Artifact Soapworks Limited - Shaving Soap

I purchased the three pk sampler from ebay back in September, same as the orignial poster, and I thought I would add my thoughts.
These were the next shaving soaps I had purchased after my first purchase of VDH glycerin soap that I had found at Wal-mart, did not get good lather from that as well.
I found the scents very nice, the moisturizing aspects quite good but the lathering qualities not so great. I got my best results building lather right on top of the soap with a moist brush and dry cake. The lather looks good, quite thick when applied to the face but quickly disappears, have to reapply for the last 25% of the pass. I do like the soap enough to keep using it but I now give it a dime sized dollop of KMF unscented on top of the cake when starting to build the lather and get much better results.
The end results is that this is usable soap but not nearly as good as some other soaps that can be had for about the same price.

I bought three cakes of the Old Spice shaving soap. Before using it, I gave oe to my son. My mistake. First use wielded only foam. No lather whatsoever. Two uses, three uses, this stuff sucks. I contacted the maker, they replied with having had no complaints. So, I told my son to use it as a shower soap. He tossed it. I tried it in the shower, not bad, but not good. The third puck went into the car for an air freshener.

Randy

I purchased the three shaving soap cake sampler from Artifact Soapworks Limited on Ebay. The scents that arrived were Bay Rum, Old Spice and Sandalwood.

Price: I gave this a high mark of 9 because the sampler as a whole only cost just under $8 (plus shipping). For me this made it a safer "buy and try" than a higher priced lot.

Quality: It's soap (note I did not say shaving soap, more on that soon) in a beige cake no matter what scent is selected. The cake is simple and uniform but there is nothing really distinct including a plain sticker lable listing the name and ingredients. There is quality in these cakes, they just does not stand out when I am making my morning selection from the pile.

Scent: Quite nice actually. The scents are bold and "sticky" in a warm, steamy bathroom environment but they do not have the staying power of say a QED Sandalwood shave. My exposure to a bay rum scents is very limited, but these bars did smell nice and make me curious to see what a face full of foam would be like.

Lather: As I mentioned earlier, this is soap... not shaving soap as advertised. I got foam if that but the foam was thin and did not seem to want to pop to life no matter if I tried an extended build-up routine on my face or in a warm mug. There was such a lack of lather or foam that my Merkur HD w/ Darby wanted to cackle and animate as a straight-razor w/ Feathers a la Fantasia and slice my defenseless face!

Efficacy: Better than plain water, but just barely. My razor was sluggish and skipped like crazy on each shave and the shaves were uncomfortable and around a C- grade.

Moisturizing: My face felt hot, irritated and uncomfortable after each shave, even with occassional applications of skin food. I wound up painting on a thick layer of Nivea for Men balm just to finally take the post-shaving habanero heat away.

Pretty much the point is that scent alone cannot make a great shave. =/

To Artifact Soapwork's Credit they *do* know how to make a great bath soap. I picked up one of their loafs and a slice has taken up residence in my shower with me looking forward to using it each morning.

Skip their shaving soap, but mmmm, don't skip the bath soap.

(I will try to get some pictures sometime but my digital camera is being as problematic as a two year old these days.)