What's your best high end cream?

Discussion in 'Shave Creams' started by Rusty blade, May 30, 2018.

  1. Rusty blade

    Rusty blade The Good Humor Man

    To begin we are talking higher end creams. I know there are a boatload of budget creams that are high performers....but I am curious to hear from those of you who use the more expensive shave creams...and your thoughts on what makes them a great cream.
     
    Frijolero, Keithmax and RyX like this.
  2. stingraysrock

    stingraysrock PIF'd away his custom title

    The highest end cream I remember is Kent. I cannot remember the name or scent, but it came in a red tube.

    Very slick and cushiony, lots of slip and glide.

    I think I paid $45.00 for a small tube of it.

    Second would be TBS Maca Root Cream, but I do not remember the price point.
     
    Frijolero, Keithmax and Rusty blade like this.
  3. John Beeman

    John Beeman Little chicken in hot water

    Truefitt & Hill - $30 for a 190g tub

    and

    Geo F Trumper Spanish Leather - $15 for a 75g tube

    Performance is top notch but it’s the scents for me (if that makes sense).

    Other GFT creams are cheaper and are available in tubs but Spanish Leather costs more and only comes in the smaller tube. It’s just a great scent.

    T&H has great scents across their product line and I’m especially fond of their unique offerings like Trafalgar, Grafton, and 1805.
     
  4. Steve56

    Steve56 Hone Hoarder

    These are roughly in order.

    AdP, ABC cream (and the hard soap) - These are better for my skin - I have some hereditary facial ruddiness and light breakouts that almost completely diminish using these soaps, and I've tested them for over a year. They're also first-rate straight razor soaps and provided that you didn't dislike the scents to begin with, you could likely use them daily for the rest of your life without getting tired of them.

    I Coloniali Mango Oil - this one is actually a soap though it's called a cream. Slick, slick, slick, a SR shaver's delight. It's harder to lather and the lather remains thin, but did I mention that it is slick? The scent is a robust frankincense type that's quite a treat. I don't know if I'd want it every day, but I have used the bath soap daily and not gotten tired of it. They also make a true cream in a tube, Rhubarb Softening Shave cream (same scent). I think that the soap-cream is slightly better than the cream-cream, but they're both top tier.

    Floris - superb in all respects. I think that currently only the 89 scent is available in the cream. 89 is the scent Ian Flemming and James Bond wore (in the books). The scent is actually not my favorite and I usually cut it with a little unscented XPEC as it's pretty stout.

    XPEC - unscented please! It just does everything right. Not too highly priced if you shop overseas and are in the US where you won't pay duty, and like SMN, the tub is huge, 250ml.

    Santa Maria Novella - performs very well and is dense and concentrated (as is ABC cream), so the price-per-use may not be as high as you'd think. I'm still learning this one but it seems to stand well with the others. It's slick and the post shave is up there with the others. The scent is a masculine tobacco toscano and eucalptus-camphor. I could do without the camphor. The tub is huge, something like 220ml.

    Castle Forbes isn't really a high-end cream price-wise ar $25/200ml, but it's probably the gateway cream for the upper end. Simple natural scents, extremely concentrated, you'll get almost a year out of that tub if your're not exravagant with it. Lather is fantastic.

    All of these products have superb skin conditioning without the heaviness of some North American artisan soaps, and all rinse clean.

    Cheers, Steve
     
    bdelsop1, brit, Frijolero and 5 others like this.
  5. TobyC

    TobyC Well-Known Member

    You may not call it high end, but better cannot be had!

    [​IMG]
     
  6. Screwtape

    Screwtape A Shaving Butterfly

    I feel the same way about my TOBS Lavender, Avocado and Mr Taylor's creams. I tried a sample of Castle Forbes Lavender and while it had a great scent and excellent properties, I felt it didn't do anything TOBS didn't already have covered.
     
  7. Frijolero

    Frijolero Well-Known Member

    Castle Forbes 1445. The performance of their creams is no secret. 1445 has a fantastic scent on top of that, matches the edp of the same name.

    Honorable mention to Musgo Real classic scent for pretty much the same reason. Cushion, buckets of slick, and I love the scent.
     
  8. Rusty blade

    Rusty blade The Good Humor Man

    I have recently discovered Truefitt and Hill creams and I have to admit this is a wonderful product. I recently purchased a sample pack of creams and matching ASBs. Performance wise this stuff is amazing. A small smudge the size of my little finger nail will easily work into enough lather for three passes and the scents are quite refined. I really like the 1805 cream and matching ASB.
    I have also used TOBS...the Unscented version and this was an excellent cream. Indeed it was the first product that I actually used until I emptied the tub. Amazing.
    The other really nice cream I used is GFT Coconut and again, this was an excellent product. The post-shave feel for the three creams makes me wonder why I don't use creams exclusively. And they are lather monsters. A bit pricey, but inexpensive if you consider price per shave.
     
    Steve56, Frijolero, Keithmax and 3 others like this.
  9. Jim99

    Jim99 Gold Water Shaver

    I’ve never gone higher in price than TOBS, but I’m convinced it was the best shave cream I’ve ever used.

    This thread reminds me... time to pick up another tub of TOBS!
     
