Caswell-Massey 1752 Shave Soap

I received the sandalwood scented soap as a gift from my wife since she knows I love sandalwood, my first thoughts were 'holy cow this soap smells amazing!'

I tried it out the next day, I lather in a scuttle so I loaded my brush and got to work building my lather, almost as fast as I could work up the lather it would disappear, I finally had enough built up to get to shaving using my go-to gillette NEW with a fresh shark blade. Aside from the lather all but vanishing on my face there seemed to be NO lubrication to this soap, the razor actually hopped along on my face as I tried to shave. Needless to say I looked a bit like I did my first time trying a straight razor, nicks, weepers, razor burn...

Eventually I healed up and just this morning, many months later I tried it again, the scent drew me in for another go..

Bad idea!
The razor was grabbing again as I shaved, I promptly gave up, rinsed and re lathered with proraso cream, shave went perfectly from there on out.

Bottom line?
The scent lures you in, like the Sirens in Greek mythology and like the Sirens, this soap will leave you battered and bloody.

Avoid the siren call of the scent of this soap, you have been warned!

Even with extremely soft water, this soap will not hold a lather more than about 30 or 45 seconds.

This IS some very slick soap, even after the lather disappears from your face, the slickness remains, in fact, it is actually kind of hard to rinse off of your face with soft water. Unfortunately, that leads to dry/tight skin.

The scent is great, and you can fit a puck of C&E Sienna into the used bowl, so it is not a total waste of money.

Unlike one reviewer, I think it makes a decent shower soap.

I have to echo all of the sentiments as the other posters. I used the Sandalwood soap and while it offers and excellent scent the performance is just sub-par. The lather starts off OK, but quickly dissipates. I can feel that there is a nice slickness at the beginning of this soap when I shave, but it just seems to evaporate into thin air after a couple of minutes. Compounded by my naturally dry skin and this is just not a good combination. Too bad because the smell is wonderful

I should of searched for a review of this soap before I go crazy in my first local store visit. I'm a newbie.

Still need to develop the fine sense and my shaver technique, but I do find the lather-ability of this to be a on par with my grocery store handsoap! (yes, I have tried it, newbie you know). I didn't even shave with it- thus n/a on the Efficacy rating.

In the store, I liked the packaging and the scent, being the first soap, I wanted one with a bowl. Now I have a bowl...

For $18.50 I guess I could do much better on a soap I will actually use.

I chalk it up to beginners learning "tuition". I will definitely check the reviews before my next buy.

I had similar results. I was able to lather and shave about 1/3 of my face before the rest of the lather vanished. It does not come back with a new application, it is just gone. It is going to the shower next. I consider it as a purchase of a wood bowl and a cheap soap thrown in as a package filler.

Not having much in the way of experience with other soaps, I can't really offer real ratings, but the Caswell-Massey Sandalwood soap is serving me adequately--I doubt it's as good a soap as I could have found, but on the other hand it strikes me as much like the last few reviews have called it--that is, solidly middle-of-the-road.

I didn't think it was that bad. I couldn't smell the almond scent when I lathered my face which didn't bother me too much. Sometimes I prefer a light scent vs something that is so heavily scented that it would be hard to get the scent out of my brush.

It didn't lather as much as my AOS cream. If the AOS cream were a 8 out of 10 latherability, the CM almond soap would get a 5 out of 10. I didn't get a decent lather but it did seem to disappear a little but not totally.

As far as lubrication I read that soaps usually lubricate more than cream. My AOS would be a 7/10, the CS soap would be a 4/10.

Overall not bad for $11. At least i now have a nice wooden bowl with a lid.

I heard they may have reformulated. This is a good sign. Maybe you could write a new review if this is in fact a new product. Especially since CM has really taken it on the chin around here.

Bought some of the almond soap on impulse yesterday during a 25% off sale and CM in a local mall. When I came back and read all the negative reviews, I was bummed, so thought I would try it out this morning. I use a bowl to lather, so wet my brush and went to it. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of lather I was able to whip up, and didn't find the "disappearing lather" reported by others to be a major problem. It DID seem to disappear slowly, but didn't seem to interfere much with the shave.

