Soap Era Shaving Soap - a review

[newo]

This is my review of the Australian shaving soap produced by Soap Era (available on the Bay)


Cost (Cheap as Old Chips, Low Cost, Moderate, Expensive, Second Mortgage): Low Cost

Delivery (Sloth, Waiting for Christmas, Reasonable, Next Day, Time Lord): Waiting for Christmas

The time it took to deliver seemed excessive but I believe it was slow to reach me simply because our postal service can be poor maybe not because it may have been posted late​

Packaging (What Packaging?, Simplistic, Supermarket Shelf, Harrods, Gold Leaf): Simplistic

For post it was well wrapped. The packaging of the individual bars is minimal


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Fragrance (no odour, threshold, weak, strong, Jesus wash it off!): Strong when lathered

Straight out of the box the bars are nice but the peppermint where it has been in contact with the Cypress bar has overwhelmed the fragrance (one side only).

Indigo: has a faint smell of Gin (Juniper). I love Gin so I like the fragrance

Bay Rum: has to me a pleasant smell of cloves and spices. I have never had a Bay Rum product before so I can't compare it but I really like the fragrance

Cypress: I was expecting more of a Piney note. There is something but I can't pick it. This is the bar that was in contact with the peppermint soap so I'll just have to leave it a while to air
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Hardness, nothing technical I use my thumb (yoghurt, ice-cream, Gouda, Pecorino Romano, Tomcats Head): Pecorino Romano

I could not indent the shaving soap with my finger. In comparison to a brand new bar of C&E which I can just indent
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Shaving

First Impression

Loading: Struggled to transfer any soap to the brush

Lather: Explosion of poor quality airy foam, unstable

Slickness: Very

Cushion: None

Moisturising: Good

Ease of use: Very Difficult

After Shaving Review: Unable to bowl lather this product. Barely acceptable face lather; quite slick and fragrance is great but the lather was unstable. It did leave my face feeling nice and was irritation free.

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Second Impression (soaked puck while showering)

Loading: Still struggled to transfer the soap to the brush

Lather: a bit better but still poor quality airy foam that was unstable

Slickness: Very

Cushion: None

Moisturising: Good

Ease of use: Difficult

After Shaving Review: Pretty much the same as the first attempts. A bit easier to load after soaking puck. Start with an almost dry brush for a better result – less air
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Third Impression (After soaking the Puck 24 hours)

Loading: Much better, was able to transfer an excessive amount of product to the brush

Lather: Better than previous attempts but still unstable

Slickness: has lost some of its slickness since soaking the puck

Cushion: Minimal

Moisturising: Good

Ease of use: Difficult

After Shaving Review: Acceptable. After the extended soak the puck is usable but still falls short of my expectations of a shaving soap


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General discussion:

Well my order finally arrived. I purchased a bar of soap for my wife as well to get me over the free postage threshold and they threw in a sample of the cucumber & yoghurt soap as well.

Firstly, I am on rainwater so in terms of water hardness it is as soft as you can get so water hardness is not a factor in my ability to lather this soap.

I started with the Bay Rum in a re-purposed ceramic jar and my Semogue 1305 (because I'm breaking it in). There was instant Pink foam while loading the brush and I continued to load it for a few minutes before transferring to my shave bowl to create the lather.

I just could not get this to come together it was just a light airy foam. I returned to the puck to reload and tried again but I could not get it to work in the bowl. Hmmm more product needed.

I took the loaded brush to my face to try and face lather and that worked okay, the lather was still a bit airy but reasonably slick (more slick than the C&E) but the cushion was non-existent.

I gave up on the first attempt and retried with my Badger Brush, taking a long time to load before face lathering. This was an okay but not great shave.

I tried this soap and various combinations of water and brush-wetness but struggled to get it to work, so I spent some time reading reviews on how to lather really hard soaps and ended up completely immersing & soaking the puck for 24 hours.

This finally enabled me to load a decent amount of product but in terms of lather quality it still fell short of a Palmolive stick. Bowl lathering with this product was impossible. The best results I could get were with an almost dry brush and face lathering.

The only thing that exceeded my expectation was the Fragrance, which is great.

 

[Mick]

NICE review.

You may consider adding this to the shave wiki so that it is easier to locate

 

[newo]

Size Comparison


After Soaking Puck 24hrs

 

[coffeejn]

Too bad they don't ship to Canada, they have a teatree soap which I would love to try.

 

[Jonsta]

THANK YOU!

What a great review!

I've had the Bay Rum on my watch list for a while but have been waiting to try it out due to a combination of having too many soaps to get through, being in the March restraint, and being flat broke. Based on my preconceptions and your review, I'm going to be taking it off and giving this one a miss!

