Hey gents! Finally back with another shave soap review for you. I’m continuing in the Schmiere products I got in recently with this review, and am checking out their semi-new shave soap today! I got this one in a trade a few weeks ago, and decided to go with it for my next soap review. Finally time to check out the skinny on this soap!
Now this soap comes in a couple different packagings. I ended up getting both via trades recently. So I figured I’d show you guys both of them, that way you know what they both look like. One of them is a plastic tub with a metal screw top lid, and the other is a glass mason jar with a hinged lid and metal clasp. Each one has its own cool look to it, but I have to say, I like the glass mason jar a lot better! This thing is just awesome!!
The jar appears to be a 6oz mason jar and has a metal clasp that closes the lid to the jar, rather that the traditional two-piece metal screw top lid mason jars come with. This one reminds me a lot of the jars my great grandma used to put her homemade jams and jellies in. It also has a red rubber seal attached to the lid to keep the freshness in, and has a little tab sticking out on one side. I’m not sure what the tab is there for, but it’s there. The jar has two labels on it, one on the front and one on the back. The front label is kind of a rustic, worn, parchment looking label. It has the company name up at the top in the center of it with some filigree around it. Then in the center in a big filigree lined frame, there’s a banner that says “Abschaum Fienste Rasier-Seife” right next to their familiar bird. This time the bird has a newsboy cap on and a mustache and beard. Under that in a smaller banner it says “Von Schmiere.” Kind of a simplistic label for them, but it still has a really cool look to it. The label on the back has the same layout and filigree lined frame in it, with the name of the soap just under the company name. Only this time the name is much smaller, there is no bird, and it just has “Abschaum” there. Under the name is the ingredients list, with the company info, barcode, and website below that. Again, super simple label, but with a nice look to it at the same time. One thing I do wish was different about these labels, was that they were a bit bigger. That way they cover more of the jar and don’t leave so much empty glass space, but I still really like them! Now on to the plastic jar!
This one also has two labels on it, but this time there’s a lid label and a label on the front of the jar. That’s another thing I wish the glass jar had, was a lid label to cover the big glass lid. We can’t always have everything we want though, can we? The labeling on this jar is more like the labels on their pomade cans. The side label has the name of the soap in between two straight razors, with some filigree below it. Then under that is the ingredients list, company name, and website. The barcode happens to be on the far right side of this one, instead of below the ingredients list. Basically the same as the glass one’s back label, but slightly different. The lid label looks just like their pomade labels do. It has the company name up top, then the soap name just above the bird. He looks the exact same as he does on the glass jar’s front label, only this time he’s in color instead of just tan and black. On either side of him are banners that say “Made in Germany” in them, and “Since 1959” below the right one. At the bottom is where they put “Feinste Raiserseife” without a hyphen this time for some reason. I really like all the little filigree accents they put in the background/around everything in this label! They give it a nice look and add some pizzaz to it. I’d love to see the glass jar have this one on the lid! Hint hint 😉 haha. Like I’ve stated in the pomade reviews I’ve done of their products, the Schmiere labels are by far some of the coolest labels out there! Bar none. They really are some of my favorites in my entire collection. I can’t decide which labeling I like better between the two though. They both look really cool. I think if the glass jar had this lid label along with the others, that would be the best look for this soap.
One thing I noticed different between the two, was that the plastic jar’s soap inside has these little white dots in it, and the glass one didn’t. I’m not sure if that’s due to the temperature they pour it at or what. They can’t pour the soap very hot into the plastic jar or it will melt. I know, it’s happened to me when I’ve made shave soaps before haha. And it’s frustrating when you get a melted and warped, ugly looking jar from the heat of the soap. However, it also could just be a change in the formula or something like that too, I’m not 100% certain. I will have to ask Sophia and see if she maybe knows why that is.
Anyway, back to the soap at hand. I decided on finishing up the review with the glass jar. Mainly because it has a cooler aesthetic to it, but also because there’s more room in the glass jar than the plastic one for me to soak the soap and swirl my brush around. The plastic one is filled pretty much to the brim, and the glass one has a little bit of a gap between the surface of the soap and the rim of the jar. Both soaps do have the exact same scent to them though. Just wanted to add that in there before I forgot.
Opening the glass jar, or plastic one, you’re immediately blasted in the nose with the scent. And I mean that in the best way possible. This scent is by far one of the best scents ever for a shave soap! It’s actually the exact same scent they use for their limited edition Sailor Mittel pomade as well. They describe it as a fresh sea scent, but it smells like a fresh clean soap scent to me. And not your standard, kind of harsh and biting soap scent, but a super pleasing and fresh soap scent. Like I said, it’s by far one of my favorite scents for a soap ever! As you can see the soap is a light sea foam greenish blue color, and has a rough and bubbled surface. The soap looks almost more like foam than a soap when you look closely at it. Noticing this, I had decided to touch the surface to see what it felt like. You can kind of see my finger mark in there if you look closely. And just as I thought, this one has a very light, fluffy, foamy feel to its surface. Now it’s not actually foam, but it does have a foamy feel to it. This is the first soap I’ve seen like this before. And it makes me wonder how fast I will go through it, how short I should soak it for, and how easily it will fill up my brush. It also makes me wonder about the lather it will create. Initially, it makes me think it’s going to be a less puffy and cloud-like lather, but more of a thin and slick lather. Only time will tell that though.
So I decided on soaking the soap for the same amount of time I do with any other soap I use and/or review. I figured I might as well just do it how I always do, and not try and compensate for the texture the soap had. It’s better to keep it on the same level playing field I put other soaps on and see how it holds up to my regular shave routine. If I need to alter things in the future I always can.