What DID surprise me is that the fairly strong almost smell from the dry puck did seem to disappear in the lather on my face. I couldn't smell anything during the shave, which seemed odd.

Overall I found this to be an acceptable soap, but nothing special. I'm glad I got it on sale!

This has been the worst soap I have used!

I even threw it away. It just didn't work. I tried it for a while thinking I had something wrong, but after trying some other soaps I noticed that this one just doesn't cut it.

I swear I do not work for Caswell-Massey, nor do I have any other interest in mind while writing this aside from expressing my opinion.

I simply don't understand the negativity surrounding this product. I haven't tried the cream, but this soap has lathered very well every time I've used it with my fairly run-of-the-mill Muhle-Pinsel silvertip brush. I just soak the brush, wet the top of the soap with a bit of water for about a minute, then pour it off and swirl around the surface, adding a few plunger motions, just like the soap lathering guide we have here says. Lathering on the face (I did take off some lather points because it is not as good in a bowl) produces a thick, soft lather that stays put. The lather provides a good amount of cushion, although a little more lubrication would be better. Nevertheless, I've never had any nicks or irritation because of the soap, and I've used my Merkur LHC and Progress extensively with it. The wonderful aroma, almond and maraschino cherry to my nose, makes getting to that smooth face a pleasant trip. It moisturizes better than my Trumper's creams, and the price is right too.

Frankly, considering the cost is so reasonable, I recommend giving this soap another look. For me, the key components are all there. At the worst you'll be stuck with a very handsome bowl

The scent is THE best thing about the cream.
Mix it with some Col Conk Glycerin soap and you have a GREAT product.
Dont waste your time on this one.

This morning I had one of the strangest shaves I have ever had. This soap's lather is almost magical in how rapidly it disappears.
I bought the Caswell-Massey 1752 Verbena soap at Marshall's for 5 bucks. The packaging and the look of the soap is very classy. I like the idea of an American shaving soap that has the look of the fine English and French products. I was looking forward to trying it.
First impression: really nice scent. I was able to whip up a pretty good lather in the bowl and on the brush. It looked rich on my face at first. And then ... One cheek was fine. By the time I got to the next cheek the lather was very thin. By the time I got to my sensitive neck the lather was virtually non-existent. I have never seen anything like it. I re-lathered three times in each pass and got a not-too-awful shave. But who wants to re-lather three times in each pass? This definitely detracts from the shaving experience.
I have put the soap into my shower, and I'll see if I can get some use out of it as a bath soap. I won't be shaving with it again. One would think that the company would recognize this terrible flaw and correct it. The first responsibility of a shaving soap is to maintain its lather for the during of a pass.

C-M has yet to produce a shave soap or cream that's really any good, other than the scent. I tried this one also, it smells great, but that's as far as it goes.

Jeff

Well, it would appear that I have spent $16 for a nice little wooden bowl, because the contents is definitely not shaving soap. I gave this soap a few swirls with my damp little Rooney travel brush (the bowl was too small for the big brush), and coated the bristles with what would normally be plenty of soap. The densely packed Rooney holds plenty of water, and I've always been able to muster good lather directly on the ol' face. I proceeded to lather one side of my face -- so far so good. The Almond scent was pleasant but not overpowering, but the lather was thin. Still, I thought I was well on my way. But I turned away from the mirror for a second, and when I looked again, the lather was all but gone! I tried again, with the same result. I rinsed my face, and tried a different approach, leaving a bit more water on the brush. Same result. I tried it with less water. Same result. I tried lathering in a separate bowl. Same result. I don't know how they shaved in 1752, but it was apparently without lather!

Anyhoo -- I finally decided the lather wasn't going to get any better, and took a swipe at one side of my face. I may as well have been shaving with nothing but water. I rinsed off and got myself a nice shave with Musgo Real instead. Life is too short to waste time on a product like this.