

• Brush: Mühle HJM Black Fibre
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Merkur Super
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Stearic Acid, water, cocos nucifera, potassium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide, fragrance, sodium carbonate, linalool, benzyl alcohol, geranol, buthylphenyl methylpropional.

The Strop Shoppe – Teak Wood Special Edition with Tallow

Tags

9/10, shaving soap, soft soap, strop shoppe, teak, vanilla, wood

The Strop’s Shoppe Teak Wood is a perfect example of a soapmaker knowing the difference between a light scent and a weak scent. When you lather it up, bam, it’s there. Not really what I would call strongly, but it’s there. None of the straining to detect it that I often find with other soaps that try to pull off a “light” scent. It’s there, unmistakably so, and lasts throughout the entire shave without any fading that I noticed. Anyways, I suppose I might have liked it a fraction stronger, but this is definitely one of the few soaps that I’ve seen try for a “light” scent that doesn’t just fall flat IMHO.

It also helps that the aroma is quite pleasant. A bit hard to describe, it’s sort of a sweet woodsy scent. I can’t pinpoint the woody portion, but I think the sweetness could be vanilla? Hard to say. Heck, maybe it’s just the actual scent of the shea and/or cocoa butter used. I’m not sure. Anyways, I rather enjoy it.

And the lather. This is the first of the Strop Shoppe’s Special Edition soaps that I’ve tried, and wow, I can see why people seem to be raving so much about it. It lathers up extremely easily; a lot of volume, not too much water needed, as I find is often the case for soft soaps. It’s luxuriously thick and slick. And it left the face feeling just great, likely due to the extra Shea and Cocoa butter used.

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

Overall, a rather strong 9/10. The Strop Shoppe’s products started out rather strong when they first started out last year, and they certainly seem to be improving upon that as they go. Now only if we could convince them to offer samples! Anyways, I’d say this is easily within my top 5 favourite soaps / creams.

• Cost: The ~8.0 oz tub pictured (and no, I’m not sure why it’s mislabelled as 2.0 oz, it’s definitely far more than that) ran me $17.99, and is also available in a non-tallow version. Edit: If you want to avoid their website (as there are semi-frequently significant delays in shipping / customer service issues I’ve heard reported), 6 oz and 3 oz tubs are available in Canada from Men Essentials for $19.50 and $9.50 respectively.

Gear used:

• Brush: Ecotools Kabuki Finishing Brush
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Bolzano Superinox
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Glycerin, Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter) Butter, Fragrance.

RazoRock Nervous Wreck – Vetiver Shaving Soap

Tags

8/10, Discontinued, RazoRock, shaving soap, soft soap, vetiver

Edit: This scent has been discontinued.

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Next up we’ve got RazoRock’s Nervous Wreck (Vetiver), from their “Linea Officina Artigiana”, aka their Artisan Workshop Line.

The lather is, well, just wonderful. For my initial pass, I would have preferred a bit more glide, but as is so often the case, it was merely a matter of me misjudging the amount of water needed. A few splashes more, and voila! Nice and slick. While still managing to remain thick and luxurious. And after the shave? The face just felt wonderful; good moisturizing properties too.

The scent was a nice pleasant earthy Vetiver, with a fair bit of sweetness too it too to mellow it out a bit. I found it quite nice. Stength-wise, it was so-so; it was noticable but weakly so once lathered and applied to the face. Reasonably strong while still in the jar mind you, but not all that much there during the shave. Only a little bit of fading though.

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

I’m giving it a total of 8/10. It gave a great shave, and smelled good, but I definitely would have liked a bit more oomph to the aroma. Decent bang for your buck however.

• Cost: $9.99 for 150 mL

Gear used:

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

Ingredients: Stearic Acid, Tallow, Water, Cocos Nucifera, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Fragrance(Vetiver), Potassium Carbonate

RazoRock Cacao Shaving Cream Soap

Tags

8/10, Almond, cacao, Discontinued, marzipan, RazoRock, shaving soap, soft soap

Edit: as below, this has been discontinued

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This is an emergency last-minute review, as Joe over at Italian Barber has informed us that Cacao is going the way of XXX very very soon.

