Oleo Duck Fat - share your experience

I wish I could say more than it smells nice - the description calls it a powdery barber shop scent and I'll agree with that, amber, musk yes, bay rum - I don't get any and maybe some of that pink pepper but no gunpowder for me.  I'm just going from the tub.  I'll give it a try in the morning and see what I think off the brush.  I'm a little annoyed because a few of the Oleo soaps say they have bay or bay rum in the scent profile and I don't smell it in any of them.  I'm a sucker for bay rum / bay and I'm feeling sucked in.

Marko, as I recall you're a sucker for Blackberry Blossom Bay from Chatillon Lux (as I am). There's a BST up somewhere, from a nice gent, offering the soap and balm. I offered to buy it, he wanted to hold out for selling it in a lot, and when he got back to me, I'd already spent the money on my first straight set. You might check it out.

He ought to be. It was his prodding that got Shawn to make a bay scent!

Yes I do love that CL BBB Thanks for the tip CCity , I'm doing ok as far as BBB soap and post shave products, enough to last me until Shawn makes it again which may be likely in the next year or two. I'll leave this BBB on the BST for someone who may not yet had a chance to try it. The man has a lot on his plate so its probably wise to give it enough time for everyone to exhaust their existing supplies before making it again. Next time I'll definitely buy at least 2 tubs.

wyze0ne I didn't use the Oleo Windy City Barbershop today because I didn't shave today. I usually skip my Sunday shave but I have some Easter commitments that I have to look respectable for so I skipped today. I'll let you know after tomorrow's shave what I think of the scent. You already know the performance. Great.

Did someone try the Irving Park scent and how close it is to Fine American Blend?

Edit: i just saw SCSHaver said its pretty close but seems mild in scent strength?

I like the scent strength of Irving Park and I do not think it’s mild. I would say it’d 5 to 6 out of 10 in strength. I’ve found in a few other threads that my nose apparently isn’t as refined as I thought however. If you don’t want to try the full sized Irving Park you can buy the one ounce sample. To me it smells just like American Blend.

American Blend, or YSL Rive Gauche is one of my best if not the best scent i smelled. 6 out of 10 sounds alright.

I'm from Europe, so i can only buy at Westcoast and they unfortunately don't offer samples.

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I like the scent strength of Irving Park and I do not think it’s mild. I would say it’d 5 to 6 out of 10 in strength. I’ve found in a few other threads that my nose apparently isn’t as refined as I thought however. If you don’t want to try the full sized Irving Park you can buy the one ounce sample. To me it smells just like American Blend.

Maybe its that your nose is more refined than some of ours? You may be picking up things that we don't.

The one thing I’m curious about is the number of items in stock. If you open the page of an individual soap, it’ll show how many are in stock. But if you then click between Canard and Vegan, the “In Stock” number stays the same. Yet I’d imagine that the soaps would have to be cured and ready, and aren’t customizable on the fly.

As said, I’m simply curious about how it all works.

I noticed that too but I went ahead and ordered 4 and they arrived yesterday.  Montrose Beach, El Cabellero, Frankie and Myrnna and Windy City Barbershop.  I used Montrose Beach this morning and the performance is awesome.  

They have addressed the issue of the smaller tubs and the 4oz soaps now come in regular 4" tubs so that makes loading a little easier.  I'm still not sure about their fragrances.  They all smell very nice but I stick by my earlier comment that they don't really smell like their descriptions.  Its possible that all of the scent notes listed are in the soap but they're so blended as to be indistinguishable, at least to my nose.  For example, Montrose Beach smells sweet and pleasant enough but nothing remotely beach like.  I'm wondering what comes first, the names for the soaps as part of a marketing plan, then after a few rounds of sniffing various fragrance blends which are either blended in-house or from a third party supplier, they decide which blends smell most like Montrose Beach or El Cabellero or whatever name they're dealing with.  So I will continue to use them obviously because they preform great and they smell nice but I wish the fragrances weren't so nondescript.

How is the scent of the Windy City Barbershop Marko?

I did use the Oleo Windy City Barbershop yesterday and its performance was as expected - excellent. The scent off the lather was a bit milder than off the tub and again, in my opinion, falls into the "nice" category. I don't think that the scent of any of the Oleo soaps that I've tried will offend anyone but neither do I think that anybody will rave about them - we're not talking Hallows or Bon Vivant here. I don't know whether Oleo blends its own fragrances but, whoever does it, the prime directive seems to be "don't offend anybody". Basically if you've smelled one Oleo soap, you've smelled them all so there isn't really a need to get them all, unless of course you want to which is fine. Of the ones I've tried, Shiloh with its lemon drop scent is probably the most "unique" of their scents. I like it and I like Rougere, probably because they were the first Oleo duck fat soaps I tried. I also don't think that Oleo will pose an existential threat to either of Grooming Department or Bufflehead in the duck fat shaving soap space. Its apples and oranges.

Actually..I find all the scents I’ve tried so far quite unappealing. I’ve tried Shiloh, Pucker and Caribbean. All of them are very unnatural..almost chemically smelling. Way too sweet. Like a bad, cheap kid’s candy. And the scents are overbearing....at least to my nose.

Actually..I find all the scents I’ve tried so far quite unappealing. I’ve tried Shiloh, Pucker and Caribbean. All of them are very unnatural..almost chemically smelling. Way too sweet. Like a bad, cheap kid’s candy. And the scents are overbearing....at least to my nose.

Sad to say, this has been my experience with the three Oleo Soapworks soaps I've tried as well. I'm a big fan of Colonia scents-AdP being my favorite-and was excited to try the Shiloh. Now, maybe I got a bad tub, but it smelled, to my nose, very artificial, cloying, and unpleasant. The scent was so strong I could almost 'taste' it as I was shaving.

Actually..I find all the scents I’ve tried so far quite unappealing. I’ve tried Shiloh, Pucker and Caribbean. All of them are very unnatural..almost chemically smelling. Way too sweet. Like a bad, cheap kid’s candy. And the scents are overbearing....at least to my nose.

Sad to say, this has been my experience with the three Oleo Soapworks soaps I've tried as well. I'm a big fan of Colonia scents-AdP being my favorite-and was excited to try the Shiloh. Now, maybe I got a bad tub, but it smelled, to my nose, very artificial, cloying, and unpleasant. The scent was so strong I could almost 'taste' it as I was shaving.

You didn’t get a bad tub. It is what it is....Luckily...all I bought were inexpensive samples. Glad I did! What a waste of a perfectly good base...

I don't mean to pile on because the soap base is really outstanding but I had to stop using the soaps altogether. The artificial 'sugary' scents were just too much for me. One gave me a headache.