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Superdrug Bristle and Smith traditional shave set review

Those of you in the UK will have heard of the "health and beauty" retailer Superdrug, for those outside the UK, they are a store similar to that of Walgreens. When I was walking past recently, I spied a new set they had on offer... A traditional style shave set. I went in and had a look to see it was only £5! A pretty decent offer for what was inside, so I decided to pick it up and do a review for you guys

What's inside?
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Here is the set: Contains a fairly generic brush, a soap, an "aftershave" and a face cloth.

After opening the box I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the brush. Despite its appearance, its actually a fairly soft brush, unlike the usual bristle ones that you can pick up from the shops here, and I was a little more hopeful about its performance and feel on my face.

The soap is a strange one. Its glycerine based (an obvious move to make it vegan friendly) and the scent... my first thoughts were "clean... like a freshly cleaned bathroom". It has no disenable smell, it just smells fresh and fairly pleasant.

The cloth is a cloth and the aftershave is a very generic moisturiser style, no real scent but its fine

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The Shave:

I was originally going to do the shave with my go to setup: A Yaqi Final Cut with a Treet Carbon blade, but then I considered who this kit was actually for: Beginners who's razor would be one of the ones that come up when you search "Safety razor" into ebay or amazon. So I had a look through my collection and decided on something a beginner might buy: The Gillette sterling razor that can be picked up for around £5. Its a nice little razor that is often sent with a few blades, but as those are long gone, I decided to pair it with a Gillette Nacet blade for the closet to "brand new" experience someone who gets it might have.
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I began my typical lather process only to discover some odd behaviour with the soap... the lather that was forming was creating small, pearl like clumps of lather on the brush and dish instead of a large, singular blob of lather like normal (pic 1). To see whether this was the fault of the brush or lather I tried the sets soap with my regular brush: A Yaqi husky knot synthetic and tried the brush on a soap I know lathers amazingly: La Barbiera's sweet orange soap. The problem of the "pearls" did also happen on the new brush (although not as much as before) (pic 2) whereas the set's brush performed perfectly well with the new soap (pic 3). The soap was fairly heavy on the face, even with a lot of extra water but it still performed fine as a soap and did the job fine.
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Overall conclusions:

If you are into shaving and already have the items this kit contains then I see no reason as to why you should buy it. The soap is nothing special and the brush, while nice and better than some other cheap brushes, Is not worth the £5 and having the rest of the kit.

However this kit is not designed for us, it is designed for those who have never shaved with a brush and soap before and is meant as a gift set. For that purpose I think is a very nice little set, maybe to someone younger who is just starting to shave, or just as an introduction for someone who may be on the fence. The soap is a 125g tub so should last for a long while and combined with a cheap razor like the one used, could make for a nice little starter set.
 
Great review. Thanks! Any chance of taking a picture of the soaps ingredients list? I'm always curious of things like that- especially after seeing the odd formation of pearls in the initial lather.
 
Great review. Thanks! Any chance of taking a picture of the soaps ingredients list? I'm always curious of things like that- especially after seeing the odd formation of pearls in the initial lather.
Ask and ye shall receive:
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I started with a similar cheap set years ago. It worked but was nothing to write home about. I've concluded that beginners would be better served with something slightly better so as to not be frustrated and fling the whole mess in the can.
 
I saw this set in Superdrug a few times and picked one up when it was half price at Christmas.

I have to say I didn't experience the strange lathering phenomena though I have so far only used it with the supplied brush. Performance was pretty decent I thought considering the price but I concur that it needed a fair bit of water. I bloomed it for a little while before use so maybe that might help.

In regrds to the scent, it mentions cassis on the packaging and, though mild, I did get a definite sense of that.
 
Add some preshave oil to the regimen and try some glycerine soap or adding a secondary soap to it. Dove Men’s care, for instance. Some things go better together like milk and honey. Ernie and Bert.

Or spinal tap and rock and roll guitars.

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...

Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?

Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.

Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?

Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

Marty DiBergi: I don't know.

Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.

Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?

Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
 
Add some preshave oil to the regimen and try some glycerine soap or adding a secondary soap to it. Dove Men’s care, for instance. Some things go better together like milk and honey. Ernie and Bert.

Or spinal tap and rock and roll guitars.

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...

Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?

Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.

Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?

Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

Marty DiBergi: I don't know.

Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.

Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?

Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
Now that I’ve thought about Bristle and Smith is not to change it all and simply pay homage with a kickass heavyweight razor. Have you tried the Vikings Blade, they make several brass adjustables. Nothing screams quality like a big honking razor.
 
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