I then proceeded to start loading my brush and that’s when I noticed that I was right about the soap’s texture. My brush filled up within just a few seconds of me swirling it around. I went ahead and loaded it for the full 30 seconds I usually do. About 20 seconds in I saw that my brush kind of stopped soaking up the soap. I don’t know if it was because my brush was packed to the gills, or if the soap had presented a more firm layer. So after I had finished up loading my brush, I felt the surface of the soap to see which it was, and I was met with the same soft foam like texture it had before. So I knew that my brush was just all the way full and couldn’t take in anymore soap.
And as you can see, my brush is completely packed full of soap. Surprisingly, even though the soap has a soft foamy texture to it, I didn’t seem to use a whole lot of the soap when loading my brush. To me, it looked like I had used the same amount of soap I do with any other soap I use. This kind of surprised me, because of how soft the soap is. I had expected to use up a lot of the soap when I felt it after loading my brush. However, when I looked at the jar to see how much I had used, it was just like any other soap. That’s definitely a good thing!
I then went on to start working up the lather in my trusty bowl. Just like when loading my brush, I spent the same amount of time building the lather that I do every other time. The result I got wasn’t really what I had hoped for. As the picture shows, the lather is very thin and flat, and there wasn’t very much of it. Especially for how much soap was packed into my brush. I was really baffled at how the lather came out, because of how the soap felt, and the fact that my brush had taken in a ton of the soap when I loaded it. This made me wonder if I might have just not had/put enough water in my brush and bowl when I went to work up the lather. There really should have been more lather than this in the bowl, even if it wasn’t a puffy lather. I mean, you saw how jam packed my brush was with soap. The bowl should have had a lot more lather than it does, even if the lather is a thin and flat type of lather. So I decided to go ahead and add a little bit of water to my brush and bowl again, to see if that’s what the issue is.
After another 30 seconds of swirling my brush around, the lather puffed up quite a bit more. Although, there still wasn’t as much lather as there should have been/I expected there to be for some reason. It had become nice and fluffy and cloud like, but there just wasn’t as much as I thought there was going to be based on how much soap was in my brush. So I decided to check my brush and see if there was soap still packed in it, and there was. I squeezed out a bunch of soap from it into my bowl. For some reason, this soap likes to stay in the brush rather than come out and build the lather. Even when I tried to build up more lather with the soap I squeezed out, it just wanted to go back into my brush rather than turn into lather. I’m thinking a board hair shaving brush will be better to use with this soap than a a badger brush. Boars hair brushes allow the soap to come out a lot more and easier than badger brushes do I’ve found.
Anyway, I went ahead and coated my face with the lather to get ready to shave. This soap/lather coats my face really well. It doesn’t break down and become thinner when I brush it onto my face like some soaps do. Instead, it keeps its puffiness to it and covers my whiskers really well.
And the smell of this soap is even better when you coat your face with the lather. As you can see in the close up picture, the lather really fills all the gaps between my whiskers nicely. And it really holds its fluffy shape well after being brushed onto my face. Usually in order to maintain this I have to lightly pat the lather on my face. Otherwise, when I brush it on, the lather kind of breaks down a bit and becomes a bit thinner. However, with this soap, the lather keeps its shape and texture perfectly after brushing it on you face. Another thing I noticed while this soap was on my face, was that it gave off a slight cooling effect. It wasn’t as strong as a menthol soap, but I did notice it.
While shaving I saw that this stuff traps my whiskers in it really well. It also clears from my razor super easily, and doesn’t clog my razor one bit. Even with semi-long whiskers, my razor wasn’t getting clogged at all. This lather does a great job of holding the whiskers in it and clearing from my razor with just a swish of it in the water. I really enjoyed my shave with this soap! It was a nice quick and effortless shave.
One thing I did find slightly disagreeable about this soap was that it seemed to leave my face a bit dry. I’m not 100% sure if it was strictly because of this soap, or if it was because I also washed my face in the shower before I shaved. My face had felt a bit dirty and oily, so I kind of scrubbed it in the shower before I shaved. I had been working on my old car and out in the yard all day, and felt like my face needed some extra cleaning. However, my face didn’t seem to feel dry or anything like that after the shower/before shaving. Which makes me think this soap is the culprit for my face feeling a bit dry. However, I will have to give it another test without scrubbing my face right before I shave just to be certain.
Other than my face feeling a little bit dry, this soap really performed well. I was very happy with every aspect of it, especially the packaging. That jar is just too cool! Well actually, there was one thing that was kind of frustrating about using this soap. I couldn’t find an aftershave to go well with it haha. This scent is so unique and good that it’s near impossible to find an aftershave that goes well with it or compliments it well. Without having an aftershave with this same scent, hint hint, it’s a bit of a task to try and find one that goes well with it. I ended up going with Barber Side’s witch hazel aftershave, because none of my dozens of other aftershaves seemed like they would go well with it. Oh, and I did find that it was because I scrubbed my face before shaving that caused my face to feel a bit dry. It wasn’t this soap after all. I was very happy that it didn’t end up being the soap. Not that it would deter me from using it if it had been, but it was nice to know it wasn’t.
This is definitely a shave soap I highly recommend you guys try out and add to your collection. It’s a must have in my opinion. Every single thing about it is top notch! From the packaging, to the scent, and the performance. So, I highly recommend you guys grabbing a jar of this stuff and soon! You can get it on most sites that carry shave products and pomades, or you can buy it directly from them. If you want to get it direct from them, head on over to their website http://www.rumble59.com/Guys/Schmiere.html?MODsid=92db36134bbcad8f55f11be73fd689a1 and snag yourself a jar. While you’re there, check out all the other new stuff they have out too. They have got some really awesome new stuff up on there! I will be featuring all their new stuff over the next couple months as well, so stay tuned!!
And stay fresh fellas,
-JC
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