Neal's Yard Remedies, based in Peacemarsh, UK, displays the tagline "Organic Natural Health and Beauty" on their website. Although many of their product lines seem to be aimed at women, they also carry products for men under the NYR Men banner. Their shaving products line includes shave cream, cologne, aftershave, shave oil and shave soap. NYR certainly have not forgotten the guys! Neal's Yard makes a point of using organic ingredients, and are committed to sustainably-sourced products, ethics and fair trade. They certainly seem to care a great deal about what they put into their offerings, which is an encouraging sign. So does this translate into a good shaving soap? There aren't very many reviews for it, so I decided to order a few cakes and try it for myself. Overall: (6.8/10) NYR Men Close Shave soap has many things in its favor. Unfortunately, the lather disappears quickly once applied to the face, which for me is a deal killer. In many ways, it is similar to Herban Cowboy Dusk shaving soap - great scent, slick and a rapidly disappearing lather. Shaves when using this soap were smooth and generally comfortable. Ease of lathering: (9/10) A thick, creamy lather can be created with this soap in short order. An Omega boar brush created a slightly better lather a little more quickly than a Dovo badger brush, but it is a difference between great and excellent, not between poor and good. With both brushes, a fine lather could be whipped up using varying amounts of water. Accordingly, the soap gets high marks in the lathering department. The soap was lathered in a mug. The puck was not immersed in water prior to lathering, and did not have glycerin, shaving cream or any other ingredients added. A good shaving soap should not require soaking or additives, and doing so would not be an accurate or fair evaluation in my opinion. Life span of lather: (4/10) Sometimes when things seem too good to be true, they really are. Although NYR Men shave soap readily produces a rich, creamy lather, it disappears very quickly once applied to the skin. It does leave behind a lubricating film, but it dries out very soon afterward. In this regard, it has the same Achilles' heel as the Herban Cowboy shave soap, and one that makes the soap a no-go as far as I am concerned. The only way to shave with this soap is quickly and with frequent re-applications, which I found very inconvenient. Perhaps the problem is due to an incorrect amount of water in the brush? Many shaving soaps are deemed poor performers when the real problem is an incorrect amount of water in the shaving brush. Some soaps do best with very little water, others require quite a lot. I tried varying amounts of water over the course of a week, but with no discernible effect on lather's longevity. General skincare: (9/10) Neal's Yard shave soap has very good skincare indeed, and left my face feeling fantastic. It is one of the best soaps I have ever used in this aspect. My face felt good after the shave, even when the blade was not a stellar performer. Lubrication: (9/10) NYR Close Shaving Soap is super slick, and the razor glided effortlessly across my face when shaving. Great lubrication is one of this soap's most notable qualities. How protective: (8/10) The soap is protective, but not unusually so. It certainly does the job, however, and I got no nicks or cuts even though I was shaving quickly. Scent: (10/10) This soap has very, very nice lavender scent of moderate strength. Kudos to Neal's Yard on this count! The scent was not strong or overpowering at all, which suits me fine as I like light to moderate scents. Please be aware that the rating for scent is quite subjective. If you do not like lavender, then you probably won't like this soap. If, on the other hand, you are a fan of lavender, the scent is likely to be very appealing indeed. Price and value: (6/10) A 1.76 oz. / 50 g cake was $10 from the NYR Organic online store, with $6.95 shipping for three cakes. I made the mistake of ordering the soap in the gift box, which is attractively made out of paper-thin wood. That was the only option offered on the website from which I ordered, however. The soap refills without the gift box are a little over half that price. Taken by itself, that would be a bargain and 9/10. Given the soap's performance, the price becomes largely irrelevant, though. In terms of value, it is 6/10. It does make a good bath soap. Would you buy again: (0/10) No, not at all due to the very short lived lather. It is a case of an otherwise fine soap with one fatal flaw. If the lather were longer lasting and the soap's other qualities retained, I would use it on a regular basis. As it stands, the need to shave quickly and frequently relather during each pass is quite annoying. Brushes used: Dovo 918 052 pure badger Omega 50014 boar travel brush My water hardness: 62 ppm as CaCO3 (moderately hard) The water hardness was taken from my utility's latest water quality annual report. The scale below was used to correlate water ppm to the soft/hard rating, and is from the US Geological Survey website. Water hardness scale (as CaCO3): 0-60 mg/l: Soft 61-120 mg/l: Moderately hard 121-180 mg/l: Hard Over 180 mg/l: Very hard mg/l is milligrams per liter Some utilities give water hardness in parts per million (ppm) 1 mg/l = 1 ppm (not exactly, but very, very close) Soap ingredients: Sodium palmate, Potassium stearate, Sodium cocoate, Sodium stearate, Aqua, Potassium cocoate, Glycerin, Lavandula angustifolia (Lavender) oil*, Triticum vulgare (Wheat) germ oil, Sodium chloride, Sodium citrate, Coumarin, Geraniol, Limonene, Linalool. *Organically produced ingredient. Natural constituent of essential oils listed. The above was taken from the NYR Men product page, and is also what is printed on the soap label. The website goes on to state: Made with 100% ingredients from natural origin. This is a vegan product. Manufacturer's website: www.nealsyardremedies.com (Neal's Yard Remedies, the UK site) us.nyrorganic.com (NYR Organic Inc., their US branch) Other country-specific websites can be found on the UK site under the Stores link. Miscellaneous: The NYR Men Close Shaving Soap puck is about 2.5 inches (6.35 cm) in diameter. The soap might have not made the grade for shaving, but does work very well as a bath soap. The other Neal's Yard products might be worth investigation, and I intend to order their aftershave balm and shave oil at a future date.
A most excellent review! You've been here about as long as I have so I'm sure you've heard this, but for the newbies out there: If you come across a soap that absolutely smells great but leaves a little to be desired in the lather longevity (as above), add a squirt or two of Kiss My Face Unscented (or other unscented) shave cream. It will boost the lather to something usable and not interfere with the scent of the soap.
I actually have the Kiss My Face Unscented shave cream, but did not use it with the soap. It makes more sense to use the Kiss My Face itself rather than adding it to something, which yielded an excellent shave this morning. My approach to shaving is that I just want to get an enjoyable, close shave without jumping through hoops, fussing around or getting bogged down in a bunch of product details. Having to soak a soap in water or add shaving cream, glycerin or other adulterants to make it work well falls into this category. So does "corking" razor blades, cleaning a razor with Scrubbing bubbles after every shave, soaking razors in alcohol so the blade won't rust, fretting over the labels on shaving brushes, etc. Shaving products, and products in general, should just work. There are plenty of shave soaps that work well as they are and have a nice scent to boot. I have been able to find nearly a hundred artisan and larger commercial soap vendors online, and it is likely that there are many, many more. A large selection from which to choose is not a problem.
