The Crabtree & Evelyn was one of the first soaps I bought after getting into traditional wetshaving, based mostly of the reviews available on the Norwegian webshop I bought it from. Yes, I bought this before I discovered the wide range of inexpensive hobbeist-retailers who shares my passion for a good shave – but I don’t regret buying it even at the higher price I paid.

C&E have a fair-to-decent reputation online as far as I can tell – overall good soaps that smells and shaves well. It isn’t as moisterinsing as Mike’s soaps, but it’s somewhat unfair to compare the two – one is machine made with a slightly scary list* of ingridients, the other is made by an artisan. The C&E Sandalwood comes in a nice wooden bowl though, so that’s a definite point in it’s favor.

The scent of the C&E Sandalwood might not be everyones cup of tea, but I rather like it myself. If you like natural and slightly old-fashoned scents – and lets face it, many wetshavers do – you’ll probably like the scent just fine. Building lather is easy with the C&E soap, every single brush I own does a great job of it. Like most other soaps it’s important to add enough water, but once that is taken care of the resulting lather does a pretty good job of providing cushion and glide.

Where the C&E Sandalwood fails is providing moisture; it does a better job than some other mass-market soaps I could mention, but falls well short of the Golden Standard**. It is heads and shoulders above anything that comes out of a pressurised can though, andfor those with dry skin a proper moisturising aftershave will fix any lingering dryness.

If you can live with a soap that don’t moisturise too well, and you like Sandalwood, you could do a lot worse than picking up a tup of Crabtree & Evelyn Sandalwood Soap.

*) Sodium palmate, potassium palmate, sodium palm kernelate, water, glycerin, potassium palm kernelate, stearic acid, fragrance, isopropyl myristate, tocopheryl acetate, bisabolol, sodium chloride, BHT, tetrasodium EDTA, tetrasodium etidronate, pentasodium pentetate, linalool, benzyl benzoate, benzyl salicylate, limonene, coumarin, titanium dioxide (CI 77891), iron oxides (CI 77492), iron oxides (CI 77491), iron oxides (CI 77499), yellow 5 (CI 19140).
**) Also known as Mike’s Natural Soaps…

I’ve been a fan of Mike’s Natural Soaps for quite a while now – ordered my first soaps from him almost a year ago – but writing up a review is hard simply because it’s near impossible to do the soap justice.

I’ll admit it up front; Mike’s Natural Soap is one of my favorite soaps – if not THE favorite. Part of it is the pure performance – great glide, great cushion, don’t leave me dry… but part of it is also that all of Mike’s soaps performs the same. It don’t matter if it’s his Orange, Cedarwood & Black Pepper or his Barbershop – they are all good. Apart from the scent they might as well be one large soap – it’s just that consistent.

Whipping up some lather with Mike’s soaps is easy as pie for me – soak the brush, swirl over the soap for twenty, thirty seconds before switching to the bowl and building the lather for real. The latherbuilding is also where the scent really gets released; and while some of the samples I ordered from Mike’s isn’t my favorites, he has several really good ones – I think my favorite might be his Orange, Cedarwood and Black Pepper soap, which reminds me of orange soda…

Since I put in my first order, Mike has started selling his soaps in tins as well as twist-up shave sticks. They work as well as the bars, but with the added bonus of not having to provide your own container to keep the puck in.

Mike’s Natural Soaps gives a great shave and wont leave your face dry. It also comes in a great many fragrances, and Mike’s samples are most generous if you want to try several. What’s not to like?