Raymond Waites Spiced Cedar Collection Sunday ablutions are generally a relaxed affair for me. It's the one day I'll take my time and enjoy it. Today was no different, and due to @Darkbulb posting the sets he found, I was inspired. This morning I woke up, went to my local Walgreen's to look for the Raymond Waites Spiced Cedar Collection set for $10, then headed to the gym. My plan was to get this, use it for my post gym shower and shave and review it here. The plan worked, with a few hitches. The first Walgreens I went to didn't have the set. They did have quite a few sets, some that he pictured and many that he did not, in the original thread. But no Spiced Cedar. The girl working there even checked in the back for me. Nope. No big deal, there's another Walgreens nearby, so I went there. They had it, and some others that the first Walgreen's did not. So, I gave the man two $5 bills and walked out with my very own Raymond Waites Spiced Cedar Men's Bath Collectoin. No sales tax in Oregon, of course. Off to the gym, I worked out for an hour, so had sweat on top of all night sleep sweat and all my nasty body secretions from all day Saturday. Was good ol' Ray up to the challenge? This is where the rubber hit the road. At home I unpacked the set and inspected everything before taking it into the bathroom. These are my thoughts on the individual products and how they performed. I'll save you the blow by blow of my shower and shave, don't worry. Spiced Cedar Body Wash First off, I noticed that there was no flip top, it was screw off. For a shower, that's kind of lame. It had looked like a soft soap, but was actually some kind of odd gel. The scent was strong but nice. It took more than what I'm normally used to lather on my wash rag, but did get soapy and I felt adequately clean. It rinsed off with no residue. I felt clean and it got my disgusting secretions off. It worked. Spiced Cedar Body Scrub I always use a face scrub of some sort, so I was interested in how this was going to perform. When I opened it up in the kitchen, a big bloop of product had come out and it was really gritty. Microbeads, I'm guessing. Not a fan of microbeads for a lot of reasons that I won't go in to here. When I was in the shower though, I felt no grit and no microbeads. I'm wondering if all the microbeads went to the bottom and came out in the kitchen? No idea but it was much less grittier. Otherwise the scrub was great and I enjoyed using it. It also rinsed off with no residue and made an adequate pre-shave face wash. Also, no flip top here either. The Square Brush I didn't use this. I think it's a good brush and will use it as a nail and foot brush as needed. Spiced Cedar Shaving Cream When I opened it, I knew it wasn't a lathering cream. The directions on the back say you can lather it on your face with your hands or with a brush, so I went through the motions of trying to bowl lather. Nope! This cream has the consistency of somewhere between light mayonaise and a thick lotion. As my brush was already full of the stuff, I decided to go ahead and spread it on my face. That actually worked well. No lather, but the cream was spread evenly and nicely. It's slick. There's no cushion, but it is adequate in the slick department. The shave wasn't very good. Not even a DFS, some burn, and a couple of weepers. I blame the cream. I debated at cutting it off at 2 passes, but continued on to the third. In the sink it looked terrible. Think gobs of floating mayo. It also clogged my Tech up pretty bad. Lots of rinsing needed. I think if I was going to use this with a cart, I'd be fine and it would've worked well. Spiced Cedar After Shaving Balm I'm going to say this isn't actually an aftershave balm. To me it had the consistency and performance of a regular skin lotion. I like it as a lotion. I'll probably never use it as an aftershave balm again, but I would feel good about putting it on my skin. As a balm it didn't really add anything. Final Thoughts That's the run down of the products. As for the scent, it was strong, but didn't stick around. I do smell a bit from the balm (lotion) still, but not anymore than I would from any other scented lotion. The Body Wash and Body Scrub were also really strong, but was gone as soon as it was rinsed off. I definitely like that about it. Spiced Cedar is a manly scent, and one I'd wear if there was an actual splash of it. Was it worth $10? Sure. I'll keep using it, although I'm not sure about the shave cream. I may experiment with it, or put it away for a PIF/travel box. Will I buy it again? Nope. Cost/value/performance aside, I don't like the ingredients. Not very natural at all, I'll leave it at that.
Thanks, a most excellent, in-depth review of the set. It's interesting that the inventory differs so much between various Walgreens locations though.
I don't know how well you looked around the store, but at both stores I went to they had so many sets that they were tucked away all over the place. There were a few in the cosmetic section, a few on end caps, and then way way more along the top of the aisles where I didn't even notice them at first. The ones you pictured were the main bath set types, but at the stores I saw about 6 different Axe sets, 3-4 different Old Spice, 2 different Nivea, another citrusy Raymond Waites set, a lot of various English Leather/Canoe/British Sterling sets, and more variations on Stetson than I can think of. Of course these were all spread out and mixed in with all the celebrity scent packs, women's bath sets, and various makeup sets.
That is very true - I didn't venture in beyond the shaving/styling section. Well, with all those sets around I'm hoping there will be plenty of them for 50% discount after xmas
Excellent review and well done!!! It was logical and well written! You have satisfied my curiosity to eliminate my desire for this product! For that I thank you!
Great review. Now I don't feel curious to try it. Also very funny review, disgusting secretions lol. You're one of the only people I've ever heard actually use the word ablutions correctly as well. Well done.
Excellent review! Many thanks for that. I haven't check Walgreen's shaving section since they ditched the stellar ASR DE blades, but will have to revisit.
I wanted to update this after continuing to use the products this week. I've used the body scrub and body wash every shower since getting it. The body wash seems to be highly water soluble, meaning it doesn't stay on the wash cloth or your body very long, which actually makes you use more product. Bath products usually last me a couple of weeks, I'm already more than half way through the body wash. I said before half jokingly that I wonder if all the microbeads came out in the highly gritty blop that emerged when I first opened it. Now I'm pretty sure that it did. There's really no scrub to the scrub anymore, and it's as water soluble as the body wash. I half suspect that the scrub is a watered down version of the wash. I actually used the nonlathering cream again tonight. I smeared it on my face, it felt like like smearing light mayo. It seems to have a numbing agent in it that I don't feel on my face, but I could feel on my lips. If I shaved with a cart, I think I'd like it. But I shave with a DE, and I do not.
They may have added some Benzocaine or Lidocane to the cream to get the numbing effect. That is a bad way to overcome a marginal cream.
I picked one of these sets up today. I would say the shave "cream" is more like shave slime. I did get a pretty good shave using an injector with it though. Hardly any irritation. The aftershave balm is pretty thick and left my face tacky for a few minutes but it absorbed fine. I was disappointed though. I thought the large bottle was a body spray but it's a body wash. I need to read things more carefully sometimes.
So far the shave cream and the aftershave balm are the only decent products in the bunch. The body wash went in the garbage after one use. It doesn't lather at all. The body scrub doesn't lather at all either but I'm going to try it on my face before I pitch it. I wish I had waited until after Christmas so I could have gotten it at a discount. I recently bought the no7 collection for 50% off at Walgreens. I hope this set pans out better.
