Review of Razorock Irish Countryside shaving soap

[Doc Dan]

I got a bottle of Irish Countryside splash in today. Sniffing straight off the bottles both me and my wife agree that the Sharp Dressed Man splash is the better scent. They are similar, but obviously different . SDM is just better smelling. In fact my wife felt that SDM > RR Black Label > RR Irish Countryside.

I got the Irish Countryside during one the RR flash sales, so it was much cheaper than SDM and I'd do it again.

What was different about it? There are a number of these takes on Green Irish Tweed and I have not sniffed many of them. I have SDM available over here now. What did you like about it that was better?

 

[swellcat]

this soap isn't as slick or cushiony

My assessment, also, so far, based on the Green Label soap.

Love the scent, though . . . really . . . so a couple ways I'm incorporating it are as shower soap/pre-shave and maybe as a blend component, adding a cream, olive oil, or a butterier soap such as Stirling Varen for more substance.

 

[borwish]

What was different about it? There are a number of these takes on Green Irish Tweed and I have not sniffed many of them. I have SDM available over here now. What did you like about it that was better?

There's not a huge difference, but I could easily tell them apart in a blind test. The Irish Countryside is a little lighter and brighter and gives a little bit of an "astringent" feeling when sniffed. The SDM is a little sweeter and musky in comparison. I'm not great with scent descriptions. If I had not known SDM I would have been completely happy with Irish Countryside. You could just as easily feel the opposite.

the Green Label soap.

I really like the Green Label scent as well. I would have gotten the splash on my last order, but my budget had reached it's limit. I did get the Black Label though as I like it a bit better.

 

[Keyvan]

I ordered several Razorock aftershaves from Italian barber during their last sale. The Irish Countryside aftershave is quite amazing. All of the RR aftershaves have a high alcohol content and the initial scent is dominated by the alcohol. I noticed that you get a better idea of the actual fragrance from smelling the bottle cap, rather than the bottle. Similarly, the underlying fragrance only becomes apparent some minutes after you apply the aftershave.

I would say that the RR Irish countryside aftershave smells more natural, nuanced and pleasant to me than Cool Water Cologne. I know that most people would disagree, but after the dry down One X also smells more pleasant and natural to me than Acqua di Parma Fico di Amalfi. The other aftershaves that I found to be amazing are Nomad and XXX. With Nomad you definitely have to wait for the dry down; the fragrance of the cap is completely different than that of the liquid.

 

[Hak.1963]

Bumping this thread

I have not tried Irish Countryside, yet, but it is on my wishlist.
Some will naturally compare this soap (and splash) with Stirling Sharp Dressed Man.
But how about TGS Abysso?Abysso is a dupe of Davidoff Cool Water, wich is a dupe of GIT.
Anyone compared RR, Stirling and TGS?
When reading the reviews and comments on rasoigoodfellas website all three are very very good.

 

[Lane101]

I just bought a tub of Razorock Irish Countryside shaving soap and used it for today's shave. I just wanted to post my thoughts. All of these are my opinion based on my face only.

Razor: S.K. Colling Spanish point 6/8 straight razor. This razor has amazing blue paua shell scales.

Brush: I used a Rudy Vey black and butterscotch 25mm Mühle Silvertip fiber knot brush. I loaded in the container and built the lather on my face.

Soap: Irish Countryside. Irish Countryside uses the RazoRock Super Tallow Formula, which includes Tallow, Shea Butter, Argan Oil, Aloe Vera and Lanolin.

"First and foremost, we created this scent for ourselves. I know that sounds selfish but it's the truth! Inspired by the famous CREED Green Irish Tweed, one of my favorite fall/winter perfumes. I was tired of shelling out over $300 a bottle to buy the CREED product so RazoRock commissioned one of the finest perfume houses in France to make us a scent inspired by the original. I think you will agree with me when I say... IT'S DARN NEAR CLOSE! Hopefully, the people around you (and your pocket) will thank us. My guess is this will become a RazoRock classic!" (From Italian Barber)

Scent: This is definitely a man's scent. It smells like a hot late summer morning sitting in the dirt under a deciduous shade tree in a pasture in North Alabama. It gives off a clean dirt scent, mixed with the green from deciduous trees and growing grass in the hot sun. It doesn't smell like freshly mown grass, nor like evergreen or pine, at all. The green is more like deciduous trees in a small grove. It is very earthy. The smell isn't bad. At first it took me a minute, but then I started to like it.

Edit: Using this soap reminded my of my boyhood on summer afternoons. It brought back memories of adventures and wiling away the endless days until school started again.