  10. john zeiger

    john zeiger Well-Known Member

    TOBS St. Jermyn St. though it doesn't get much use as I am mostly a Soap guy. I feel that the soaps I have have better shave qualities but the Jermyn St. sure smells nice to me. I use cream mainly when I'm in a hurry as there is practically no loading time.
     
  11. Primotenore

    Primotenore missed opera tunity

    Article Team
    High end creams is one aspect of shaving that I have never invested in. Indeed, I have very few creams. Proraso green, AoS Oud, Peppermint and Rose. That's it. What's the price point of "high end"?
    Edit: Forgot these 3:
    D. R. Harris Arlington
    Simpsons Unscented
    Cyril R. Salter Indian Sandalwood
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2018
  12. Keithmax

    Keithmax Breeds Pet Rocks

    For me the hands down winner for creams is Castle Forbes, a little truly goes a long way and performance is superb.

    Honorable mentions to Santa Maria Novella, AoS and TOBS.
     
  13. TobyC

    TobyC Well-Known Member

    Is it price point or snobbery?
     
    Rusty blade and Steve56 like this.
  14. Steve56

    Steve56 Hone Hoarder

    Hi Primo,

    Here are some of the numbers for the ones I cited. I can also answer the question that always gets asked and that's 'Are they worth the premium?' IMHO, for most people the answer will be no. For ABC and AdP because of my specific complexion, the answer is yes for me. However, it isn't always as simple as entry price because some of these are huge amounts of very concentrated soaps, and most of the high end soaps have a lot of soap in that soap, like CF.

    Penhaligon's (for comparison) 27 cents/ml
    Santa Maria Novella 31 cents/ml
    XPEC 30 cents/ml
    Acqua di Parma 42 cents/g (approximatey ml)
    T&H 16 cents/ml
    CF 13 cents/ml
    ABC 52 cents/ml
    Floris 35 cents/ml

    Something to remember is that for the very concentrated soaps like CF, SMN, and ABC you're only going to use about half the amount per shave as say Pens or the 3 Ts, so the price/ml can be misleading. You'll also find that because many artisan soaps are not very concentrated, they can be far more expensive to use than the top tier creams. CF is probably the best bang for the buck in the shaving world.

    As a side note, I first bought a tub of ABC to see what the deal was. I didn't use it a lot because well, it was expensive. At some point I realized that the only soap that was more expensive than using the top tier was not using the top tier! So I started to use it and noticed the improvement in my complexion, so I tried others, AdP at the recommendation of a friend.

    I would recommend that anyone interested in these uber creams to get samples and use them for at least a week, you'll need that long to appreciate them, especially the fragrance. Shavedash has most of them I believe.

    It's also interesting to list what qualities a cream has to have for me to pay the top tier for it, because there are plenty of mid-tier creams that are excellent.

    - it has to be very slick. I am a SR user, so if it isn't top tier slick, it isn't on my top tier list
    - the post shave skin conditioning has to be first rate without a heavy or greasy feel like many artisan soaps
    - it has to rinse clean. A straight razor doesn't clog of course, but the soap has to rinse off the razor under a thin stream of water without leaving residue on the equipment, my face, and sink.
    - it ideally has a fragrance that I could use every day. This is harder than you'd think, at least for me.
    - it lathers easily. If you have to 'dial in' a soap/cream, it is a poor one.

    Cheers, Steve
     
  15. Steve56

    Steve56 Hone Hoarder

    Could be! But you don't know until you know how much a soap costs to actually use, not just buy.

    There's a fellow on another forum that burned through a tub of B&M in a month. That's what $300 a year or so? Definitely an outlier but artisan soaps in the $20-25 range lasting 90 days are pretty commonly reported. That's $100/year. You can shave a year with CF for $25 (if you're careful, 0.5g/shave), SMN for $70, and I thought that I'd never see the bottom of my dessicated ABC cream. The bottom line is that you can't really go by the initial cost of the cream.

    Cheers, Steve
     
  16. Paul Turner

    Paul Turner outside the quote(s) now

    I suppose I've only tried one "High End"er....Clubman is sold for $8.95 on its website(the big can).
     
  17. Tdmsu

    Tdmsu Well-Known Member

    I have found that WSP cream is better than TOBS and T&H, imho.
    It goes for $24.99 for 6 oz, or about 28 cents a gram.
    I have used it 8 times, and I got it used from a friend. It looks like new because so little is needed to make excellent lather.

    I agree that you would need to use a sample for a week or so to really decide if it works well for you. WSP hits all the boxes for me in terms of slickness, ease of building the lather, scent, and post shave feel.
     
  18. Primotenore

    Primotenore missed opera tunity

    Article Team
    Depends on your point of view. I consider AOS Tallow "High-end" soap and that costs (when you can find it) $13/puck.
     
  19. Primotenore

    Primotenore missed opera tunity

    Article Team
    Excellent and informative reply, thank you Steve.
    I never considered the "snobbery" aspect of soaps/creams. I use what I like and get rid of what I don't. There are some soaps in my den that are expensive and some that aren't. I don't have a great deal of experience with creams, so that's why I ask about price point. I also don't care for labeling people that choose to use expensive gear. It's a free country...so far.
     
  20. Steve56

    Steve56 Hone Hoarder

    AoS tallow is indeed a top tier soap, one of my favorites.

    I never considered snobbery either, it's just dollars and cents vs performance and longevity to me.

    Cheers, Steve
     

Share This Page