Well, I recieved a gift of Truefitt and Hill "Luxury" Sandalwood Shave Soap today and I thought I'd share my opinion. Let me preface this by saying that I'm not new to the shave game. I know how to build lather be it in the hand, in the bowl, or on the face. I have boars and synthetics. I have hot and cold running water as well as filtered water available. This soap is absolutely terrible. It performed exactly like the other useless puck of hard British soap I tried (Geo F. Trumper Eucris). Dry, airy foam that pushes around your face leaving skin showing through. If you try using painting strokes, little foamy bits fly off around the bathroom sink and some actually float through the air as they gently waft downwards. Even as you spread it on your skin, if you happen to touch a previously applied area with your brush the "lather" has already dried out and tears away leaving exposed skin. 1. It isn't any slicker than a bar of Dove hand soap (or Dawn dishwashing liquid). Fail. 2. Zero cushion. Fail. 3. It's grossly overpriced. Major Fail. A can of Barbasol "Soothing Aloe" walks all over this stuff. I use Barbasol and like it. Back when I had the GFT Eucris, many suggested I try their methods for success. Here are some of the things I tried with that soap: 1. Blooming (hot water). 2. Blooming (cold water). 3. Boar brush (dry). 4. Boar brush (wet). 5. Synthetic (as above both wet and dry). 6. All the above but with distilled water, filtered water and even rain water. 7. Loading the brush holding the puck above it (upside down). 8. Shaving while facing Northwest and listening to "Carry On My Wayward Son" by Kansas. 9. Spending 20-30 minutes complimenting the puck in a gentle voice (soap whispering). 10. Or conversely, going hard the other way and getting real "Alpha" on the puck by denigrating it with insults. Putting it in it's place, much like boot camp where first we tear down the soap emotionally and then build it back up into a first class lathering machine. None of these methods worked then and I'm not about to go through them again with Truefitt and Hill "Luxury" Sandalwood Shave Soap. And I'm not interested to "try their creams" which are even more expensive per volume than their overpriced soap pucks. It is a real shame that the British have such refined and beautiful scent profiles and yet their soaps have been a complete waste of money as far as I'm concerned. I love Eucris Eau de Toilette and wear it often (after shaving with something else). And I love the Truefitt and Hill Sandalwood Cologne that also came as part of this gift from my wife. But I can't recommend either of these two brands of hard soaps for anything. At all. (maybe glove box car freshener). Personally, I shave with a great perfoming product like Tabac (my #1), Cella, Proraso or even Nivea (cream in a tube) which leave little, if any of their scent after I've rinsed off and then I use the fine scents from Germany, Italy and Great Britain in cologne form as my lasting fragrance. They work especially well if you blend a few drops into a dime-sized blob of Nivea balm before applying it to your face, with maybe a drop of the straight juice on each elbow. Just my opinion. As always.................Your Mileage May Vary.
have you tried a bottle of vancouver's finest tap water sir....seriously though ,i haven't indulged in any of the british hard soaps due to cost and lack of reviews,just the creams,which do work .tabac is excellent..most of my great hard soaps are german,french or italian..out of all the SOTD pics i have seen on here and other forums one see's very little if any of the brit hard soaps being used or raved about..save for mitchell's wool fat..seems like most of the very long established soap makers 75 years or older have reformulated themselves out of the market..
Hi Gary. To me, these soaps are like having to put the nozzle from the gas pump into the fuel opening filler on the car in "just a certain way" or the car doesn't work. Don't fill the tank too quickly, don't fill it too slowly, don't hold the pump handle at a certain angle....... It's soap, it's supposed to make lather. I can make a better lather with Crest Toothpaste. Really, just awful soaps.
Well, I no sooner write a scathing review and the very next day I have succeeded in using this soap. The "secret", at least with the tap water in my neck of the woods is to follow Mantic59's method which is............ Start with the puck absolutely bone dry. Remove as much water from your brush as possible so it too is almost completely dry. Start swirling on the puck and add the smallest drop of water you can. Then another itsy-bitsy drop of water until the brush just barely begins to pick up soap. No proto, pre-slime, no actual "lather" being built. Just the brush getting gradually loaded with soap that is almost a thick paste. Apply using paint brush strokes until you've got a micro thin layer. You should look like you're wearing whiteface or "mime" makeup. Very slowly dip the brush tips into a few drops of water from the sink and build the lather on your face. It Works! The lather will not build into the thick rich Santa beard but instead is a much thinner overall layer but it does not dissipate and does have decent slickness. I just had a fantastic shave with this stuff (T&H Sandalwood). It seems that you simply cannot use the amount of water you would normally use with things like Cella, Tabac, or even the non-tallow soaps like Proraso or Nivea. I hereby retract the statements made in my earlier review and will now settle down for a lovely dish of crow. Also has me wondering if I gave away a perfectly good puck of G.F. Trumper Eucris. Cheers.
+1 on the lathering technique. Works for me as well and across many different soaps. I think of the initial swirling stage as turning the soap into a cream. Once I have my brush loaded with 'cream', I paint it on my face and add all the water there; first painting and then scrubbing. The amount of water varies from soap-to-soap but the technique never fails to give a creamy and slick lather.
Glad you found a way to make use of this soap. I have a puck and don't get back to it often for the rest of my cabinet full. I do like the sandalwood & cologne scent, but don't recall having the difficulties you mentioned in your first post. I got mine as a gift & keep it in a stainless steel Ikea container. Is it this one?
Indeed, that is the one. I'm glad I dug into the internet deep enough to find a solution as it (along with the matching cologne) was a gift from my wife and I would have felt bad using it as a hand soap. It does smell wonderful. On the other big shaving forum I had so many members advising me to add more water and to soak and bloom the puck when I had the GFT Eucris. It seems that that is the last thing you want to do with these soaps. Perhaps I'll re-aquire Trumpers Eucris as well as a few of the other British soap pucks and see if I can get them all to work. Oh-oh, here we go.............
I've still never had a lather nicer than what I can produce from Tabac soap, a Plisson synthetic and a Captain's Choice lather bowl though. Just beautiful.
