Member
Ontario
Right, I'll try my hand at a full soap review now that I have the time! 
The Setup:
Purchased from: Italian Barber
Price: $29.05(CDN)
Size: 8.5 oz (250 g)
Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Cocoate, Sodium Cocoate, Potassium Arganate, Sodium Arganate, Silk Amino Acids, Fragrance/Essential Oil Blend
Scent Profile According to IB site: Steambath Factory's The Wizard’s Pipe Shaving Soap is a spicy blend of cherry with a base of burning pipe tobacco. It is not an overly sweet cherry scent, and although the cherry note is certainly there it also has a strong tobacco accord with a smouldering character. This soap is named after the great grey wizard himself, who loved to smoke his long pipe while musing about happenings in the Shire.
My Thoughts:
This soap, hrm... has it's good and bad points, but the bad is more personal, I'll try and explain.
First, the scent; AMAZING! lol I love a good pipe tobacco scent, even though I don't personally smoke lol This soap provides a great scent for those of us who love that type of scent, and the cherry sweetness just adds to the background of it. The cherry profile, I believe, is stronger up front than what the description given above says, but that in no ways takes away from the rest of the scent profile. Indeed, to me, it adds to it. If this was a pure tobacco scent I'd be comparing it to RazoRock's Tobacco #1 and #2(I have both), but I can't, because in my eyes, SteamBath has just stepped ahead of those two in terms of scent. I'm also a sucker for anything that is scented or flavoured as cherry so that helps haha But really, this is a great scent that I can see myself enjoying from the start to the end of the tub!
Performance: This is a little more interesting, since I can't think of a soap I have used to compared the way this soap works. The soap itself is very, very soft, even before I added water to it I could easily push a finger into it. Um... again using RR as an example, since that is fairly soft, the SteamBath is even softer, nearly a cream in consistency as just touching it left some of it on my finger without pressure. Before my shave I bloomed the soap while I showered as I always do, when I was finished I use the bloom water to wet my brush before I load my brush. It loads quickly, and I think it's the softness of the soap that helps in that, it loaded the brush fast and blooming just allows more of that amazing scent to escape. Now, as you can see by the pics below I lathered up in my scuttle, there is a reason for that but I'll come to that later. While it loaded easily, lathering takes a few more moments and I find the soap can be a water hog, could have been my scuttle was too hot, but I added much more water than I do with other soaps. But, wow, the creamy lather that was created, um, what can I compare this to... Oh! Chocolate moose I think would be a good comparison lol It's thick, creamy and very cushioning on the face. My Kai blade glided over my skin easily with no friction and my skin... I'll get that soon, but for now, it's not the soaps fault truly.
![[Image: a5I68Vc.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/a5I68Vc.jpg)
Nice and thick and creamy! You can see the soap almost stretching as I pulled my brush away from the scuttle.
![[Image: pRYrf9e.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/pRYrf9e.jpg)
Bah, poor focus on my part, sorry. But I was trying to show how peaked the soap was on my brush
Overall, I'm very impressed with SteamBath Factory and their soap. This is a great product and I hadn't really noticed anyone on DFS showing this in their SOTD or talking about it, which is a damn shame as I believe it's a great soap. Not the cheapest, but worth it, it is a large tub after all, 8.5ozs isn't a small amount lol I look forward trying to the other... 3 I think scents that SteamBath have right now and hope that they will bring out more
With how thick this lather was, it took more time to clean out my brush as it just kept making new suds and lather even under running water lol And while with my scuttle I can run hot water into the bowl and everything rinses out easily, nope, not here, I had to tone down the heat so I could run my fingers in it to scrub out the sticky lather lol But this by no means a complaint, it's how the soap works and, for me, part of it's charm
____
Now, here's the personal part that had those bad points I was speaking of. This was my second time using this soap, I used it first on the 25th, since I finally was able to get it that day(it was a 'gift' I ordered for myself and wrapped with some other soaps lol) finally and try it. I faced lathered it that time, and, everything else in performance above applies, it works great but it's very thirsty. The problem is mine, as it seems I'm allergic to something in the soap
I first felt a slight burning on my lips, but I figured it was some hot water so I wiped it off. By the time I was finished my skin was on fire, again, though, I didn't blame the soap I blamed my rushed shave and poor prep work. However, when I rinsed my face off of all soap, my skin was very red even on the places where I HADN'T ran the razor over, just the overlap of soap when I was lathering on my throat. Obviously this finally told me that it was the soap and nothing else that could have been the problem that was making my skin burn; at no time did my razor touch that part of my neck.
