A little while ago I picked up a Wilkinson Shaving Soap on clearance from Connaught Shaving. While I didn’t have high hopes for it, the hopes I had were somewhat dashed while shaving. I’ll go ahead and give an as honest review as I can regardless.
Short version? I’m not impressed, but it’s not a waste.
Longer version?
Unlike most shaving creams, soaps and gels I see for sale around here, the Wilkinson is intended for use with a brush. I tried both face lathering and bowl lathering, the later yielded best results.
The scent is okay. Not too weak not to strong, not too much like Arko.1 The soap requires a fair bit of loading to lather up, and the lather isn’t as rich or thick as most other soaps I have.
And once you have lather, it’s slick. Very slick. Way too slick, in my book. And with little to no cushion either. On the upside, it don’t collapse during the shave like some lathers do.
And to add a bit of insult to injury,2 the Wilkinson Shaving Soap is hard to rinse of the razor when you’re done shaving.
All is not lost though; my Better Half found it to be a good shaving soap for her legs.3 So she’ll get custody of then Wilkinson Shaving Soap, and I’ll dip into it now and then if I need to wash out a brush.
Honestly; if you’re looking for an inexpensive soap and you can find it, get some Williams Mug Soap instead. It’s a much better product than the Wilkinson Shaving Soap.
Footnotes:
- Arko; loathe it or love it, you just can’t ignore it.
- Mental injury; I did not cut myself while using it.
- Paired with a Sensor Excel cartridge razor.
I found it very thin and my skin reacted to the put fumes in it. I was relegated to my kids’ bathroom as body wash soap. I also find Williams lather to be too thin. Better to “stick” to Arko