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.

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

J. Peterman 1903 Concentrated Shaving Cream

Tags

bergamot, cardamom, citrus, clary sage, cologne, elemi, fougère, frankincense, J. Peterman, labdanum, leather, shaving cream, smoke, tobacco, wood

To kick off the week, we’ve got J. Peterman’s 1903 Concentrated Shaving Cream.

True to its name, it’s a rather dense cream, which whips up quite easily; a bit thirstier than most creams out there, it did need a bit of fiddling with the right amount of water to get just right. It turned into a fairly thick lather, with some rather good glide. I did notice a bit of a lack of lather stability; there was some breaking down happening by the time I got near the end of each pass. After the shave, it left the face feeling rather nice.

The scent is akin to a rather spicy cologne. J. Peterman’s website makes up some story about “finding” it in a shop in Paris, but describes it as follows:

an “old woody fougère.” Clean citrus notes, bergamot, “green notes.” The middle notes: clary sage…cardamom. The dry-down: leather notes, smoky labdanum…elemi, tabac, frankincense.

I guess that sounds like a reasonable description to me. I found it to be a rather subdued spicy and smokey scent. Not too strong, but nice and steady nonetheless.

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

Overall? A solid 7/10. Decent enough all-around, nothing outstanding; I think I might like to try the cologne though.

• Cost: This sample was received from a kindly fellow redditor who wanted to know what I thought. If you’re looking to purchase some, it’ll run you $28 for a 7 oz tub. Unfortunately, they don’t ship internationally for some bloody reason, so offer valid for US residents only.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Asco Super Stainless
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: No clue. Can’t find a listing anywhere.

Honeybee Soaps – Cherry Pipe Tobacco

Tags

9/10, cherry, Fruit, honeybee soaps, shaving soap, smokey, tobacco

The Cherry Pipe Tobacco soap from Honeybee Soaps is just absolutely delicious smelling. It’s a wonderful Cherry scent, almost maraschino-cherry-like, with a nice undertone of smokey tobacco. When I was pondering the rating, I was musing either a 9 or a 10, but She Who Must Be Obeyed has decreed that a 10 it shall be.

Strength-wise, it’s just shy of perfect. Comes on strong even just opening the package, and stays strong as you’re lathering, and applying it to the face. It fades slightly during the shave, but even by the end of a pass it’s still stronger than most shave soaps are on the brush.

Like the last review, this one needed a fair bit of water. But it absorbed that water handily, and with a bit of work transformed into a large amount of quite luxuriously thick lather, with plenty of glide. It left my face feeling nice and moist as well. All around, a great shave.

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

This one I’m going to round up on. 9/10. Quite nice. While I’ve only done two soaps from them, Honeybee is quickly shooting up to near the top of my “most consistently good brand” list.

• Cost: Samples are $1.59 per ounce, full 3.5 ounce pucks are $4.49, or $5.99 for 4 ounces in a plastic tub.

Gear used:

• Brush: The Colonel
• Razor: Vintage Bakelite Slant
• Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
• Scuttle: Robert’s Feats of Clay #4

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Castor Oil, Hempseed Oil, Safflower Oil, Shea Butter, Glycerine (vegetable origin), Vitamin E, Water, Sodium Hydroxide, Sorbitol, Sorbitan Oleate, Soybean Protein, Wheat Protein, White Kaolin China Clay, Cosmetic Color and Fragrance Oil.