BigD's Colonel Conk Natural Shave Soap Santa Fe Cedar Review

[BigD]

Continuing my shave soap and cream reviews;

This is my review of Colonel Conk Natural Line Santa Fe Cedar Shave Soap. Products used during the shower and shave were as follows;

• Ivory Bar Soap
• DSC Face Wash
• Neutrogena Face Scrub
• Colonel Conk Natural Line Santa Fe Cedar Shave Soap
• Q-Shave Metal Shave Bowl
• Captain’s Choice Heavy Copper Lather Bowl
• Zenith E2 Shave Brush
• Rex Ambassador (R4-R2)
• Derby Usta (2nd use)
• Gentleman Jon’s Alum Block
• Pitralon Classic Aftershave
• Every Man Jack Cedar Deodorant
• Taconic Urban Woods Solid EdC

The following process is what I used for my SOTD with the Colonel Conk Natural Line Santa Fe Cedar Shave Soap. This is also about the same process I use with most of my shave soaps;

• While I brushed my teeth I made sure the soap bowl ran under the hot water
• I filled the soap tin and the lathering bowls with hot water
• Placed closed soap tin in copper lathering bowl
• Rinsed brush with hot water
• Placed brush in Q-Shave metal bowl
• Took shower
• Dumped water from soap tin into metal bowl
• Took out brush and rung out excess water
• Loaded damp brush from puck creating a cream
• Started working the cream in the lathering bowl
• Added hot water via brush tips from the metal bowl with bloom water until desired lather is produced
• Used Bloom water to rinse face
• Lather my face
• Cleaned my glasses with finger tip of lather
• Waited another minute to let the lather work its magic
• Pass I WTG (R4)
• Used Bloom water to rinse face
• Lather face
• Pass II XTG (R3)
• Used Bloom water to rinse face
• Lather face
• Pass III Chin to Ear (R2)
• Check for pick ups (None Needed)
• Scrub face with some of the leftover lather (Kevy Shaves style)
• Rinse face
• Apply alum to Face
• Rinse Alum Block
• Clean equipment
• Rinse off Alum from face
• Dry off
• Apply Aftershave
• Apply Deodorant
• Apply EdC

Now for my thoughts. Just a heads up. Due to my process of bowl lathering unless the soap/cream is just horrible I always get a great lather. It takes longer, but the control of how much water is used really helps dial in the lather just right. Some soaps/creams take longer than others. So it is hard for me to find a soap/cream I dislike.

• Time to Lather
  • Extremely quick
    • You can really control the thickness of the lather via amount of water you add.
    • A little soap goes a long way
    • You can really add as much water as you want
    • If you want a real thick lather, don’t add much water
    • If you add a good amount of water the lather is still thick but less so
  • Quality of Lather
    • As thick or creamy as you want
  • Cushion
    • Fantastic
  • Slickness
    • While lathered
      • Like snot on ice
    • After Pass (Bare Wet Skin)
      • It’s there
      • Good slickness
      • Great slickness once the area is moistened again
      • You could get away with just wetting the skin for pick ups
  • Scent
    • Much stronger than the Colonel’s original line
    • A very Woody Citrus smell
    • Any Woody and/or Citrus AS will go well with this including a Pine scent
  • Rinse
    • Rinsing Clean takes a bit of time
  • Post Shave
    • Fantastic
    • Still need some post-shave attention

The Colonel sent me the entire line of the Natural Shave Soap to me after I had posted I couldn’t find any for purchase online. Why they decided to discontinue this line is beyond me. It’s a superb soap. The scent was much stronger than their regular line, but performed just as well if not just a bit better. I’ve used this soap twice. The first time I loaded the brush as I would load most of my other soaps. I loaded way too much. I had to add so much water I had enough left over lather to clean the mirror, the glass shelf top, and tap.

I know you can buy the creams of this line, but I am a soap guy. I do hope the Colonel is able to find a way to reintroduce this soap line in the future.

20191020_095435.jpg

• BigD
• Oct 23, 2019

20191020_102219.jpg

• BigD
• Oct 23, 2019

 

[cryhavoc]

Great review, I didn't know the Colonel had stopped make the natural line of soaps.

 

[FireDragon76]

Great review.

 

[ackvil]

@Colonel Conk Any plans to bring this one back?

 

[Colonel Conk]

@Colonel Conk Any plans to bring this one back?

They were very recently discontinued. That is why you are still able to find them from retailers until they run out of stock.

