- Joined
- Saturday December 25, 2010
- Location
- Hitchin, Herts
As many of the soap officionados here will know, this is the only hard soap that Truefitt and Hill produce. Kind of strange when you consider they offer something like 8 to 10 creams, and it makes them a strange oddity amongst the big 4 Mayfair / St James barber shops, who all offer a few soap choices.
Still, one soap they do, so one soap I'll review. This was my first ever hard soap, recieved as a Christmas gift about 4 weeks back. It comes in a hand turned wooden bowl as pictured for 16 pounds. Should you not want the bowl, then a refill is available for 8 pounds.
So out of the box it looks pretty good. The bowl is a tactile thing, lovely to hold in the hand, and good looking. I was concerned about the label, thinking that moisture would be its undoing within days, but after 4 weeks it's still pristine, so no worries there.
This soap is triple milled, and as hard as a hard thing. So if you buy the refill you may face a little challenge forming it into your scuttle.
The scent is beautiful... very much lavender based, though my wife says she picks up patchouli in there as well.
Even though it's hard, after soaking with a few drops of hot water for 2 minutes while you shower, it gives up plenty of soap within about 10-15 seconds of swirling with a badger brush. It's worked into a rich and creamy lather within about a minute or so, and it has a fairly large sweet spot making it really hard to get things wrong. It really is an easy hard soap for a beginner to use, even in a hard water area.
Glide is good, and cushion is spot on... the lather hangs around a very, very long time, we're talking 15 minutes or so without any real degradation.
After shaving with this soap, my skin generally feels very clean if a little tight, so maybe moisturising properties are better with other choices.
All in all, I'd highly recommend this soap and I rate it at 8/10.
