I was really intrigued by Wills description of his new Excelsior soap base, so I bought a tub of Vespers. Anybody tried this new base? What are your thoughts?
I was part of the testing of this base and I'm talking to Will on Tuesday to give him my final feedback. I really like the soap I was testing and since I won't talk to Will until Tuesday I will say two things. If the final production soap is the same as the last version I shaved with I'll say it is very thirsty which doesn't bother me a bit as long as I know that and it loads a brush full of lather in no time so be careful not to overload which I did the very first time I used it and Holy lather is all I can say and that was one thing that stood out right from the very first version I shaved with. I loved the glide, cushion and post shave are great. This should be a top tier soap for most in my humble opinion. Will does a great job with scents so I'm sure some awesome soaps are in our future. I'm a admitted fan of B&M soaps and I feel lucky to have been picked to be a tester. It's my first time. I guess he saw my Shave Off thread in DE section and contacted me.
A gentleman for sure.
This was my SOTD.
That's weird. I scooped a tiny bit out of my sample and put it into my bowl and almost without trying, I had a ton of thick, creamy, shiny lather. And I really wasn't even trying that hard, as the lather was more for getting a sense of the soap's scent (which I found to be nice, but probably not "gonna buy a full tub of soap nice"). That being said, I have high hopes for this new base.I tried a sample today. Vespers smells extremely Christmas: fir and resin and all that stuff. Sniff a christmasy wreathy piney scent af yankee candle and you got vespers.
Performance wise I couldn’t dial in the lather. Like, at all. It never really exploded in Lather no matter how much water I added. It went a little bit of Lather to being a sheeny kind-of Thing, and then it flattened into an overwatered mess. I scooped some from the shaving container and spread it thin on my skin to lather up, but it never really got there.
I’ll have to try it again, but I’m not very confident in it. It might be my water, or it might be not enough soap...
Is vespers the only excelsior soap? The website is confusing.
Your impressions of the scent?I would like to start by stating that I am not the best at describing these things, but here are my observations.
This soap was super easy to load. I definitely loaded way too much (scuttle latherer here). Easy to build the lather. For me, it did not require a "ton" of water as others mentioned the soap being extremely thirsty. It was one of the best shaves I've had. I did not go into it having any sort of crazy expectations either. After 3 passes, I went over my face with alum block and that confirmed that the shave was super smooth.
Not sure what the plan is for this base, but it would be wonderful to have Seville in this base.
I got shiny Lather but it never got thick. It just shined and then dissipated. I palm lathered. I might need more soap though since I’m using the big badger brushes.That's weird. I scooped a tiny bit out of my sample and put it into my bowl and almost without trying, I had a ton of thick, creamy, shiny lather. And I really wasn't even trying that hard, as the lather was more for getting a sense of the soap's scent (which I found to be nice, but probably not "gonna buy a full tub of soap nice"). That being said, I have high hopes for this new base.