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Strop Shoppe Review

I've spent the past two weeks making my way through 5 samples I received from the Strop Shoppe. For what it is worth, here are my thoughts.


Ordering experience

I read somewhere on here that they offer free samples, so I thought I'd give it a try. If you pay the $1 and change for shipping, they bump your name up to the top of their list. Otherwise, they send out samples based on the order in which requests are received. Paying the shipping cost meant I received my samples within about three weeks. Not sure how long the wait would be if you don't.

I ran into one small issue while ordering. When I attempted to check out, it was charging full price for shipping. ($5+) I emailed customer service and got a pretty quick response. Within 5-10 mins I was able to complete my order.

Soaps

When I placed my order, I specifically requested to try Barbershop and Black Tie and indicated I preferred tallow-based soaps. I received the two I requested, along with Baker Street, Bay Rum, and Alpine Frost. All except the Alpine Frost are tallow based.

The samples are small smears of the soap in small plastic bags and arrived in a standard envelope. Most contained enough soap for 2-3 shaves.

The first thing I noticed about the soaps was the strength of the scents. They open up nicely when lathered and stick with me throughout most of the afternoon. They aren't overpowering, but strong enough you don't need a huge aftershave.

You really have to separate them before you can get distinct scents. All of the scents were very pleasant. Black Tie was my favorite, followed by Baker Street and Barbershop. The bay rum has made me reconsider my aversion to the scent generally. Alpine Frost had a great menthol feel, but the scent was too reminiscent of mouthwash for me.

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All of the soaps produced a really nice, slick lather. Although Alpine Frost wasn't tallow based, I could not tell much of a difference between the lather. That makes me more likely to give the non-tallow offerings equal consideration. The soaps do not take much effort to produce a cloud of lather. It also doesn't take much product to get enough for 2-3 passes.



Overall, I was very pleased with the samples I received. It is great that the Strop Shoppe offers these for just the cost of shipping. They've won me over....I'll be ordering a full size soap to add to the rotation. My only complaint is the small number of scents offered through the website. Right now there 7 scents up, 1 of those being out of stock, and only 3 of the 5 samples I received are actually for sale.
 
I have managed to acquire Barbershoppe, Black Tie, Rosemary Mint and Peppermint, all with tallow. They are superb soaps. I acquired them through trades so I did not get to experience the customer service issues everyone talks about, but this soap is so good that I would definitely order direct from Strop Shoppe. It sounds like they have somewhat sorted out the shipping problems that have seemed to plague them by only allowing one to buy what they currently have in stock. Previously you could order anything and then wait until the soap was made, cured, packaged and finally shipped. The downside to their new business model is that there are now only a few scents available at any given time, but they have posted their production schedule so one can keep track of when a new soap is coming out. Time will tell if this ends up being a successful strategy. As a consumer I sure hope it is because I cannot say enough good things about the product.
 
I'd like them to have something like 3-4 scents come out at the same time so that orders can be combined.

Or make enough of the soap so that all of it doesn't sell out before the next one becomes available.

I'm wanting to get some Baker Street and Alpine Frost next week but if I can't combine the orders because AF sold out before BS comes online, I probably won't order anything.

Their soaps are top notch and well worth using though.
 
I've been using the Special Edition Black Tie Extra Soft-Double Butter Formula soap for the past two weeks and I am thoroughly impressed.
 
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