Murphy and McNeil soaps

DFS's new soap and splash will be produced by Murphy & McNeil and hopefully released within the next month or two.

Scent ?? Asking for a friend 

https://damnfineshave.com/thread-help-df...ed-product

DFS's new soap and splash will be produced by Murphy & McNeil and hopefully released within the next month or two.

Scent ?? Asking for a friend 

Haha ?

DFS's new soap and splash will be produced by Murphy & McNeil and hopefully released within the next month or two.

Scent ?? Asking for a friend 

https://damnfineshave.com/thread-help-df...ed-product

Thanks for the reminder.....I've slept........a lttle bit since then

It has been quite a while since anyone posted in this Murphy & McNeil thread, so I thought I would resurrect the thread with a review of their recent release of Gotland in the Kodiak base. Only the initial batch of Gotland will be produced in the Kodiak base, so I grabbed a tub as soon as they were released. While I like Aion, I prefer Kodiak.

The Gotland scent is a creation of Black Mountain Shaving. It is named after the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. The island is known for their roses, so the scent is rose forward, but it also has a supporting cast of other scent notes that prevents the scent from being overly floral. The scent notes are described as:
Top- Rose, camomile, bergamot
Middle-Guaiac, hedione, juniper berries
Base- Agarwood, papyrus, Vanilla, musk, nutmeg, coriander

I find the scent to be mid-strong off the puck, but it opens up once lathered. It is a beautiful scent; I find myself removing the lid just to smell the aroma.

Fortunately, the performance of the Kodiak base is also superb. I have always considered Aion and Kodiak to be elite bases, but this newest release of Kodiak is even better than past versions.

The soap is easy to load and lather. I bowl lather. I bloom the soap for about 10 seconds using a tablespoon of hot water. Then  pour the bloom water into my lather bowl. I soak my brush and squeeze and shake out all excess leaving it damp. Then I load the brush directly from the tub for 10 seconds using medium pressure and vigorous swirling. I then dip the loaded brush into the lather bowl containing the bloom water and agitate vigorously for 30 seconds. With my best soaps, that 30 seconds is sufficient to produce a smooth lather suitable for painting on my face.

The lather has excellent slickness, both primary and residual. I normally do a 4 pass shave: WTG, XTG, ATG and clean-up. I usually reapply lather between passes, but there was sufficient residual slickness that I could do my clean-up without relathering. Lesser soaps will not allow me to do that.

The lather has a luxurious feel on the face and provides sufficient protection for a BBS shave free of irritation, even though I have sensitive skin.

After my four-pass shave, I reapply one final lather and allow it to soak into my skin while I am cleaning up my shaving gear. Then I gently remove the excess with a damp microfiber cloth. My face felt great after the shave and continued to feel great for 24 hours after the shave. Only my very best "super-elite" soaps will provide 24 hours or more of face conditioning. Thus, I am happy to proclaim Gotland in the Kodiak base as a super-elite soap by my evaluation criteria. 

Remember that only the initial batch of Gotland will be in the Kodiak base. While I suspect the Aion version will be good, it might not come up to the level of Kodiak.

Thank you very much for that clear and detailed review Ray.  As it happens, I had Gotland in and out of my shopping cart over the weekend.  It was in because I have been pleased with Murphy & McNeil but never experienced the Kodiak base.  It wound up out because I need another soap like a hole in the head.  Now a jar is on its way to me. 

Ray made me do it. 

It has been quite a while since anyone posted in this Murphy & McNeil thread, so I thought I would resurrect the thread with a review of their recent release of Gotland in the Kodiak base. Only the initial batch of Gotland will be produced in the Kodiak base, so I grabbed a tub as soon as they were released. While I like Aion, I prefer Kodiak.

The Gotland scent is a creation of Black Mountain Shaving. It is named after the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. The island is known for their roses, so the scent is rose forward, but it also has a supporting cast of other scent notes that prevents the scent from being overly floral. The scent notes are described as:
Top- Rose, camomile, bergamot
Middle-Guaiac, hedione, juniper berries
Base- Agarwood, papyrus, Vanilla, musk, nutmeg, coriander

I find the scent to be mid-strong off the puck, but it opens up once lathered. It is a beautiful scent; I find myself removing the lid just to smell the aroma.

Fortunately, the performance of the Kodiak base is also superb. I have always considered Aion and Kodiak to be elite bases, but this newest release of Kodiak is even better than past versions.

The soap is easy to load and lather. I bowl lather. I bloom the soap for about 10 seconds using a tablespoon of hot water. Then  pour the bloom water into my lather bowl. I soak my brush and squeeze and shake out all excess leaving it damp. Then I load the brush directly from the tub for 10 seconds using medium pressure and vigorous swirling. I then dip the loaded brush into the lather bowl containing the bloom water and agitate vigorously for 30 seconds. With my best soaps, that 30 seconds is sufficient to produce a smooth lather suitable for painting on my face.

The lather has excellent slickness, both primary and residual. I normally do a 4 pass shave: WTG, XTG, ATG and clean-up. I usually reapply lather between passes, but there was sufficient residual slickness that I could do my clean-up without relathering. Lesser soaps will not allow me to do that.

The lather has a luxurious feel on the face and provides sufficient protection for a BBS shave free of irritation, even though I have sensitive skin.

After my four-pass shave, I reapply one final lather and allow it to soak into my skin while I am cleaning up my shaving gear. Then I gently remove the excess with a damp microfiber cloth. My face felt great after the shave and continued to feel great for 24 hours after the shave. Only my very best "super-elite" soaps will provide 24 hours or more of face conditioning. Thus, I am happy to proclaim Gotland in the Kodiak base as a super-elite soap by my evaluation criteria. 

