The Shave Den Lemon & Cedarwood Shaving Soap Review www.theshavedenshop.com JoAnna (@Queen of Blades) has long sold a line of shaving soaps on The Shave Den store, with the proceeds going to support the forum. Talk about generous and a lot of hard work on our behalf! I have been meaning to try The Shave Den soap for a long time, as it has garnered widespread praise on various wetshaving forums. These accolades started many moons ago and have continued ever since, a very good sign indeed. Was all the praise merely due to to enthusiasm for The Shave Den, or is the soap really that good? Were wetshavers stoked simply because they got their menthol fix? I am happy to report that yes folks, it really is that good! That holds true even if the soap is unmentholated. The soap cake is 3 inches in diameter by 1 inch thick, and comes wrapped in paper. I use a shaving mug, and so ordered the refill rather than the soap in a tub. This is the TSD Shaving Soap, not the TSD Lanolin Shaving Soap. TSD Shaving Soap is of typical hard soap consistency and not soft at all. It was easily trimmed with a paring knife to fit in my 2.5-inch diameter mug. I simply put in the trimmed off bits in first and pressed the cake down on top. Ingredients From The Shave Den store website: Glycerin, Aqua, Olive Oil, Bentonite Clay, Sodium Borate, Sweet Almond Oil, Sodium Palmate, Sorbitol, Sodium Cocoate, Palm Acid, Coconut Acid, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate, and fragrance Lather The Shave Den soap is very thirsty indeed, and needs lots of water to produce a good lather. I started off with only a little water in the brush, loaded the tip of the brush with soap, added lots of water to the tip of the brush, and then continued lathering. It worked like a charm. I have read a few reports of The Shave Den soap being difficult to lather. That might be because insufficient water was used, in which case this soap lathers poorly indeed. When enough water is used, The Shave Den soap produces a good, thick lather with only an average amount of effort needed. Enough lather was present in the brushes to last at least three passes in the Omega boar brush, four passes with plenty left over when the Vie Long brush was used. To test the lather longevity, I applied the lather to my face and waited two minutes. The lather disappeared only a tiny amount in that time, and did not perceptibly dry out. The shave afterwards was every bit as good as when starting immediately after lathering. That is an easy ten out of ten for longevity! - Ease of lathering: (8/10) - Life span of lather: (10/10) My normal, everyday lathering routine was used to get these photos. There was no lathering for 10 minutes to get a super duper lather pic. Brushes used Left: Vie Long Epsilon Model GC13900/3 horse hair brush Right: Omega 50014 boar travel brush Both of these brushes have a good deal of backbone Performance This soap is quite slick and very slightly astringent. The combination turned out to work very well, and is much like L'Occitane Cade in this regard. Shaves with The Shave Den soap did not have any tugging or pulling unless the blade was past its prime, and were generally quite comfortable. My first shave with The Shave Den soap resulted in an easy baby bottom-smooth shave. You will not get that unless the soap is plenty slippery. The Shave Den soap is unusually protective, and second to none in this category. I got absolutely zero irritation, nicks, or cuts when shaving with this fine product. Using very close shaving blades that normally produce slight irritation, I got near baby bottom smooth shaves every single time with no irritation whatsoever. Dang, that is nice! Once I even tried six passes to see what would happen. A zero irritation, baby bottom smooth shave was the result. The skincare is good, and the soap is a capable performer in this regard. The soap does seem a little astringent to me, and so would work especially well for those with oily complexions. My face is not particularly oily, and the skincare is still good. - Lubrication: (9/10) - How protective: (10/10) - General skincare: (8/10) Scent The scent is Lemon & Cedarwood, but to my nose it smells something like Earl Grey tea with a hint of lemon. The scent is rather faint, which suits me just fine. I do not like overpowering fragrances at all, and find this soap's scent to be quite pleasant both in quality and strength. Those who like very strong smelling soaps will likely beg to differ. Individual preferences in this category are highly subjective, however. - Scent: (8/10) Value for the money A 4 oz. (113 gram) refill puck cost me $6.99. That is great value for the money, especially when considering the soap's shaving qualities. Would I buy the soap again? After getting a week's worth of baby bottom smooth, completely irritation-free shaves, of course. Will I be buying this soap again? Unfortunately, no. By the time I am done with the current puck, The Shave Den store will likely be closed. For those who have not tried The Shave Den soap, I recommend you get an order placed sooner rather than later. It really is worth trying. - Price: (9/10) - Would you buy again: (9/10) Conclusion The Shave Den soap is an excellent product that fully merits the praise it has received. With a good razor and blade combination, I got baby bottom smooth or near baby bottom smooth shaves every single time, and with no irritation at all. It does not get much better than that. TSD Shaving Soap also lays rest to the myth that non-tallow soaps cannot perform as well as their tallow-based counterparts. - Overall: (8.9/10) My water hardness 42 mg/l as CaCO3 (soft) The water hardness was taken from my utility's latest water quality update. The scale below was used to correlate water mg/l to the soft/hard rating, and is from the U.S. 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) Disclaimer This soap was purchased at the full retail price. Nobody asked me or compensated me to do this review. Nobody else knew this review would be done, or its contents, until it was posted here on The Shave Den.
Nicely done. Slick - one reason I try to grab a TSD soap for my Saturday str8 shave. I, too, have the Lemon & Cedarwood. Love it. Honestly I'm a little saddened by the number of members who haven't tried TSD soap. Not only was it a missed opportunity to support our great forum*, but now the shop is closing and the chance to use a great soap will be missed. * 100% of the proceeds went to keep our great TSD forum running.
I have a TSD soap, recently purchased...may begin using it this coming week. Granted it is with Lanolin.
For any soap nowadays, and even other wetshaving products, I think a lot of the popularity depends on a lot how much it is "advertised" on the forums. Maybe it is just me, but it seems that that the most popular products are the ones that are shilled the most, not necessarily those that are the best quality. Methinks there are a lot of good reviews in exchange for free or discounted product, but that is only IMHO. It is a shame, though, and I wish I had tried TSD Shaving Soap years ago.