Hey all, The title pretty much says it all. Must be a vegan soap (my skin doesn't react well to tallow, I only have one tallow soap, Shulton OS, and 'rarely' use it anyway to avoid the potential minor breakout). The smell is most important, but performance still matters. Start with the best smelling version of Sandalwood, then if you want to throw in a best suggested smell/performance ratio soap, that should be your #2 option. As always, I will probably buy a handful and test them head-to-head to find my favorite. A matching aftershave would be a bonus but is not necessary of the soap smell is tops and has no companion aftershave.
I can suggest two. The first is Gold Dachs Sandelholz, which is a hard triple-milled German soap with a nice quite sweet, woody sandalwood scent. It's an excellent soap. No aftershave though - Gold Dachs doesn't seem to make any. The second is a shave cream - TOBS Sandalwood. The scent is somewhat different as it is primarily sandalwood but with some cedar and floral tones mixed in. It lathers superbly. TOBS also has a hard soap if you prefer soap, but I have never tried it so I can't comment, although it has good reviews from buyers at Fendrihan. TOBS has a complete line of matching Sandalwood products, not just aftershave and cologne (it has both), but also body and hair shampoo, bath and shower gel, handsoap, preshave oil, deodorant and talcum powder. Again, I've never tried any of it but it all seems to be quite well rated by people who have bought it at Fendrihan. Hope that helps you in your quest.
Well duh! I forgot to add an obvious one - the TSD shop's own soap. It's a vegan soap that's available with or without lanolin added (and with or without menthol added) in a variety of scents including sandalwood. And matching aftershaves and colognes are available. I just got some TSD lanolin soap, including a tub of sandalwood. I haven't had a chance to do anything other than sniff the tub and try one test lather, but it seems quite a mild, pleasant, straightforward sandalwood scent. Basically what you get from the addition of a good quality sandalwood essential oil without other scents added to create "complexity" or "top notes" and "bottom notes" etc. And, of course, the TSD soaps - especially the lanolin versions - have a stellar reputation here for shaving performance.
I don't have much experience with Sandalwood but want to start thinking about assembling a solid "go to" Sandalwood grooming setup. Sandalwood seems like an important basenote to start from in terms of fragrance and as an enthusiast I figure I should explore this note and hand-select what I think is the 'best'. Here are some soaps that I've seen recommended in other areas in my internet searching: Cyril R Salter Indian Sandalwood Gold-Dachs SR3 Sandalwood Geo F. Trumper's Sandalwood Catie's Bubbles - Santal Sensuelle What are your opinions/impressions of those 4 soaps?
The only one I've tried is the Gold Dachs, which I mentioned earlier. It seems like a solid contender. Trumper and Salter are two of the big old "names" in British wetshaving, much like TOBS or DR Harris, and have reputations for quality to match. I can't comment from personal experience about them because I have never used their products. I have used TOBS and recommend it. DRHarris makes an excellent milled hard soap with a good sandalwood scent but unfortunately it's tallow based. Salter seems to make a cream rather than a soap but the buyers at Fendrihan who have used it universally like it. Trumper's sandalwood hard soap, on the other hand, got very mixed - and on average poor - reviews there for poor performance. Enough so I scratched Trumper's soap off my list. (Salter's creams, especially the sandalwood, is still very much on the list for the next time I go on a buying spree.) I have never used any of Caties Bubbles products. Perhaps someone who has could chime in. Another two I should mention are Klar's Seifen (German) and Haslinger (Austrian). Both make Sandalwood soaps. I have not used their sandalwood versions but have used other scents of their soaps and performance was excellent. Klar's makes a quintuple milled hard soap in a tin that lasts forever. The Classic scent is superb; the Sandalwood version again gets high marks from buyers at my favourite Canadian dealer, Fendrihan, and I frankly would expect the quality to be there. Haslinger, again, makes soap with superb shave performance, other scents I have tried were excellent, so I suspect the sandalwood would be worth checking out.
