Thanks Sensei, grasshopper was inspired by our words of wisdom.
Bay Rum: One of my fave scents - and you said it was different to Mike's and from someone's excellent posts that quoted the maker at B&M said there are 3 main variants of BR so safe choice.
Barbershop: I think this had the most reviews and 5 star ones on their site, so who am I to argue. Again pretty safe
Sharp Dressed Man: like yourself I prefer to avoid fragrance oil scented soaps but I was mistaken and this was the soap with the most reviews etc, not barbershop, which was 2nd. Classic tweed-Don Draperstyle, right in my wheelhouse.
Frozen Tundra: loads of essential oils and menthol, without being one of their glacial ones, which seem over the top to me. I'm an NFL fan to boot so I even empathised with the references in their pitch.
Cocoa Forest: a slight risk but reviews read as masculine and not overly sweet etc which would have turned me off.Apparently is Gen.6 formula and goes very well.
Lemongrass &cajeput: on special, whilst I wasn't a huge fan of Mike's LG +Eucalyptus I felt Tea Tree could be better. I noted a few folks on other forums were really huge fans of this and stalked the site when it went out of production.
Glastonberry: I am wary about the Patchouli being too dominant but otherwise I liked the sound of this right from when I first read it. The only thing that slightly put me off, and I found this with a lot of Stirling's descriptions is that they spend too much of the listing being jokey/fun etc and don't give enough detail and specifics on the scent. I think they could do both easily and it would assist buyers.
Bonaparte: Again I just liked the essential oils used and I know thisis a BIG scent. I did with all choices try and go for prominent scents as well thats a significant part of the rationale in buying from Stirling, so seemed silly to choose something subtle.