First thing a person notices about the soap is the big tin container that it comes in measuring approximately 4" across. Making it excellent for travel. Also this size allows for the natural movement of the wrist while swirling & loading the brush. Flipping it over one reads this unscented soap ingredients as follows: Distilled water, saponified tallow, steric acid, vegetable glycerin, saponified kokum butter, avocado oil, shea butter, lanolin, saponified coconut oil, kaolin clay, and vitamin E.
All good ingredients for sure.
My choice of shave: Apollo razor & Gillette blacks.
Scent: reminds me of wet flour dough with an undertone of olive oil mixed. Not entirely bad as I like dough. Color of the soap is light tan. While shaving the scent stayed constant from it's initial opening.
My initial pick was to pair this soap with my SOC boar brush with a good ten minute soak in hot water. Seeing that this soap was somewhat hard I figured that this soap needed a boar to attack it. WAS I DISAPPOINTED! (2nd pic) As you can see in my initial lather of the soap with my boar this was one pathetic soap. Not for trying! What's pictured was my fourth attempt and close to a minute of load time. So I continued on with what little lather was given up by this combination even going to the point of gathering lather from the inside of the tin. Tried the hot water trick on top of the soap, hot boar brush, extra water and nothing was producing results.
The positive that I gathered from this soap even during this epic failure of lather was how slick it was which allowed me to do my usual four pass shave without any hiccups. Lather was thin and very slick while cushion was non existent. Also a plus no tingly feeling during my shave which I usually get from extended exposure as I take my time shaving. Somewhere in the twenty minute range. So as I did my last pass I thought " this can't be right". Looking at my arsenal of brushes, a whole five, I picked the floppiest one I had as I've had excellent results with it in the past. Also, I knew on my first run this was one thirsty soap and the floppy held water while not releasing it. Soaking it for the duration of my final pass and blade buffing I put it under the hot water one final time for an attack on the soap.
BOOM!(3rd pic)
Lather was building at a more respectable pace that's more in line with this soaps reputation. As you can see in the following photo's the difference is amazing. Although I didn't get to shave with this batch of lather one can summarize a better cushion while shaving then that of my earlier attempts with the boar. Combined with its slickness and the better cushion I believe it's a winner.(4th pic) Now to bring it all together in one shave.
Post shave feel: surprisingly with the above ingredients listed I was wondering if it would leave my face "greasy'. Nothing to worry about. Left with a bbs shave I added Lucido with good results.
All good ingredients for sure.
My choice of shave: Apollo razor & Gillette blacks.
Scent: reminds me of wet flour dough with an undertone of olive oil mixed. Not entirely bad as I like dough. Color of the soap is light tan. While shaving the scent stayed constant from it's initial opening.
My initial pick was to pair this soap with my SOC boar brush with a good ten minute soak in hot water. Seeing that this soap was somewhat hard I figured that this soap needed a boar to attack it. WAS I DISAPPOINTED! (2nd pic) As you can see in my initial lather of the soap with my boar this was one pathetic soap. Not for trying! What's pictured was my fourth attempt and close to a minute of load time. So I continued on with what little lather was given up by this combination even going to the point of gathering lather from the inside of the tin. Tried the hot water trick on top of the soap, hot boar brush, extra water and nothing was producing results.
The positive that I gathered from this soap even during this epic failure of lather was how slick it was which allowed me to do my usual four pass shave without any hiccups. Lather was thin and very slick while cushion was non existent. Also a plus no tingly feeling during my shave which I usually get from extended exposure as I take my time shaving. Somewhere in the twenty minute range. So as I did my last pass I thought " this can't be right". Looking at my arsenal of brushes, a whole five, I picked the floppiest one I had as I've had excellent results with it in the past. Also, I knew on my first run this was one thirsty soap and the floppy held water while not releasing it. Soaking it for the duration of my final pass and blade buffing I put it under the hot water one final time for an attack on the soap.
BOOM!(3rd pic)
Lather was building at a more respectable pace that's more in line with this soaps reputation. As you can see in the following photo's the difference is amazing. Although I didn't get to shave with this batch of lather one can summarize a better cushion while shaving then that of my earlier attempts with the boar. Combined with its slickness and the better cushion I believe it's a winner.(4th pic) Now to bring it all together in one shave.
Post shave feel: surprisingly with the above ingredients listed I was wondering if it would leave my face "greasy'. Nothing to worry about. Left with a bbs shave I added Lucido with good results.
