Derby Lavender

not slick enough for me

Derby Lavender cream is well, ok, nothing special and certainly not even very good. Seems like something you would buy for 1.29 at the Istanbul Walmart if they had one. The lather is alright, but it dries fairly quickly. The scent is a watered-down, synthetic lavender. For a few dollars it certainly is worth it for try though.

Derby Moisturising Super Shaving Cream

Derby Shaving Cream is appropriate for all types of skin. With is special formulation, it moisturizes and soothes, and enables easy shaving.

I bought two tubes from AK Market (akmarket.com; where I previously purchased Arko sticks), and have used this cream in my rotation several times. Like Arko, it is inexpensive, not cheap. I completed a "cheek-to-cheek" comparison test against two benchmarks, Musgo Real and Proraso shave creams.

The players: Razor: Merkur HD; Feather Platinum blade; Don McIvor custom cocobolo silver-tipped badger brush; vintage Coors porcelain mortar shave bowl; I repeated the comparison with a gentler combo: 1957 Gillette Red Tip Superspeed with Derby Extra blades.

At first I was skeptical: Would a $2 tube of shave cream be worth the trouble? Classier, more expensive creams cost only a few cents a day, so cost is not a big factor for most people committed to a good shave. The judgment: Derby Lavender more than held its own against these two giants of Badger Nation. Like its competitors, Derby surrendered voluminous and rich lather, with minimal effort. An adjunct to close and very comfortable shaves. Plus, a cold water rinse leaves a refreshing sensation.

It's scent is less than genuine, but it is pleasing and subtle nevertheless. With an aftershave balm such as St. Charles Lavender aftershave milk, my morning ritual is very much a pleasant one, not a compromise. For $2 a tube, Derby Lavender is truly an exception to the axiom "you get what you pay for."

I got a free tube of Derby's Lavender with my blade order and shaved with it this morning. I used Proraso Pre and a Super Speed blue tip and had a very nice shave. I probably used double the amount of cream that I normally use with Proraso or TOBS and got a really nice thick lather. The smell was fine by me, but YMMV. Would I buy it? Maybe. Probably a good low cost option.

This cream was worthless to me. For $2 extra on my box of blades they offered to include a tube of this and I said "why not?" thinking it can't be that bad.
Got the tube in the mail and I was disapointed. lather was soso, medium dense, a lil on the thin side, no matter how little water I put. Not very slick, and it wasn't at all moisturizing.

I tried the lavender cream this morning. I was disappointed by the scent: it reminds me of a floor cleaning product sold in supermarkets. The lavender scent is very soapy and artificial, one that I did not enjoy at all. I have yet to try the other scents and hopefully they'll be more to my liking.
The cream lathered OK, the lather was rather thin and the lubrication not very impressive. I much prefer the other Turkish creams, the ARKOs. They are also very inexpensive, but provide a very good shaving experience. This Derby cream did not do so for me. YMMV, as always.

This is one of the two free creams that I received from the exclusive Badger & Blade promotion that Derby did here. It came in the mail an hour ago and had to try it out. As luck would have it, I had not shaved yet today so I didn't have to wait to see what this new product is like.

I decided that both creams "felt" alike when I opened the tubes, so I decided to do a half-and-half shave with the Normal scent on the left side of my face and the Lavender on the right. Both creams performed the same.

Opening the tubes was a little bit troublesome because of the foil seal on the end of the tube. While the foil pealed off easily enough, the plastic liner on the underside stayed attached to the tube, sealing it. A pen knife fix that easily enough. (It seems to that product manufacturers never test opening up their packaging.)

I squirted a generous one inch "snurdle" of cream into my lathering mug and got to work. With little effort I was able to whip up a decent lather that felt slick to the touch. The scent of the Lavender cream is nice, not real strong and over powering. It didn't come across to me as a true Lavender scent but I still like it.

To be fair, I popped one of the Derby blades into my Gillette Long Boy adjustable (set on 5) and proceeded to shave. The cream performed as I expected, not the highest top notch quality, but acceptable. Some high end creams leave a layer of slickness on the skin when the blade passes over, this one did not. It came off pretty clean. And rinsed clean easily enough.

This is one that I will probably keep at least one of the other scents in my rotation. it was after all, a decent shave. These Derby creams will be useful for traveling and not have to worry about loss, they are cheap enough.