Item Description
To those of us who are fans of their outstanding cream, the Godrej Shaving Round soap has been an intriguing prospect, and its elusiveness only adds to its appeal: even if you're perfectly happy with all the Godrej creams the mere existence of the mystery soap is enough to fuel one in the throes of SSAD. They have recently appeared on the 'Bay for those who are curious to try it out.
The Round is a lot older than its cream cousins, appearing in 1938, and it certainly does have that old fashioned vibe that attracts many of us to these out-of-the-way products. I feel pretty confident in guessing that this is what Jawaharlal Nehru and his allies may have shaved with as they advocated the boycott of foreign-made goods in India during the push for independence. And it stands up surprisingly well to other products.
No ingredients are listed on the plastic container, but the Ebay seller lists the "partial" ingredients as Potassium Palmate, Potassium Cocoate, and Glycerine. It performs like a glycerine soap. And interestingly, it's marketed, but not MADE by Godrej like the creams (which are both made and marketed by it). It says the manufacturer is Trupati Enterprises. None of my other Indian shaving products are made by them.
Anyway, onto the review...
Price: I paid ~$5 shipped, but in India these things are $0.20 each. Not bad even for the small 50g puck. By comparison, the Godrej cream sells for about 4x more.
Quality: Good enough. Nothing really lacking. Considering the price difference it's probably a downmarket item in India, similar to Williams here in the U.S.
Scent:: It's certainly old-fashioned but nothing to write home about. Soapy, a little spicy. Kind of reminds me of the soap they use in hospital bathrooms; it's got that vague "janitorial" quality, but not in a bad way, in an old school way. When lathered up it's basically a mild, fresh soapy scent.
Lather: Makes a good lather that's protective enough to not irritate as I shaved a 4-day old beard tonight. Not as "creamy" as the best out there and there's no tallow or lanolin. But it was still pretty slick; slick enough so the blade (on its 3rd use) glided without tugging most of the time. Held up throughout the shave and didn't dry or disappear.
Efficacy: I'm not a soap guy. Most soaps irritate me, so the biggest test for a soap is if it burns, dries out my face, gives me rashes or otherwise assaults my skin in any way. To my surprise, this didn't. It only irritated around my chin (where I usually get irritation/redness with some products). There was no blade skipping. It's just not as smooth as Cella or Proraso Green Tea & Aloe and feels kind of heavy.
Moisturizing: It didn't dry my skin out or leave it feeling tight or burning.
Overall a solid product but nothing spectacular. Don't go out of your way to find it but if you happen to stumble upon it, you could do a lot worse. If it had menthol and lanolin, though, I'd love it instead of just "kinda like" it.
The Round is a lot older than its cream cousins, appearing in 1938, and it certainly does have that old fashioned vibe that attracts many of us to these out-of-the-way products. I feel pretty confident in guessing that this is what Jawaharlal Nehru and his allies may have shaved with as they advocated the boycott of foreign-made goods in India during the push for independence. And it stands up surprisingly well to other products.
No ingredients are listed on the plastic container, but the Ebay seller lists the "partial" ingredients as Potassium Palmate, Potassium Cocoate, and Glycerine. It performs like a glycerine soap. And interestingly, it's marketed, but not MADE by Godrej like the creams (which are both made and marketed by it). It says the manufacturer is Trupati Enterprises. None of my other Indian shaving products are made by them.
Anyway, onto the review...
Price: I paid ~$5 shipped, but in India these things are $0.20 each. Not bad even for the small 50g puck. By comparison, the Godrej cream sells for about 4x more.
Quality: Good enough. Nothing really lacking. Considering the price difference it's probably a downmarket item in India, similar to Williams here in the U.S.
Scent:: It's certainly old-fashioned but nothing to write home about. Soapy, a little spicy. Kind of reminds me of the soap they use in hospital bathrooms; it's got that vague "janitorial" quality, but not in a bad way, in an old school way. When lathered up it's basically a mild, fresh soapy scent.
Lather: Makes a good lather that's protective enough to not irritate as I shaved a 4-day old beard tonight. Not as "creamy" as the best out there and there's no tallow or lanolin. But it was still pretty slick; slick enough so the blade (on its 3rd use) glided without tugging most of the time. Held up throughout the shave and didn't dry or disappear.
Efficacy: I'm not a soap guy. Most soaps irritate me, so the biggest test for a soap is if it burns, dries out my face, gives me rashes or otherwise assaults my skin in any way. To my surprise, this didn't. It only irritated around my chin (where I usually get irritation/redness with some products). There was no blade skipping. It's just not as smooth as Cella or Proraso Green Tea & Aloe and feels kind of heavy.
Moisturizing: It didn't dry my skin out or leave it feeling tight or burning.
Overall a solid product but nothing spectacular. Don't go out of your way to find it but if you happen to stumble upon it, you could do a lot worse. If it had menthol and lanolin, though, I'd love it instead of just "kinda like" it.