Remember that only the initial batch of Gotland will be in the Kodiak base. While I suspect the Aion version will be good, it might not come up to the level of Kodiak.

Thank you very much for that clear and detailed review Ray.  As it happens, I had Gotland in and out of my shopping cart over the weekend.  It was in because I have been pleased with Murphy & McNeil but never experienced the Kodiak base.  It wound up out because I need another soap like a hole in the head.  Now a jar is on its way to me. 

Ray made me do it. 

Although I might have "made you do it", once you try the soap, you will be thanking me.

When I started wet shaving in 2016. there were few high quality soaps available. Since then, many fine artisan soapmakers have come on the scene to produce some wonderful soaps and some fine perfumers have produced scents for those soaps. The first soap I tried that met all of my performance criteria for a shaving soap was Barrister and Mann Excelsior. Now I have dozens of soaps in my rotation that meet and exceed my criteria. Like you, I do not need another soap added to my collection, but I will still add soap to my shave den when I find one with both wonderful performance AND wonderful fragrance.

It has been quite a while since anyone posted in this Murphy & McNeil thread, so I thought I would resurrect the thread with a review of their recent release of Gotland in the Kodiak base. Only the initial batch of Gotland will be produced in the Kodiak base, so I grabbed a tub as soon as they were released. While I like Aion, I prefer Kodiak.

The Gotland scent is a creation of Black Mountain Shaving. It is named after the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. The island is known for their roses, so the scent is rose forward, but it also has a supporting cast of other scent notes that prevents the scent from being overly floral. The scent notes are described as:
Top- Rose, camomile, bergamot
Middle-Guaiac, hedione, juniper berries
Base- Agarwood, papyrus, Vanilla, musk, nutmeg, coriander

I find the scent to be mid-strong off the puck, but it opens up once lathered. It is a beautiful scent; I find myself removing the lid just to smell the aroma.

Fortunately, the performance of the Kodiak base is also superb. I have always considered Aion and Kodiak to be elite bases, but this newest release of Kodiak is even better than past versions.

The soap is easy to load and lather. I bowl lather. I bloom the soap for about 10 seconds using a tablespoon of hot water. Then  pour the bloom water into my lather bowl. I soak my brush and squeeze and shake out all excess leaving it damp. Then I load the brush directly from the tub for 10 seconds using medium pressure and vigorous swirling. I then dip the loaded brush into the lather bowl containing the bloom water and agitate vigorously for 30 seconds. With my best soaps, that 30 seconds is sufficient to produce a smooth lather suitable for painting on my face.

The lather has excellent slickness, both primary and residual. I normally do a 4 pass shave: WTG, XTG, ATG and clean-up. I usually reapply lather between passes, but there was sufficient residual slickness that I could do my clean-up without relathering. Lesser soaps will not allow me to do that.

The lather has a luxurious feel on the face and provides sufficient protection for a BBS shave free of irritation, even though I have sensitive skin.

After my four-pass shave, I reapply one final lather and allow it to soak into my skin while I am cleaning up my shaving gear. Then I gently remove the excess with a damp microfiber cloth. My face felt great after the shave and continued to feel great for 24 hours after the shave. Only my very best "super-elite" soaps will provide 24 hours or more of face conditioning. Thus, I am happy to proclaim Gotland in the Kodiak base as a super-elite soap by my evaluation criteria. 

Remember that only the initial batch of Gotland will be in the Kodiak base. While I suspect the Aion version will be good, it might not come up to the level of Kodiak.

Do you know if they’ve changed/upgraded the Kodiak formula recently? I got a tub of Nantahala when the Kodiak base first came out and was really excited about it, but I found the performance pretty underwhelming unfortunately. Residual slickness and protection were just so-so, and the postshave feel was fine but not up to par with numerous other top soaps. I haven’t followed them to see if they made any changes since that time but it sounds like you have had a much different experience with it than I did (which is good!)

Do you know if they’ve changed/upgraded the Kodiak formula recently? I got a tub of Nantahala when the Kodiak base first came out and was really excited about it, but I found the performance pretty underwhelming unfortunately. Residual slickness and protection were just so-so, and the postshave feel was fine but not up to par with numerous other top soaps. I haven’t followed them to see if they made any changes since that time but it sounds like you have had a much different experience with it than I did (which is good!)

I had not heard anything about Kodiak being upgraded. However, my evaluation procedure detected an improvement in the new product the first time I tried it. I have both Nantahala and Old Sport in the original Kodiak base. It was an excellent soap base and earned a spot among my elite soap bases. The old formulation met all my criteria. The new version moved up into the super-elite category. Not only did it meet all my criteria, but the residual slickness and post shave exceeded those criteria.

I also considered AION to be an elite soap. However, I did prefer the original Kodiak to AION. I like the new version even more. I hope the original AION base can be brought up to the same level of performance as the new Kodiak.

Thank you for sharing. That scent sounds pretty great. I think I might have to place an order

Does anyone have a handle on the (April 2024) shipping terms?  Seems to be a $49 threshold for free shipping, but the items must be from the same sender? For example, I'm seeing items from "MM Consigns" not being combined but being tallied separately in discrete transactions, each with a shipping fee.  Does MM Consigns have multiple dispatch locations, so a $49 threshold per each?

murphyandmcneil

It is confusing.  I haven't ordered from them since the change.