Like the original classic RazoRock soap, this is a marzipan / sweet almond scented shaving soap, along the lines of Cella and Vitos. It’s quite the pleasant scent, if you like that sort of thing. Strength wise, it started off very nicely, however seemed to fade rather quickly. Not just over the course of a pass, but subsequent layers of lather put on between passes was also noticeably weaker than the previous applications, to the point that it was rather weakly scented at best by the end of the shave.

On the other hand, the lather performed admirably. It’s a very soft soap, and loaded up easily, and lathered nice and thick with just a bit of water. It could have used a tad more lubrication, but it wasn’t far off at all in that regard either. All in all, it gave a great shave, and had superior moisturizing properties as well.

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

Overall, I’m going to say it’s a rather strong 8/10. In comparison to the most obvious competitor, I think it shaves better than Cella does, but Cella’s scent holds up better. Also, in comparison to the classic RazoRock, I haven’t tried it myself, but I’ve been told that they perform quite similarly. From what I can tell the main difference is just the inclusion of the Cacao Seed Butter in this version, and frankly, there’s not really much of that included anyways (2nd last ingredient on the list).

• Cost: As I write this, there are 24 150mL tubs available left for $5.99 on Italian Barber.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Gillette Travel Tech
• Blade: Shark Super Stainless

Ingredients: Water(l’eau), cocos nucifera (coconut)oil, stearic acid, palmitic acid, potassium hydroxide, propylene glycol, myristic acid, peg-150 distearate, parfum(fragrance), simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) oil, tetrasodium edta , theobroma cacao(cocoa) seed butter, menthol

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.

Sultans Original Shaving Soap – Vanillawood

Tags

6/10, Discontinued, shaving soap, soft soap, Sultans, vanilla, wood

Oh, son of a gun.

Well, it happened again. I ordered some soaps, eventually got around to using them, took some pictures, and then sat down to start writing a review, only to find that the manufacturer has since discontinued that particular scent.

So, here it goes folks, a review for a cream you can’t get anymore. Sorry.

First off, the lather. This one I initially had a lot of trouble with. To begin with, this is a soft enough soap that I just treated it like a thick cream. But when I say thick, I mean thick. For my first shave with this, I did what I usually do with creams, and scooped about a peanut sized bit of cream into the scuttle, and then set it lathering it. And it was difficult. The cream clumped up and stuck to the bottom of the scuttle, and just wouldn’t lather up. Adding more water helped a bit, but I ended up overshooting the “sweet spot”, and ended up with something too watery. On the 2nd shave, I spread the cream at the bottom of the scuttle and let it soak in a little bit of hot water as I brushed my teeth, that seemed to soften it up enough that I didn’t have too many issues, and didn’t need to water it down at all.  However even then there ended up being a little bit stuck to the bottom of the scuttle un-lathered which I noticed as I was rinsing everything out.

In the end, however, it managed to give a perfectly good shave. Decently thick, with a good amount of slickness. The lather did however seem to break down a fair bit quicker than most do.

As for the scent, well, it’s called Vanillawood, but I’m not sure I really smell any wood. The vanilla’s definitely there. Reasonably pleasant, with a decent amount of strength too. It’s not overly strongly smelling, but it is definitely noticeable throughout the shave, without a significant amount of fading.

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

Overall, I’d say this is a 6/10. Decent scent, somewhat annoying lather. Not that it really matters because you can’t buy it anyways.

• Cost: Well, at the time I bought it, Sultans Shaving Products was offering a pack of samples 10 of their soaps for $20. Now, they’ve only got 7 scents available, and the sample pack goes for $14. And doesn’t include this one. Oh well.

Gear used:

• Brush: Wee Scott
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Lord Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Coconut, castor, palm, olive & jojoba oils, stearic acid, vegetable glycerin, purified water, potassium hydroxide, potassium carbonate, titanium dioxide, citric acid, vitamin E, fragrance oil.