Hi Gents,
I wanted to post my review/thoughts on this Aussie made shaving soap from Washpool Farm.
The soap is a hard croap. This means, you can dent the soap with your finger but you would need to press fairly hard. It's more solid than Boellis Panama, Razorock soaps and I would say similar to Mystic Waters in consistency.
The scent is a very soothing, relaxing scent. It really does well to make shaving a relaxing experience! It's definitely not a punch you in the face type scent and that's what I like about it. It's present enough to enjoy it and for the scent to impart a soothing effect. It's the type of scent that I wouldn't get tired of and I actually catch myself sniffing the soap throughout the day when at home
So, for today's shave, I used the Washpool Shaving Soap, Semogue LE Cerda brush (my alltime favourite brush), Merkur Progress with Polsilver blade.
With boar brushes, I lightly shake them out to rid the excess water but I never flick or squeeze the water out. I find this makes loading easy and also building the lather where I don't have to add a ton of water.
Brush loading:
Yes, the brush is standing upright. Once it loads up and starts to drag on the soap, I know it's loaded enough. The thick soap paste in the brush head allows it to stand like this.
Within about 10 seconds I had plenty loaded up, ready to face lather:
I started face lathering with circular motions and the lather thickened right up in about 15 seconds. After that, it kept thickened up even more so I had to add a little but of water. Worked that in for about 20 seconds and I had glistening, rich, slick lather.
The razor just glided right through the stubble. This is one factor I love about Washpool, its ability to soften up the stubble! It really makes light work of my tough stubble. This effect is achieved only by my 2 other faves...MWF and LEA.
The lather itself is very rich and thick and feels "fatty". Hard to explain but it could be something to do with high levels of tallow in the soap, lack of palm oil or perhaps just the overall R&D that went into creating the overall formula. Whatever it is, I just love it! It's like your face is really being protected but without preventing closeness...cos I ended up with a full BBS!!
The soap also contains lots of skin loving goodies to really look after your skin! After the shave, my face felt very soft and smooth and not a hint of irritation! Just look at that ingredients list! No wonder this soap cared for my skin so well !! I just put a small dab of aftershave balm and I was done.
I should mention I also used this soap earlier in the week with my Simpson Commodore X2 and it performed just as great. With the synthetic, not so good but that was my fault as I don't use synth brushes often and the lather was too thick so I didn't get the closeness I like. The skin care was still awesome...cos, well...it's the same soap.
Overall, this less-known shaving soap has shot up into my top 3 of all time best shaving soaps! In my 8+ years of DE shaving, I've used a minimum of 60 different soaps so I have a fairly good idea of the different characteristics of various soaps and also how soaps perform for me and my preferences.
I can't recommend this soap highly enough! Just cos it's not as well known as the Stirlings, Reef Points, Mystic Waters, Synergys etc etc of the shaving world, doesn't make it any less of a good shaving soap. For me, it beats out all the above stated soaps! And the price, at $15/200 grams, is outstanding value!
Value: 10/10
Scent (to my liking): 9/10
Scent strength: 6/10
Ease of loading: 10/10
Ease of lather production: 10/10 (thickens up nice and quick!!)
Lather stability: 10/10 (stayed thick and rick throughout the entire shave)
Slickness: 9/10 (MWF is the only soap I have ever given 10/10)
Post shave feel: 9/10 (MWF is the only soap I have ever given 10/10)
*You'll notice I didn't rate "protection". I don't find this rating relevant because I could use a shaving cream which will give me 10/10 protection but never a close shave, that's why I don't use creams at all. A good quality soap, which provides good slickness and good post-shave care is by default a protective soap.
I wanted to post my review/thoughts on this Aussie made shaving soap from Washpool Farm.
The soap is a hard croap. This means, you can dent the soap with your finger but you would need to press fairly hard. It's more solid than Boellis Panama, Razorock soaps and I would say similar to Mystic Waters in consistency.
The scent is a very soothing, relaxing scent. It really does well to make shaving a relaxing experience! It's definitely not a punch you in the face type scent and that's what I like about it. It's present enough to enjoy it and for the scent to impart a soothing effect. It's the type of scent that I wouldn't get tired of and I actually catch myself sniffing the soap throughout the day when at home
So, for today's shave, I used the Washpool Shaving Soap, Semogue LE Cerda brush (my alltime favourite brush), Merkur Progress with Polsilver blade.
With boar brushes, I lightly shake them out to rid the excess water but I never flick or squeeze the water out. I find this makes loading easy and also building the lather where I don't have to add a ton of water.
Brush loading:
Yes, the brush is standing upright. Once it loads up and starts to drag on the soap, I know it's loaded enough. The thick soap paste in the brush head allows it to stand like this.
Within about 10 seconds I had plenty loaded up, ready to face lather:
I started face lathering with circular motions and the lather thickened right up in about 15 seconds. After that, it kept thickened up even more so I had to add a little but of water. Worked that in for about 20 seconds and I had glistening, rich, slick lather.
The razor just glided right through the stubble. This is one factor I love about Washpool, its ability to soften up the stubble! It really makes light work of my tough stubble. This effect is achieved only by my 2 other faves...MWF and LEA.
The lather itself is very rich and thick and feels "fatty". Hard to explain but it could be something to do with high levels of tallow in the soap, lack of palm oil or perhaps just the overall R&D that went into creating the overall formula. Whatever it is, I just love it! It's like your face is really being protected but without preventing closeness...cos I ended up with a full BBS!!
The soap also contains lots of skin loving goodies to really look after your skin! After the shave, my face felt very soft and smooth and not a hint of irritation! Just look at that ingredients list! No wonder this soap cared for my skin so well !! I just put a small dab of aftershave balm and I was done.
I should mention I also used this soap earlier in the week with my Simpson Commodore X2 and it performed just as great. With the synthetic, not so good but that was my fault as I don't use synth brushes often and the lather was too thick so I didn't get the closeness I like. The skin care was still awesome...cos, well...it's the same soap.
Overall, this less-known shaving soap has shot up into my top 3 of all time best shaving soaps! In my 8+ years of DE shaving, I've used a minimum of 60 different soaps so I have a fairly good idea of the different characteristics of various soaps and also how soaps perform for me and my preferences.
I can't recommend this soap highly enough! Just cos it's not as well known as the Stirlings, Reef Points, Mystic Waters, Synergys etc etc of the shaving world, doesn't make it any less of a good shaving soap. For me, it beats out all the above stated soaps! And the price, at $15/200 grams, is outstanding value!
Value: 10/10
Scent (to my liking): 9/10
Scent strength: 6/10
Ease of loading: 10/10
Ease of lather production: 10/10 (thickens up nice and quick!!)
Lather stability: 10/10 (stayed thick and rick throughout the entire shave)
Slickness: 9/10 (MWF is the only soap I have ever given 10/10)
Post shave feel: 9/10 (MWF is the only soap I have ever given 10/10)
*You'll notice I didn't rate "protection". I don't find this rating relevant because I could use a shaving cream which will give me 10/10 protection but never a close shave, that's why I don't use creams at all. A good quality soap, which provides good slickness and good post-shave care is by default a protective soap.
