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The Obsessive Soap Perfectionist Orange/Patchouli

Gentlemen, having been a good lad this last year or two I have whittled my excess shave lathers down to a very manageable, nee meager, remnant of what I had been hoarding. Those that were good but not the best got used up, those gathering dust went to the bath, and so on. Some found other means of disposal but you get the drift.

I had the stash down to the premier performers that I knew would work every time. Penhaligon's tallow fifth, Czech and Speake, Harris Sandalwood stick, etc. And other than those, it has gotten minimal. I did realise I was dipping into some of my semi special or have-to-be-in-the-mood-for-it soaps and really did not want to just use them up for the sake of it. Like the Pen's BB tallow fifth. Unobtanium is it for that. Same for my MEM English Leather. So appropriately, I unleashed the SSAD creature and bought a few items over the last two or three months. PAA Alt 11, Razormaster Juha and Uula to name a couple.

English Shaving has been running their worldwide 99p shipping and along with the Razormaster products I picked up a bowl of The Obsessive Soap Perfectionist in orange and patchouli scent. This soap is made in Blighty by a man named James. Here is a link to the site; OSP

What drew me to this product was the ingredients list; Aqua, Sodium and Potassium tallowate are the first three ingredients on the list. Followed by Sodium and Potassium stearate. Now they had my attention. These are key ingredients in many of the best soaps I have used. It also contains castor, cocoa, avocado, and lanolin. Glycerin and and menthol too but thankfully I don't really notice the latter. Those latter ingredients are not in order and I suggest you go OSP website to get a full detail of the list. I believe if I read correctly this soap uses essential oils for the most part as well. The orange and patchouli are VERY well blended and you seemingly cannot tell which dominates. Which is how a good fragrance should be. Here is a photo from the English Shaving Co. web site. All rights to them.
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I shaved with it this morning and let me tell you, I was most impressed. I won't go into a lot of detail til I have used it three to five times but initial impressions are very good. My label is printed with batch no. 104. A nice touch I think. This allows comparisons as these soaps evolve over time. Scent bloomed nicely and at times I was unsure whether I was smelling oranges or patchouli. Rather a neat experience. Being an Anglophile I am most happy to see this product come over to our side of the pond. Stay tuned.
 
I tried some Neroli and really loved it. I've bought a tub of the Vetiver and have thus far held off on trying it since I already have 17 open tubs or pucks. I'd like to whittle down my open items before succumbing to new ones.
 
Update. Used this again Monday morning. Um, not so good. Lathered super easy like first use. I only loaded about 30 seconds and was rewarded with a lot of lather. This stuff lathers like a dream.

The trouble started with the shave. It just wasn't comfortable. A lot of drag and post shave was so so. I really don't know if this was me or the product. I certainly will give this another go. I continue to be impressed with the overall vibe but man, that shave was rough! I hope I can get this sorted because the scent is superb. Stay tuned.
 
Yes, I wondered about that. It can be thirsty. I used it again this morning with much better result. I used a horse hair Vie-Long brush and it fairly exploded the lather. Shave was much better with a one day old Personna med prep blade. Post shave was much better too.

I did note the atg pass was not quite what I wanted. I nicked my upper lip for the second time this week which hasn't happened in years. I was trying too much to finesse the stroke and this tells me I did not trust the glide like I do with my top performers. I bollocksed up the stroke and put a tiny cut on the edge of the mustache line where it meets your lip. Ouch.

I very much like this soap brand and the quality of ingredients and workmanship is obvious. I just don't know if it will work out to be a regular in the den.
 
Alright gentlemen, time to wrap up this rather meager review of OSP soap. I used it again this week and have discovered a couple of things. Some really good, others just so so.

First up the scent. This is really nice. The blend of orange and patchouli is done very well. You can and will find some clunky scents out there in shave world but this is not one of them. And to me it screams quality of fragrance components. Keep in mind I am no 'nose' on such things. Really nice.

Lather. It is certainly okay. It is not spectacular and takes a few minutes with the brush to get it really well hydrated and filled out.

Glide is good but not in say, the top five or ten. It is certainly just fine but does not blow me away.

Cushion is very decent if you keep a very sharp blade in and keep the strokes methodical. This is a slow soap.

A/S feel. Really very good considering my slight reluctance at lather/glide issues. It rinses clean, does not irritated and leaves this neat little orange layer on your face. Nice.

Overall, a good+ soap but not my top five. Great ingredients, nice packaging, well made and all that. Likely not a repurchase for me but I will use it til I tire of it and PIF. You could do a LOT worse than this soap mate.
 
I was hoping this was going to be a good one. Orange and clove are my favorite scents and I there doesn't seem to be many well known options in this category. At this point, etsy seems to be the best option.
 
The fact that you had a great shave and then a bad shave leads one to believe it's the Indian and not the arrow here. I have owned/used several of their soaps and the ingredients are impeccable as are the resultant shaves. Perhaps it was your prep or blade(?).
 
I have found that OSP soaps take a bit of time to break in. I find dimpling the surface of the soap to help things along for the first seven shaves or so does the trick.

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