REVIEW - Phoenix & Beau 'Spitfire'

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3,042
Location
Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire
WHAT IS IT, AND WHAT DOES IT DO?
Phoenix & Beau Spitfire - A tallow shaving soap with the apparent ability to bend time.

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APPLICATION METHOD AND DESCRIPTION:

SCENT:
When the soap was announced, I almost anticipated the profile as it was delivered. I expected leather, and tobacco, but not so much the gin (juniper). It makes perfect sense, the sharpness penetrates the smooth leather to bring balance to the profile. The tobacco is almost a supporting scent to my nose, acting as a mixer if you will. All in all, it evokes the true spirit that must have existed in the squadrons of pilots who so bravely piloted Reginald Mitchell's masterpiece (Reginald Mitchell is a local hero around these parts, Stoke on Trent). This is top draw scent profiling, I can see EXACTLY what Kerry was aiming for here. One thing to note, like many soaps that are a great blend of fragrances, face lathering changes how you perceive them. Try it, I personally love how it changes this scent, bringing to me, more tobacco to the front.

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LATHERABILITY:
I tested this soap with various brushes in both the bowl and on my face, and find this soap to be on par with the rest of the P&B range. Easy to load, easy to build, and almost foolproof. It doesn't take long at all to get a bowl or face full of rich, dense lather at all. Top marks yet again Kerry, guard this soap recipe with your life!

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PERFORMANCE:
Excuse the Uncle Albert moment here, but during the war, you needed an airplane that could do it all, and do it all well. During a shave, you need that too. This soap (as I've come to expect from P&B) delivers in spades in terms of slickness and in cushion. The soap allows the blade to glide across the face with almost reckless abandon, it is that good. I wouldn't of course recommend complacency when using any soap, but you get that level of reassurance that when you're feeling the results of the mess hall from the night before, Spitfire will guide you through the dogfight and safely out the other side.

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POST SHAVE:
When you have a great shave, you feel good, and when your skin feels good post shave, you feel even better. Here we have a soap that delivers that feel, gives that glorious finish that really shouldn't be possible given what your skin has been through.

CONCLUSIVE COMMENTS:
We traditional wet shavers enjoy our shave. We enjoy not only the act of shaving, but the ritual and experience that come along with it. There is an experience to be had here that is very different from other soaps. Whilst some soaps have the ability to evoke powerful memories, this soap appears to have the ability to bend the space/time continuum. You're transported to a time gone by when men were men, when you stared death in the face and radioed back to base to 'cancel two late lunches', when Britain was truly Great. The soap itself is fantastic, the scent nostalgic, the experience? Magical.

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Great review Nick. I didn't get much tobacco scent from it but I'm hoping that changes with more use. The leather and juniper were lovely together and as you stated, the performance is fantastic and the post shave feel is super. Shave on chaps!
 
Great review Nick. I didn't get much tobacco scent from it but I'm hoping that changes with more use. The leather and juniper were lovely together and as you stated, the performance is fantastic and the post shave feel is super. Shave on chaps!
Cheers Kevy :) I find the tobacco to be more of a mixer, the glue that holds all the others together if you will. It's there for sure, but not so much that it hits you in the face, which works well, the inherent sweetness that it does have tempers the sharpness of the gin nicely (along with the leather).
 
P&B's Spitfire performs as well as any soap I've ever used. Its post-shave feel is unrivaled. My cheeks feel like they've been burnished by angels. But I'm a little put off by a strong scent of ammonia coming off the puck. It's detectable in the lather, but thankfully doesn't linger on my skin after the final rinse. I don't know much about soap making. Is it common for a fresh puck to smell so pungent or has something gone off?
 
Some people have reported that @Bouki but it's not something I can detect in any of my Phoenix & Beau soaps (I have at least one pot of each scent currently available). The advice Kerry (@phoenixandbeau) gives is to leave the lid off the pot for a while (say, over night). He mentioned that the newer batches of soaps were left to cure longer, which alleviated the vast majority (if not all) of the scent some people can detect.
 
Morning chaps and thanks for the comments. @Bouki Sarah and I have identified that the previous curing period (of 1-week) caused a very small number of soaps to have this initial smell to them. Absolutely nothing to worry about and it won't affect your shave in the slightest. I appreciate however that you want your soap to smell great. As a suggestion, please leave it un-lidded for a good few days before returning to it. This should remedy it quite nicely.

If after this you're not happy with your soap I'd be very happy to arrange a replacement, so please keep me posted. We have now extended our curing period to an absolute minimum of 2-weeks and, where possible will let our soaps cure for 1 month. This has an impact on availability but we want to ensure our soaps our absolutely spot on.

We're still learning lessons on scalability and hadn't factored the curing difference between small 1lb prototype test batches and much larger batches. Thank you so much for your patience, we think we've nailed it down now :)

With kind regards and happy shaving!

Kerry.
 
Aloha @phoenixandbeau & @nick_s: Many thanks for your recommendation to leave the puck uncorked for a day or two. I let it breath over night, and now I'm happy to write that the smell of ammonia has lessened considerably. Kerry, I appreciate your kind offer to replace it, but I'm sure that won't be necessary. Besides, I couldn't do without this soap, not even for the few days it may take to switch tubs! It's really that good.

If it's any help to you, the batch code on the bottom of my pot is SSSP003. Best of luck to you and Sarah. You've got a very good thing going!

Mahalo,

Bouki
 
Great review Nick. I didn't get much tobacco scent from it but I'm hoping that changes with more use. The leather and juniper were lovely together and as you stated, the performance is fantastic and the post shave feel is super. Shave on chaps!

Squadron leader A.S Hole!
 
I recently ordered some soaps from Connaught's and had them throw in a sample of this to try and I am sure glad I did. Boy Howdy, does this soap smell & work great!! It's like you found grandpa's old WWII A-2 leather jacket hidden away in a log cabin closet lined with juniper wood. Great stuff!!
 
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