I received a sample puck of Stirling Anise from Phil (filobiblic). There are a couple of other samples which I will try out a bit later on.
Let's begin with scent:
The puck smells strongly of Anise. I love it!! It's fairly strong off the puck, reminding me of my favourite liquorice ice-cream!
The scent mellows a lot once lathered up. The Anise scent mixes with the clay like scent which many soaps give off (but are normally masked by scents). The final lathered scent is really very nice and pleasing and didn't trigger my allergies (which many soaps do!).
Lathering:
I found the soap needs to be loaded by using a fairly damp brush (not dripping wet or squeezed out) and to build up a fairly thick paste. This is like other artisan soaps I have used, Mystic Water and Mike's.
It look about 10 seconds of loading, which is between MWF (~25 seconds with a very wet brush) and Haslinger/Speick (~5 seconds with fairly wet brush).
I face lathered and the lather developed very quickly! It was thick and rich and glossy. I didn't need to add much water (which is another aspect I find similar to Mystic/Mike's). The lather was very stable, not dissipating at all!
The lather was very protective and slick! The scent was fairly mellow but lasted the entire shave...and I enjoyed it very much! The shave was comfortable and the alum block didn't sting any more than my usual soaps, which is a good sign that the soap was protective.
Post-shave:
I'm not actually sure what's in the soap as I don't have an ingredients list but the post-shave feel was good. My face was left fairly soft, not feeling dry or tight at all. The feel was no where near as supple as an MWF shave, or Mystic Water for that matter but I would say it's on par with soaps like Speick and Haslinger (which I regard very highly!).
It would be interesting to compare this to other Stirling soaps but shipping is just too expensive for me to be able to place an order.
I hope you enjoyed reading my review. If you like liquorice, you'll adore this scent! It really made my morning...and left me with a hankering for some liquorice ice-cream!
Let's begin with scent:
The puck smells strongly of Anise. I love it!! It's fairly strong off the puck, reminding me of my favourite liquorice ice-cream!
The scent mellows a lot once lathered up. The Anise scent mixes with the clay like scent which many soaps give off (but are normally masked by scents). The final lathered scent is really very nice and pleasing and didn't trigger my allergies (which many soaps do!).
Lathering:
I found the soap needs to be loaded by using a fairly damp brush (not dripping wet or squeezed out) and to build up a fairly thick paste. This is like other artisan soaps I have used, Mystic Water and Mike's.
It look about 10 seconds of loading, which is between MWF (~25 seconds with a very wet brush) and Haslinger/Speick (~5 seconds with fairly wet brush).
I face lathered and the lather developed very quickly! It was thick and rich and glossy. I didn't need to add much water (which is another aspect I find similar to Mystic/Mike's). The lather was very stable, not dissipating at all!
The lather was very protective and slick! The scent was fairly mellow but lasted the entire shave...and I enjoyed it very much! The shave was comfortable and the alum block didn't sting any more than my usual soaps, which is a good sign that the soap was protective.
Post-shave:
I'm not actually sure what's in the soap as I don't have an ingredients list but the post-shave feel was good. My face was left fairly soft, not feeling dry or tight at all. The feel was no where near as supple as an MWF shave, or Mystic Water for that matter but I would say it's on par with soaps like Speick and Haslinger (which I regard very highly!).
It would be interesting to compare this to other Stirling soaps but shipping is just too expensive for me to be able to place an order.
I hope you enjoyed reading my review. If you like liquorice, you'll adore this scent! It really made my morning...and left me with a hankering for some liquorice ice-cream!