The Lather: I wet the brush thoroughly under running water, then shook it three times, not trying to shake out all of the water. Then, I began loading the brush in the container off of the puck. Very quickly I had a lot of lather coming out of the container. I loaded a few more swirls and looked and knew immediately that I had overloaded. It was that easy to load.

I put the brush on my face and began to build the lather, which wasn't hard at all, obviously. The smell really blossomed when I began to paint my face. I added a couple of drops of water and finished off with a nice, creamy lather.

The Shave: At the first stroke I knew it was going to be smooth, and it was pretty good, overall. I made three passes with the straight razor, WTG, ATG, and finally XTG. I had no difficulty doing any of that. What I discovered was that this soap isn't as slick or cushiony as Geo F. Trumper, which I used yesterday. It isn't up to Mitchell's Wool Fat, for me. It was better than Stirling and cheaper. It was similar to Ach Brito Lavanda in performance, or maybe Mogno. It isn't bad at all, just not a top tier soap.

Evaluation:

Scent: 7/10
Slickness: 7/10
Cushion: 7/10
Residual Slickness 8/10
Shave Comfort: 8/10 rounding
Price: 8/10
Average: 7.5/10

This soap was better than the Razorock What The Puck by a big margin. I'll probably buy some other scents of this brand and see how I like them. I reserve the right to change my mind.

Funny, I just shaved with my Razorock P.160 today for the first time - exact same soap as the Irish Countryside but with a classic almond scent. From my experience with what turns out to be very similar TFS Red Bowl shaving soap the key with these soaps is to ensure you have enough product loaded. Try scooping out an almond sized portion of the soap into a small lathering bowl (I used a 4" diameter stainless bowl) and building the lather in the bowl to see if you get a different result. I've had excellent results with both of these soft soaps with this method. Poor results with the Red Bowl when I tried to load off the puck as I do my hard soaps. Only way to load enough product is to scoop it out with a small spoon - others have confirmed the same. Note that I use a 26mm know plissoft synthetic brush.

These soaps are soft so I spread them across the bottom of the bowl with my finger and start lathering with a damp brush with no excess water. Repeatedly add small amounts of water until you get your desired lather consistency. See my earlier post on this with some deep dive analysis of the Razorock ingredients in some of their soaps via the link below. Many of these soaps share the same base with the main difference being some trace ingredients and of course scent.


Razorock Santa Maria Del Fiore Firenze Shave Soap - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/razorock-santa-maria-del-fiore-firenze-shave-soap.548869/page-2#post-12661434

P.S. See your rating on price, and agree at $11.99 per tub for the Irish Countryside. Similar P.160 is $8.99 and I picked it up during a holiday sale late last year for $5.99.

Edit P.S.S. : Just realized your OP was from over a year ago - comments are still valid. Did you continue to use the Irish Countryside and if so has your assessment changed at all from what you originally posted?

 

[Doc Dan]

Funny, I just shaved with my Razorock P.160 today for the first time - exact same soap as the Irish Countryside but with a classic almond scent. From my experience with what turns out to be very similar TFS Red Bowl shaving soap the key with these soaps is to ensure you have enough product loaded. Try scooping out an almond sized portion of the soap into a small lathering bowl (I used a 4" diameter stainless bowl) and building the lather in the bowl to see if you get a different result. I've had excellent results with both of these soft soaps with this method. Poor results with the Red Bowl when I tried to load off the puck as I do my hard soaps. Only way to load enough product is to scoop it out with a small spoon - others have confirmed the same. Note that I use a 26mm know plissoft synthetic brush.

These soaps are soft so I spread them across the bottom of the bowl with my finger and start lathering with a damp brush with no excess water. Repeatedly add small amounts of water until you get your desired lather consistency. See my earlier post on this with some deep dive analysis of the Razorock ingredients in some of their soaps via the link below. Many of these soaps share the same base with the main difference being some trace ingredients and of course scent.


Razorock Santa Maria Del Fiore Firenze Shave Soap - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/razorock-santa-maria-del-fiore-firenze-shave-soap.548869/page-2#post-12661434

P.S. See your rating on price, and agree at $11.99 per tub for the Irish Countryside. Similar P.160 is $8.99 and I picked it up during a holiday sale late last year for $5.99.

Edit P.S.S. : Just realized your OP was from over a year ago - comments are still valid. Did you continue to use the Irish Countryside and if so has your assessment changed at all from what you originally posted?

It wasn't for me, personally. I have never tried a RR shaving soap that was good for my face, somehow. I don't like Noble Otter, either. That's the way it is. One person's favorite soap may not always work for someone else. We are all different. As a disclaimer, I usually test soaps with a straight razor. If I used a safety razor I would likely get different results.