There were some quality control issues regarding shelf life that we were just unable to bring to a level of satisfaction. Due to them being totally natural and containing zero preservatives the essential oils in the soaps would change color over time. The vast differences in colors between the 4 scented options is what made the decision. There was a large number of people concerned with the color(s) changing over time and would not accept the explanation that it did NOT change the performance of the soap in any way.
The UNSCENTED natural soap is still available and will continue to be produced.

Sadly there is no plan to bring the 4 (naturally scented) soaps back into production. The rest of the Natural Line is still available however. This includes the Unscented soap, the cream in all scents, the balm in all scents, beard oil in all scents, and the preshave in Original.

 

[ackvil]

They were very recently discontinued. That is why you are still able to find them from retailers until they run out of stock.

There were some quality control issues regarding shelf life that we were just unable to bring to a level of satisfaction. Due to them being totally natural and containing zero preservatives the essential oils in the soaps would change color over time. The vast differences in colors between the 4 scented options is what made the decision. There was a large number of people concerned with the color(s) changing over time and would not accept the explanation that it did NOT change the performance of the soap in any way.
The UNSCENTED natural soap is still available and will continue to be produced.

Sadly there is no plan to bring the 4 (naturally scented) soaps back into production. The rest of the Natural Line is still available however. This includes the Unscented soap, the cream in all scents, the balm in all scents, beard oil in all scents, and the preshave in Original.

Thanks, Mike. My oldest son gifted me a number of your soaps which included two of natural line: the unscented and another version of these soaps (I don't recall which scented one but thought it was sandalwood). I still have the unscented one in my lineup but the scented one is gone. As you said, the color may have changed but it was a great performer.

 

[BigJ]

They were very recently discontinued. That is why you are still able to find them from retailers until they run out of stock.

There were some quality control issues regarding shelf life that we were just unable to bring to a level of satisfaction. Due to them being totally natural and containing zero preservatives the essential oils in the soaps would change color over time. The vast differences in colors between the 4 scented options is what made the decision. There was a large number of people concerned with the color(s) changing over time and would not accept the explanation that it did NOT change the performance of the soap in any way.
The UNSCENTED natural soap is still available and will continue to be produced.

Sadly there is no plan to bring the 4 (naturally scented) soaps back into production. The rest of the Natural Line is still available however. This includes the Unscented soap, the cream in all scents, the balm in all scents, beard oil in all scents, and the preshave in Original.

Thanks for the explanation!

 

[psfred]

Anything with vanillin in it will turn brown sooner or later unless you use "vanilla stabilizers" in it. And I've found that cocoa butter will do the same thing. No change in scent, but it goes tan to brown depending on how much of either is present. I'd assume that some other natural extracts or essences will do the same thing.

Sadly we have a culture that expects very high uniformity and perfection of form -- soap has to be (and stay) bright white, tomatoes cannot have green shoulders or cracks or marks, every leaf of lettuce has to be perfect and so forth. The result is that over half the produce in grown in the US ends up in landfills before it's shipped and perfectly good soaps get thrown out because they changed color.

Same problem with honey -- almost all honey will crystallize in the jar over time. Tastes the same, no changes in chemistry other than conversion of sugars from dissolved to wet crystals, but people throw it out all the time and buy fake honey (mostly high fructose corn syrup) instead because it's "pretty".

In business you sell what your customers want or you don't sell anything. For yourself you can make whatever you want....

 

[Colonel Conk]

Anything with vanillin in it will turn brown sooner or later unless you use "vanilla stabilizers" in it. And I've found that cocoa butter will do the same thing. No change in scent, but it goes tan to brown depending on how much of either is present. I'd assume that some other natural extracts or essences will do the same thing.

Sadly we have a culture that expects very high uniformity and perfection of form -- soap has to be (and stay) bright white, tomatoes cannot have green shoulders or cracks or marks, every leaf of lettuce has to be perfect and so forth. The result is that over half the produce in grown in the US ends up in landfills before it's shipped and perfectly good soaps get thrown out because they changed color.

Same problem with honey -- almost all honey will crystallize in the jar over time. Tastes the same, no changes in chemistry other than conversion of sugars from dissolved to wet crystals, but people throw it out all the time and buy fake honey (mostly high fructose corn syrup) instead because it's "pretty".

In business you sell what your customers want or you don't sell anything. For yourself you can make whatever you want....

Thats the truth of it... People were put off by the color and nothing else. Its a great performer and a lot of people REALLY like it.

 

[ajkel64]

Thanks for the review @BigD, enjoyable to read as always.

 

[BigD]

You're welcome, everyone. Thank you for reading and your feedback.

 

[Brian C.]

Thank you for the review @BigD and a big thanks to @Colonel Conk for responding to the questions. This is enough to make me happy buying their soaps, aside from them being excellent performers.