I have not tried it nor know what is smells like, but WSP Rustic Shave Soap in Sandalwood is an option.
Ok, Cyril R Salter Indian Sandalwood Gold-Dachs SR3 Sandalwood Geo F. Trumper's Sandalwood Klar Sandalwood in Tin So, here are the main contestants who's soap I'm going to order so far. I'm on the fence about WSP and Catie's Bubbles. I have their soaps already and I want to spread things out and have a deeper lineup of soaps. I'm afraid if I try WSP or Catie's Bubbles that they will win somehow in the shootout like they have in past comparisons. I already have just bought more Catie's Bubbles gear and I've lined up yet another soap for purchase once he's finished waiting for a Florentine Fern scented cream to fully mature. I just can't let a small cadre of artisans dominate my whole shave den, can I?
no list of sandalwood products would be complete w/o mentioning aos sandalwood line. the original soap was tallow but reformulated so the current soap is w/o tallow; the cream is also very good. an aftershave gel is available; the cologne has been discontinued, and is difficult to find. honeybee soaps makes a nice sandalwood soap and bath soap. excellent price to performance ratio. proraso cream-highly rated, if you want to venture into creams.
I would put a plug in again for consideration of TOBS sandalwood soap (or cream) and also Haslinger sandalwood soap.
Hmm. The TOBS note breakdown shows many other smells. I'm looking for a Sandalwood-centered scent. And Haslinger sandalwood soap according to a few reviews seems light on its scent. I prefer a richly scented soap in most cases. I want to be picky on my buys because I'm already going to end up with some soap that won't make the final cut and will be stuck trying to use those up at some point. I still have 3 Bay Rums soaps that didn't work out and only one that smells great, and 2 that smell average and I don't know what to do with them.
+1 for AOS WSP is nice as well Not quite sandalwood but Soap Commander passion is excellently scented
Fair points. I like the scent of my TOBS Sandalwood cream but it isn't a pure sandalwood. And Haslinger soap performs excellently as soap but I can't answer for how strong the sandalwood scent is as I have never used that particular scent.
I just received WSP's Sandalwood and it's a hands-down win out of the soaps I got in terms of scent. I know WSP soap is stellar on top of that, so WSP has won this Sandalwood competition and it's not even a close 2nd. I will test the remaining soaps at least once just to be sure but the scent comes first and the soap performance is secondary....however, WSP's soaps are really great, so I pretty much calling this early. It's pretty tough to beat this scent. It's just what I was looking for.
The Geo Trumper's Sandalwood doesn't even smell like Sandalwood, but I don't want to throw it out or get rid of it when the bowl is so nice, so I checked around my fragrance collection and I think I can use this one to pair with my Ralph Lauren Safari cologne. The scent is in the ballpark and I think it will 'pass' as a shave soap for it.