After trying out Scrumpy shaving bar I have a stink-eye for any soapmakers out there that have a seemingly large normal soap line with one to a few shaving soaps. Usually means they've taken their normal soap and just thrown some Kaolin or Bentonite clay in it. At least you have some really nice smelling shower soaps now! Lord knows that's where my (very nicely scented) Scrumpy went almost immediately.

+1 vote for putting it in the wiki to warn other fellow Aussies to steer clear

Jonsta

 

[newo]

So I ended up sending Soap Era a message in a bottle while on the bay letting them know of my disappointing shave and I noticed that they now have a range of 'classic' shaving soaps and that the other 'facial & shaving' bars are now listed as being for 'shower shaving'

This might be new or maybe I just did not read the fine print, but I am certain that they did not have the 'classic' line when I ordered the first lot. Anyway the 'facial & shaving' pucks now have the disclaimer

For those shavers dedicated to the ART of Wet Shaving, we recommend you to try our CLASSIC SHAVING SOAP series which is designed to be applied using a shaving brush. The lather of the CLASSIC SHAVING SOAP series is much long-lived than the FACIAL/SHAVING SOAP.

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Well I politely let them know I was disappointed and was a traditional wet shaver (see where I am going with this) and they have offered to send me two of their 'classic' shaving pucks free of charge as replacements and I can keep the others. I am most happy with this - no angst, just straight up good customer service and the first lot do smell great even if I don't end up shaving with them.

Well I'll be away with work for a week and once back (and hopefully with new 'classic' puck in hand) I will repeat my review with the Soap Era 'classic' puck.

watch this space

 

[newo]

This is my review of the classic shave soap produced by Soap Era (available on the Bay)



Cost (Cheap as Old Chips, Low Cost, Moderate, Expensive, Second Mortgage): Low Cost

price per gram - only a fraction more than a C&E refill but it included postage so overall it was a cheap price online (not that I paid anything, as these are the replacements they sent me)

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Delivery (Sloth, Waiting for Christmas, Reasonable, Next Day, Time Lord): Reasonable

Packaging (What Packaging?, Simplistic, Supermarket Shelf, Harrods, Gold Leaf): Simplistic

Once again, for post it was well wrapped. The packaging of the individual bars is minimal but this time they were in individual cellophane baggies, which stopped any transference of fragrance
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Fragrance (no odour, threshold, weak, strong, Jesus wash it off!):

Bay Rum: straight out of the post this is great very similar to the previous facial & shaving puck i.e. coves and spices and has a strong scent

Garden Herb: slightly minty – I have yet to lather the soap and this will have to wait till I use up the other but the scent is weak
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Hardness, nothing technical I use my thumb (yoghurt, ice-cream, Gouda, Pecorino Romano, Tomcats Head): Gouda – but on the soft side

Easier to indent would be very easy to form into a stick or squash into a bowl – which I did end up doing
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Shaving
First Impression

Loading: easy – wet the badger and put a few drops of water on top of the soap and loaded up



Lather: robust, whipped up nice in the bowl and was long lasting



Slickness: good – not as slick as the facial & shaving, probably does not have as much bentonite and obviously does not have any of the Aussie red clay

Cushion: very good but not yoghurt or an Italian meringue




Moisturising: good. Neither gluey/greasy or dry – like the third bowl of porridge just right

Ease of use: easy

After Shaving Review: loading was so much easier than the previous soap and the lather was what I expect of a shaving soap; nice - thick, stable, good cushion and did not dry my face out. left my face feeling nice and clean

General discussion:

The replacement order arrived promptly and well packaged. I was away for the week and my wife sent me a message saying the soap had arrived and that the bay rum smelt fantastic.

Finally home tonight (Friday) so once again I started with the new Bay Rum and pressed it slightly into a $1 mug from a thrift shop. It easily moulded to the bottom but I did not push it completely out of shape, I just pressed hard enough for it to stick.

This loaded easy – I did not soak either the badger or the puck I just wet the badger brush, squeezed it out and put a few drops of water on to the puck. If the puck was soaked, you could probably load an obscene amount of product.

I took the loaded brush and started whipping up the lather, adding a few drops of water at a time. This only took a minute or so to do and was enough for 3 passes with enough left over that if my wife had not been asleep could have been Friday night fun-time.

Cushion was superior to the other puck but not as slick. This only has the bentonite the other formulation did have two types of clay.

This soap was great. Easy to load and lather and the shave was great and did not dry my skin out and to top it off I loved the fragrance.