I love tobacco scents thats what peaked my interest the have one called cigar lounge but if the performance isn't there no way. But there are no reviews I can find
Straight Razor Design (here) has a wonderfully scented and excellently performing house soap called Opus X. Just FYI.
Well, I caved in and have been using the SB Lime for the last week. It's an OK soap, IMHO. Typical of some glycerine soaps, there was a top skin that had to be worked through to get to the soap beneath. The scent is just right, very natural. Performance is OK. Not great, not horrible. It makes a nice lather on the puck, but on the face and in the brush, it disappears pretty quickly. The lather was sufficient for one comfortable pass, but not for a second. For me, anyhow, not a keeper.
This is really disappointing to here. The Desperado and Cigar scents sounded very tempting. Probably why I'm having such a hard time finding reviews of it.
I have a sample of the Cedar and Sandalwood soap. I really enjoy the scent, there's a semi-sweetness and spiciness from the sandalwood and then the traditional cedarwood "warmth" if that makes any sense. The only other sandalwood I have smelled is Proraso Red, which was much more earthy, to me. SB Cedar and Sandalwood had more of a sweetness aspect. I've got a full tub of SB coming my way, so I'll give a more in-depth interview when I have the full tub to load from rather than the sample. I've had samples that I've had trouble loading sometimes, and then once I had the full puck I didn't have any trouble getting a lather, so I'll wait to give a properly representative review.
Straight Razor Design makes a great cigar scent called Opus X if you're looking for a good cigar scent.
I've looked at that before but the mention of a scent no stronger than DRHarris and the glycerin base turned me off. Their international shipping is also over $30 for one puck which is out of line with most sellers.
Sorry to steal the wind out of your sails, Kenny, but I've given SB enough lathers to come up with a well-rounded review. There isn't a huge amount of info on SB online, besides one or two threads on B&B and some youtube videos, so I'm going to go in-depth here. For full disclosure, I've had a few conversations with the soap maker, and know him from the Canadian Facebook wet-shaving group (Kenny, it's Mitch here), but I'll try to remain impartial. If anyone has had different experiences by all means say so. By the way, here are the soaps I've used so far, to give reference: Tiki tallow, Stirling, MWF, Soap Commander, Mike's, B&M, Shannon's Soaps, Proraso, Strop Shoppe SE. I'm pretty sure that's all of them. The Summary: Hard soap, so it will last a long time, but takes longer to load and lather than most soaps I have. The lather is creamy, pretty slick, and the post-shave is quite protective without being overly "tacky" or "oily" that I've heard some people say about tallow soaps. Overall a soap I would definitely recommend. Scent: Cup of Joe: Coffee themed. Not a straight coffee scent, it actually reminds me of a less-sweet Coffee Crisp (coffee with some chocolate in there). Initially it was quite weak, but after a few lathers it gets to a medium light, I would say, and doesn't stay around after the shave. I really enjoy this scent though, being a coffee and chocolate lover. Loading: This is a hard puck (harder than Soap Commander, and probably almost as hard as tabac) so loading longer takes time. I loaded for about a minute with my Plisson, adding water as I went along. Lathering: I've learned that lathering also takes a little more time, so I bowl lathered. Add in drops of water, and after a couple of additions I had a good amount of thick creamy lather. Not gobs of it like you get with B&M or Soap Commander, but definitely enough for 3 passes (again, I bowl lathered, which I found to work better with this soap). When applied to the face, the lather is creamy and reasonably thick (not as thick as B&M, but still quite good). I noticed that the lather would have a couple of air bubbles, but nothing that got in the way of the shave, and still made a thick lather. Slickness: This soap was pretty slick; not the slickest I've had (like Stirling), but with the right water amount, the razor definitely glides. Post shave/protection: This is where SB is actually a very good medium for people. After the shave, you'll notice some slickness/moisturising properties, but they're light, so people who have more oily complexions should like this. After about 10 minutes, my face is nice and "toned"; not tight, but toned and feeling good. Also no irritation so far with my SB shaves, so good news there. Overall, I really like this soap, and it will be staying in my den in one scent or another for a good long while. Americans, get this while the conversion rate is still so good for you. I ran a soap through the soapy bathman website saying I was in Florida, and shipping was $7 CAN; So 80z of soap SHIPPED was $27CAN, which is $22 USD. And it's a long lasting, hard soap.
Thanks! I like having in-depth reviews for soaps that I'm looking to buy, and I haven't really seen one yet for SB so I thought I would put one out there. By all means lets us know what you think, great to have a variety of opinions.
Haha I've been doing test lathers in between shaves to increase my uses. Considering how hard it is, I'm not too worried about wasting it. I'll have to keep tweaking it, becuase I've definitely got slickness out of it, but it's not the absolute slickest I've got. You should give Stirling a shot, if you haven't already. It's my benchmark for slickness.
Despite getting mixed reviews I'm tempted to give cigar lounge a try. I like strong scents and I want a Cavendish challenger. Kenny, your lathering technique is exactly how I lather harder soaps like Mike's.
Problem for me is, except that for maybe a couple of soaps, I don't want an eight ounce tub of anything, let alone a scent I haven't sampled. Even with a good exchange rate, I'm not committing to a family size when I haven't even had a chance at a snack pack.