Well, Just when I thought WSP was going to simply walk away with this, I just eval'ed Klar Seifen Sandalwood Shave Soap today and folks, this one is the leader on all fronts right now. I shaved with a Merkur "1904" razor with a Merkur Platinum blade. Scent - 10 (It smells MUCH richer than the smell from the dry puck and blends PERFECTLY with the Dyptique's Tam Dao EDP fragrance. It's a simple Sandalwood "essence" scent, whereas WSP's Sandalwood had a very 'raw' "sawdust" scent. At first I imagined/assumed that this 'raw' smell would 'blend' or 'stack' well with Sandalwood Colognes, but it didn't. WSP's 'raw' scent was clashing unexpectedly. I must say that I prefer the Klar Seifen scent and prefer its ability to 'blend' to real Sandalwood Colognes. Lather - 7 (The lather wasn't as thick as some others or as rich, but the first pass did manage to stay foamy, however when I got to the second pass the lather seemed to 'thin' by the middle of the 2nd pass. I have extremely hard water in Las Vegas, possibly the hardest in the nation next to Arizona's. So, I imagine with softer water this would not be an issue. Also, if I played with adding just a few drops more of water, it might have made the difference because I use synthetic brushes, not badgers. I imagine a badger hair brush would have kept the lather more robust and moist. Regardless, I have had longer lasting lather without needing to re-add water on the 2nd cleanup pass. So, all things considering, this one is still 'good' in my book, but not 'elite' lather.) This soap takes a bit of time to load into the brush and sprinkles of water must be added during loading to ensure proper results.) Slickness - 10 (As a double dose of devestation, this surprised the heck out of me with its slickness! I didn't think this dry, dry puck of soap was going to have lasting slickness and assumed that I would possibly need to re-apply lather. WRONG! The slickness was AMAZING and my razor glided all over my skin. This was possibly the slickest soap I've used yet. Even the "residual slickness", the slickness it has after the razor wipes away the lather, was still providing a glide-happy surface on my skin. This soap is 'thirsty' and needs water to be at it's best in synthetic brushes on multiple passes, but even though I didn't realize this until working on my 2nd pass, this soap's slickness stayed the course of the shave.) Protection - 8.5 (Despite the the lather not having a whole lot of weight or cushion, the protection was borderline 'elite'. Heck, I think it's on par with some of the best soaps. This soap is deceptively moisturizing considering the hardness and dryness of the puck. I got no weepers or razor burn at all with this soap on my 2-passes and not even an ounce of skin reaction. I assumed that this soap would be drying and thought there is no way this stuff was going to protect me. I test all soaps without a pre-shave oil and I seriously considered breaking that eval rule on this one because I WRONGLY assumed that this bone-dry multi-milled soap would have zero moisturizing effects. I was shocked. I certainly have had more moisturizing soaps and creams before, but as far as old-school, dry-puck, multi-milled soaps go, this is top-shelf stuff.) Post shave smoothness - 8.5 (Surprisingly good considering I used no after shave and only my watery post-shave balm that doesn't give any 'lotion' like effects. So, this soap didn't dry out my skin and allowed it to retain it's natural moisture. Which again, was completely unexpected because when you look at this soap puck, it totally seems like the type of soap that will dry your skin out after drying off. Again, I have had more moisturizing soaps that leave an almost lotion-like post-shave feel, so this one cannot be score with the 'elite', however, it scores right on that edge because it does the job you expect an excellent shave soap to do. To not dry out your skin and preserve your natural oils. This soap did this with super-hard Las Vegas water. Impressive.) If someone wanted to label Klar Seifen Sandalwood as an "elite" shave soap, I will not argue with them. It's close. Very, very close to elite. I score this soap a 9 overall. Considering the challenge of hard water and a person like me with very sensitive skin and a nose that is discerning when it comes to scent, this old fashioned soap had an up-hill battle and I just didn't think it was going to do well. I had all but assumed WSP's Sandalwood would wipe out the competition. I'm very glad I went through the motions and took the time and patience to try this soap. I feel like this is the leader of the Sandalwood pack right now. I think that if I use my pre-shave oil with this soap that those 8.5 scores become '10', and if I take the time to properly use water when loading and applying the lather that the score could go up to an '8'. I think people should try this soap because by itself it's on the edge of 'elite' in most categories and I think with a nice pre-shave oil and a person experienced in lather building, this one will achieve an elite result.
I'm enjoying that now, Andrew. Should be around through next fall/winter at least, for me(course that time of year is the only time I use pure sandalwood).
It's not a matter of what place it's in. The most important part is whether it can pair with my cologne properly. I will be testing the Klar aftershave this Sunday to find out if it's also compatible. I have more products to test. Not sure what will work until each is used in unison. Only then can I know what combo is best for scent matching. WSP has great products, so I'm actually feeling lucky that Klar makes a good soap too. I love WSP soap. I just used some this morning before my Green Irish Tweed cologne.