Saddened, since I loved the scent and the way the soap performed, but unable to not try it again(I'm a sucker for punishment
), I knew I had to try something different to see if the results were the same. So, that is what I did today, instead of face lathering I loaded the brush and used my scuttle to whip up the lather and then carefully apply it with minimal pressure on my skin. It seems to have worked, thankfully. As after this shave I had no irritation not even where the soap sat for the longest on the overlapped skin that doesn't see a blade at all. So, I'm hoping that I can keep this soap and I'll just have to bowl lather it from now on, which is fine, I enjoy lathering like that in the winter anyway to keep my lather warm
![[Image: fMHny8x.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/fMHny8x.jpg)
The Setup:
Purchased from: Italian Barber
Price: $29.05(CDN)
Size: 8.5 oz (250 g)
Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Cocoate, Sodium Cocoate, Potassium Arganate, Sodium Arganate, Silk Amino Acids, Fragrance/Essential Oil Blend
Scent Profile According to IB site: Steambath Factory's The Wizard’s Pipe Shaving Soap is a spicy blend of cherry with a base of burning pipe tobacco. It is not an overly sweet cherry scent, and although the cherry note is certainly there it also has a strong tobacco accord with a smouldering character. This soap is named after the great grey wizard himself, who loved to smoke his long pipe while musing about happenings in the Shire.
My Thoughts:
This soap, hrm... has it's good and bad points, but the bad is more personal, I'll try and explain.
First, the scent; AMAZING! lol I love a good pipe tobacco scent, even though I don't personally smoke lol This soap provides a great scent for those of us who love that type of scent, and the cherry sweetness just adds to the background of it. The cherry profile, I believe, is stronger up front than what the description given above says, but that in no ways takes away from the rest of the scent profile. Indeed, to me, it adds to it. If this was a pure tobacco scent I'd be comparing it to RazoRock's Tobacco #1 and #2(I have both), but I can't, because in my eyes, SteamBath has just stepped ahead of those two in terms of scent. I'm also a sucker for anything that is scented or flavoured as cherry so that helps haha But really, this is a great scent that I can see myself enjoying from the start to the end of the tub!
Performance: This is a little more interesting, since I can't think of a soap I have used to compared the way this soap works. The soap itself is very, very soft, even before I added water to it I could easily push a finger into it. Um... again using RR as an example, since that is fairly soft, the SteamBath is even softer, nearly a cream in consistency as just touching it left some of it on my finger without pressure. Before my shave I bloomed the soap while I showered as I always do, when I was finished I use the bloom water to wet my brush before I load my brush. It loads quickly, and I think it's the softness of the soap that helps in that, it loaded the brush fast and blooming just allows more of that amazing scent to escape. Now, as you can see by the pics below I lathered up in my scuttle, there is a reason for that but I'll come to that later. While it loaded easily, lathering takes a few more moments and I find the soap can be a water hog, could have been my scuttle was too hot, but I added much more water than I do with other soaps. But, wow, the creamy lather that was created, um, what can I compare this to... Oh! Chocolate moose I think would be a good comparison lol It's thick, creamy and very cushioning on the face. My Kai blade glided over my skin easily with no friction and my skin... I'll get that soon, but for now, it's not the soaps fault truly.
Nice and thick and creamy! You can see the soap almost stretching as I pulled my brush away from the scuttle.
Bah, poor focus on my part, sorry. But I was trying to show how peaked the soap was on my brush
Overall, I'm very impressed with SteamBath Factory and their soap. This is a great product and I hadn't really noticed anyone on DFS showing this in their SOTD or talking about it, which is a damn shame as I believe it's a great soap. Not the cheapest, but worth it, it is a large tub after all, 8.5ozs isn't a small amount lol I look forward trying to the other... 3 I think scents that SteamBath have right now and hope that they will bring out more
With how thick this lather was, it took more time to clean out my brush as it just kept making new suds and lather even under running water lol And while with my scuttle I can run hot water into the bowl and everything rinses out easily, nope, not here, I had to tone down the heat so I could run my fingers in it to scrub out the sticky lather lol But this by no means a complaint, it's how the soap works and, for me, part of it's charm
____
Now, here's the personal part that had those bad points I was speaking of. This was my second time using this soap, I used it first on the 25th, since I finally was able to get it that day(it was a 'gift' I ordered for myself and wrapped with some other soaps lol) finally and try it. I faced lathered it that time, and, everything else in performance above applies, it works great but it's very thirsty. The problem is mine, as it seems I'm allergic to something in the soap
I first felt a slight burning on my lips, but I figured it was some hot water so I wiped it off. By the time I was finished my skin was on fire, again, though, I didn't blame the soap I blamed my rushed shave and poor prep work. However, when I rinsed my face off of all soap, my skin was very red even on the places where I HADN'T ran the razor over, just the overlap of soap when I was lathering on my throat. Obviously this finally told me that it was the soap and nothing else that could have been the problem that was making my skin burn; at no time did my razor touch that part of my neck.Saddened, since I loved the scent and the way the soap performed, but unable to not try it again(I'm a sucker for punishment
), I knew I had to try something different to see if the results were the same. So, that is what I did today, instead of face lathering I loaded the brush and used my scuttle to whip up the lather and then carefully apply it with minimal pressure on my skin. It seems to have worked, thankfully. As after this shave I had no irritation not even where the soap sat for the longest on the overlapped skin that doesn't see a blade at all. So, I'm hoping that I can keep this soap and I'll just have to bowl lather it from now on, which is fine, I enjoy lathering like that in the winter anyway to keep my lather warm
I used the same brush both times, but, yes, I'm thinking the same way that if I don't scrub it while I face lather it'll be fine 