Home Made Soap - cast your vote!

Hi received mine today so thank you again James for all your efforts.

Scent: lovely fresh bayrum. IMO and obviously very personal but I do prefer a stronger scent. The strength is strength is similar to a D. R. Harris soap perhaps 4/10. Seems to conflict with something in the soap. I get a soap scent too but also a 'chemical ingredient petrel like scent.

Lather: This is a thirsty soap! Thick cushion and better slip still some drying post shave but much better than the tea tree.

The soap didn't seem to peak instead remained very stiff, thick and stubborn, perhaps it needed more water.

30 seconds lather gave enough for three passes easily.
 
Yep, 4/10 in terms of scent strength so it isn't as strong as, Sterling or Barrister & Man but you know its a bayrum from the puck and lather when close to the nose. A soapy smell eventually dictates the bouquet.

I get a lemony/lime, slight dark peppery bay and bready scent. I havent got it spot on yet but its similar to a light Dr. Pepper float (with vanilla ice cream). I actually dont think that chemical tone is as strong now, whilst smelling it if at all, its like a light petrol?

Thirsty is not a bad thing, lathering time just takes longer, which isn't usually the case with top end soaps. Going by your previous posts your probably trying to hit nirvana so just being extra pannickity for your benefit ;)
 
trench said:
nice one. Thanks buddy. Just wasn't sure what you meant!
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No worries just to conclude; for a 30 second load to provide 3 passes, with a pleasant scent and plenty of slick and cushion. With decent post shave properties is a great second effort! Well done mate, with a few tweaks I would buy this. Loving the large pucks too James.
 
Mine delivered this afternoon too. Thanks. I'm going to give it a proper go tomorrow morning after a shower and proper prep. Not sure what to make of the smell yet.
 
Thanks guys.

By the way, I just had another shave with it. I find that if you want the best from it you need to pack as much water as you can into the lather. My cheeks and neck feel silky soft!
 
My sample arrived today - thank you very much James.

I was surprised that it is quite a hard soap - i was expecting something croapy (don't know why). 1st impression - great initial scent, coca cola and quite lemony. A bit more sniffing and i could detect the slightly discordant element Nishy mentioned - was it too much lime? or another smell altogether? I'll go back to it over the next few days.

I decided to use my omega 48 pro as i read it was a thirsty soap so after soaking it in cold water i hit it with a vengeance! Plenty of water, loading for 30 seconds to a minutes until the lather started to build. It was a thick lather that stayed for 3 passes but coud have gone for a couple more. The shave was very good - the soap was on a par with any other soap i have used. I think the best part for me was post shave - i used boots bayrum as an aftershave and there was no stinging - no need for balm either. my skin is irritation free and feels fantastic.

Next time i will bowl lather and use a different set up. For a second attempt at making soap this is great stuff - I'm looking forward to trying your tripled milled! The only downside for me was that unusual note in the scent but as for performance - can't be faulted. Good job James.
 
I'm off work sick just now so won't get the delivery yet. It's looking like it'll be next week before I can try it, but I'm looking forward to it & will add comments in here. I need more containers to put soap into!
 
flip-68 said:
My sample arrived today - thank you very much James.

I was surprised that it is quite a hard soap - i was expecting something croapy (don't know why). 1st impression - great initial scent, coca cola and quite lemony. A bit more sniffing and i could detect the slightly discordant element Nishy mentioned - was it too much lime? or another smell altogether? I'll go back to it over the next few days.

I decided to use my omega 48 pro as i read it was a thirsty soap so after soaking it in cold water i hit it with a vengeance! Plenty of water, loading for 30 seconds to a minutes until the lather started to build. It was a thick lather that stayed for 3 passes but coud have gone for a couple more. The shave was very good - the soap was on a par with any other soap i have used. I think the best part for me was post shave - i used boots bayrum as an aftershave and there was no stinging - no need for balm either. my skin is irritation free and feels fantastic.

Next time i will bowl lather and use a different set up. For a second attempt at making soap this is great stuff - I'm looking forward to trying your tripled milled! The only downside for me was that unusual note in the scent but as for performance - can't be faulted. Good job James.
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Thank you for the kind words gents.

I noticed that most artisans seem to go with a croap - I prefer rock hard soaps. Just feel nicer to load the brush as well as seeming to last longer. And of course they are a little more traditional.

This scent thing is getting on my nerves a bit. 2 things:

1 - I am inexperienced with bay rum. Nishy, your soap hasn't arrived yet. Not sure if it was supposed to be here by now? Not that I am being impatient or anything, promise. Just got an email the other day stating that mikes bay rum soap is on its way to me so i can have a whiff of that too. Not quite where the coca cola or petrol scent is coming from but I guess I'll need to experiment!
2 - I am using unrefined ingredients in the soap. All the ingredients are in there for a reason - to help the shave in some way or be good to the skin. With this in mind, I think it is a shame to use refined ingredients that may have lost some of their desired properties. A consequence of this is the fact that they can be quite smelly. Perhaps this is causing some of the smell issues, but what do you gents think - is it better to have a slightly smellier basic recipe that has all that goodness in or to refine it, lose the natural smell but also lose some of the desired properties?
3 - Just a thought, but it could be something to do with the essential oils I use. for the bay rum i used a local supplier that could be more commercialised and therefore likely to use a lower grade of essential oil? If that is at all possible.

