Crabtree & Evelyn Sienna soap

Purchased this one in the wooden bowl from the Printemps department store here in Paris, on a recommendation from my barber.

Price: Around here everything is a touch more expensive, but judged against what other soaps sell for, the bowl and puck are priced pretty much in the middle of the range.

Quality: The packaging and presentation are both top-notch. In particularl, the bowl is nicely turned and varnished, and will look good on one's bathroom shelf. No complaints with this. The soap puck is a nice, dense, thick piece of work, the typical English triple-milled experience.

Scent: A real winner. The strongest notes are of leather and warm, woody spices, with faint undertones of wood and citrus (possibly bergamot). Overall it's a nice, warm-type fragrance that is particularly good for the colder months.

Lather: A real disappointment. Lather starts to build well enough, but tends to be on the thin, airy side by the time it's ready to shave. Not quite to the degree of dish soap or bubble bath, of course, but not good enough for shaving. The lather also dissipates very, very quickly - if you start shaving on the right side of your face you may have to re-lather the left side by the time you get around to it.

Efficacy: The poor quality of the lather notwithstanding, the efficacity is closer to reasonable. While the lather is still there, the lubrification is serviceable at least. Still suffered more nicks and weepers than normal, though.

Moisturizing/ Pretty good, actually. Not the best I've ever had, but far from the worst.

Summary: I had such high hopes for this soap, and the scent of the thing was and is supremely enjoyable. But the fact of the matter is that this soap just doesn't give a good lather.

I tried it with a wet brush, a dry brush, bowl lathering, face lathering, slow water addition, light brush loading, heavy brush loading; pretty much every permutation thereof in the search of a way to make this soap work. Every single time, I was rewarded with nothing but thin, fast-disappearing lather that gave a harsh, burned shave. The water here is on the hard side of the spectrum, sure, but I found that none of my other soaps - tallow- or vegetable-based, triple-milled or not - have everrequired so much effort or experimentation to achieve so little result.

So it was truly a disappointment when I ended up throwing in the towel and scraped out the puck to use it in the shower, not least because of how marvelous the stuff smells. If, a month or six from now I hear that C&E have reformulated it, I would go out and buy a puck immediately, but for now I cannot recommend this soap.

The C&E Sienna is a very good soap, regarding quality on par with soaps from TOBS, and just a step behind the soaps from the mighty D.R. Harris.
Easy to lather and gives a high quality, slick lather with good cushion. It has a pleasant scent which suits me.
When the puck is finished I'll definitely buy a new one.

I have been using this soap all week in an attempt to "get to know it". My first 2 shaves were quite poor which prompted the week long experiment.

I have found this (late 2010 version) soap really prefers soft water and face lathering. If this describes your water and preferred method you may like the soap more than I did. Scratchier brushes and water on the puck help as well.

Price - 8 dollars for a refill puck. On the low end of the price scale. Weak performance must be factored into the value.

Quality - A hard triple milled soap.

Scent - This soap is strongly scented. If it performed better I might like the scent more.

Lather - Too fussy. I'm willing to work with a soap if it performs better. L'O Cade and Pre de Provence are 2 other soaps I have that require a bit of work but they reward you with slick, cushioned lather. This soaps lather is thin but sort of slick.

Efficacy - Not great. The lather lacks protection and seems to dry my face so after a few days I wanted to skip a day or use something else like MWF, Cella, or a cream.

Moisturizing - I use balms so normally I don't note the soap but I feel my face getting tight with this soap on the 3rd pass.

Based on prior reviews and the 8 dollar price I had high hopes for Sienna. Maybe C&E reformulated this soap but I'm not happy with this version.