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Valobra scents

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The Instigator
Upon review and reflection, I prefer "clay" base scent to "faint dirty shirt" scent. :tongue_sm

After a bad/thin lather from another soap, going for AoS sandalwood tomorrow. Need the protection, my OLD bit me.


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[MENTION=22302]Marco[/MENTION] I totally agree with you about Valobra pucks and the shave stick. Performance is beyond excellent. The soft Almond bar is a notch below the hard soaps but not by much and its scent is mild. It also gives an excellent shave.

Fougere and Cologne are mild and "dirty" renditions as are Czech & Speake No.88 and Oxford & Cambridge. "Dirty", but they all smell fine to my nose. I also have the Unscented puck which I purchased so that I could use any aftershave product with it. The Unscented has a distinct tallow scent to it and is where I would think the "dirty" component comes from. The shave stick on the other hand, is not at all similar to Unscented. It has a scent that is best described as "fresh & clean" with none of the "dirty" component.
 
Not sure to what to attribute the clay undertone, but I sort of dig it, myself.
(The tallow seems essentially fully saponified, so who knows?)
I much prefer the performance of the harder soap though (doesn’t get much better than this, IMO).
 
I believe it is the clay in the soap that you are smelling. Obviously it can be very polarizing, but I love it. Granted, I also like Tabac and Arko's scent so maybe I'm the odd one. :)
 

Ad Astra

The Instigator
Likely it's why AoS changed to non-tallow formula ("Hey Mr. AoS guy, I just paid you $95 for some soap and it smells like an armpit/claypit!"). Anyways.

Whipped that stuff into a monster and had a perfect Feather-blade shave with no weepers. Needed that.

Never skimp on soap. Better to throw away thick lather than nick yourself with thin.


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Yes, I find it to be a clay scent as well. This underlying clay scent is also present in the Czech & Speake soaps but, the C&S scents mask it better.

I like the clay scent of the stick (that apparently is going to discontinued). So what puck in current production is the closest match scentwise?
 
The unscented AOS tallow soaps are still available and are fantastic as are the Czech & Speake offerings.
One tip with the AOS tallow is to flip it over with the top/flat side down into an Ikea Grundtal tin. Fits perfectly this way.

We are in an age of artisan soaps popping up everywhere with their bright labels and strong scents. The unscented AOS tallow or a C&S Oxford and Cambridge are that much more special to use in this day and age.:001_smile
 
Valobra rocks!

I have fugere (same as the stick) and AOS tallow unscented.

The sweet clay smell is great, I really enjoy it. The lather and performance is absolutely top tier!
 
Yes, I find it to be a clay scent as well. This underlying clay scent is also present in the Czech & Speake soaps but, the C&S scents mask it better.

So glad I found this thread. As it's put my mind a rest.
I've just received my first puck of C&S no.88. In sniffing the box and wrapping I was pleased with the scent but after taking the soap out and sniffing the puck I immediately detected this strange 'dirty' off scent. The 88 scent is there but much more mild than the scent on the packaging which is strange. Maybe they spray the cologne on the wrapping, like some shops do. Anyway I thought the 'off' scent was strange even slightly overpowering the actual 88 fragrance, and maybe I got some really old stock but now reading this and the 'clay' description and even the 'dirty shirt' description, I'm pretty certain that's what my nose is smelling. I do have a particularly sensitive nose.

So I see some are saying it's Tallow 'funk'. However one ingredient listed that also popped out to me as I've not seen it in my other soaps is that this soap contains Petrolatum. Basically Petroleum Jelly/Vaseline. I'm wondering if this 'off' smell is actually coming from that rather than the Tallow. I think it could be.
 
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