Glad to hear you had a good shave

How was the lather for you - cushion? glide? What about the size of the puck?
 
Hi James the soap is being winged over to you tomorrow morning, I think carry on unrefined but perhaps for a stronger scent add extra EO's if that is possible.

Some commercial EO oils are more/less concentrated. We sell lavender oil ranging from £2-£11 depending on brand and quality.

Cushion and glide were very good.

Any chance angling in some EO of pepper into the bayrum it may be warming but think it would compliment the scent you already have.
 
Nishy said:
Hi James the soap is being winged over to you tomorrow morning, I think carry on unrefined but perhaps for a stronger scent add extra EO's if that is possible.

Some commercial EO oils are more/less concentrated. We sell lavender oil ranging from £2-£11 depending on brand and quality.

Cushion and glide were very good.

Any chance angling in some EO of pepper into the bayrum it may be warming but think it would compliment the scent you already have.
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Thanks mate. for some reason I thought you said you had already sent it - maybe not.

I actually have some black pepper EO that I could put in.

This is turning into a bit of a headf@ck (excuse my language) right now - so many scents and things to consider!

Still, at least I seem to have the actual soap pretty much down. Mind you, Ive developed a few more tweaks to make that better next time round.

Back to the drawing board I think

Ta mate.
 
Hi James, my soap arrived today too. Looked good slightly harder than the last soap I think. The texture felt better somehow. Fragrance was a big improvement, I liked it a lot. Like Nishy says could maybe use a little black pepper?? Anyway did a test lather tonight with my L'Occitane Plisson, because it smelt so good I couldn't wait for tomorrow's shave. I wet the puck and brush and started to lather after 20 to 30 seconds the lather was again really good and the slickness was even better than before when I palm lathered it. I proceeded to lather my face and have to say it was a really good consistency. Unfortunately now the bad bit for me.... I left the lather on my face with the intention to see how it lasted but after about 30 seconds my face started to pickle I waited about another 30 seconds and my face started to feel like it was burning and I had to shower off pretty quickly. Afterwards my face felt very tender. I have used moisturiser but even now about 4 hours later my skin still feels very tight and a little tender. I'm pleased reading the other reviews that it just appears to be me getting this reaction. So I guess it's just my skin type not liking your soap. I'm really sorry it's not working out for me but pleased the others are having better results.
Thank you once again James for putting the time and effort into this. Just really sorry it's not liking my skin. I'm good with lanolin and tallow I know but there's something in there that my skin just doesn't like.
Regards,
Dave.
 
Occams Razor said:
Hi James, my soap arrived today too. Looked good slightly harder than the last soap I think. The texture felt better somehow. Fragrance was a big improvement, I liked it a lot. Like Nishy says could maybe use a little black pepper?? Anyway did a test lather tonight with my L'Occitane Plisson, because it smelt so good I couldn't wait for tomorrow's shave. I wet the puck and brush and started to lather after 20 to 30 seconds the lather was again really good and the slickness was even better than before when I palm lathered it. I proceeded to lather my face and have to say it was a really good consistency. Unfortunately now the bad bit for me.... I left the lather on my face with the intention to see how it lasted but after about 30 seconds my face started to pickle I waited about another 30 seconds and my face started to feel like it was burning and I had to shower off pretty quickly. Afterwards my face felt very tender. I have used moisturiser but even now about 4 hours later my skin still feels very tight and a little tender. I'm pleased reading the other reviews that it just appears to be me getting this reaction. So I guess it's just my skin type not liking your soap. I'm really sorry it's not working out for me but pleased the others are having better results.
Thank you once again James for putting the time and effort into this. Just really sorry it's not liking my skin. I'm good with lanolin and tallow I know but there's something in there that my skin just doesn't like.
Regards,
Dave.
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Argh Dave I'm so sorry - that really isn't good. I test every batch on myself at varying stages before it is sent out to you in order to minimise the chances of something like that happening.

The only new addition to this soap is the lanolin and shea butter. it has less tallow, but more coconut oil, stearic acid, castor oil and avocado oil. Mind you, the old formula had all of those apart from lanolin and shea butter, just in a lower concentration.

Could have been the essential oils - bay, lime, cinnamon and clove were included and I have read about some people being allergic to certain Essential oils.

You say you liked the scent - Could you tell it was a bay rum? Did you get the underlying smell the others mention?

Sorry again mate and I hope you feel better soon.

Regards,

James
 
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