After a few more shaves, here's my thoughts. (Mostly the same as my first impressions)
The soap is excellent. I find the slickness very good, and rivals some of the slickest soaps out there. I was concerned by some other reviewers who said it was lacking in slickness (and my initial thoughts from a sample I used before), but I combatted this by using more soap, and really going crazy adding water to the lather. It will take a bunch of water and gets slicker as you do. Once lather was shaved off, my face did dry pretty quickly, so the residual slickness is not the same as some other soaps, but a quick splash of water on the face is enough to refresh the residual lather, and you can do another pass or touch up without re-lathering. The scent is OK, not a favorite of mine, but not offensive either. It's warm, slightly woody, and spicy, with a slight vanilla back note. The scent does not linger much after the lather is rinsed off. I did try lathering with a synthetic, a badger, and a boar. I had way better results with a synthetic. But I think that is because the natural fibers are more lather hogs than the synthetics and you need to load longer and get more soap into natural fiber brushes to get an equivalent lather. (And since I’m working off a sample, basically, I’m trying to conserve it).
The Skin Food, I'm still a bit torn on. There is a really bright, really sharp scent at the first application of it. It's chemically and weird.... almost a clean burnt rubber sort of smell. (This is what I was initially calling a citrus-like note.) I don't know if it's something in the base of the aftershave or if it has something to maybe do with the Oud or Agar. Either way, it's pretty offensive to my nose, but only for a few seconds. Once the alcohol dries down, it's gone. Now the alcohol dry down is remarkably fast. Too fast for my tastes. I like being able to rub my splash around on my face for a few seconds. This dries down so fast I barely feel like I can get it spread around my entire face before it is no longer liquidy. This causes me to need to use it 2 or 3 times to feel like I'm getting the coverage I need. After it dries down, my face feels quite tacky..... Again, not a feeling that I like. That tackiness does go away rather quickly, within a few minutes, as whatever is now on my skin soaks in. Now after it soaks in...... My skin feels amazing. And if feels great all day long. This is why I'm torn, because the lasting effects of the skin food are really amazing. More notes on the scent. After the initial dry down, I don't get much of the woodiness or spiciness that I got form the soap. After just a few minutes, there is only one note that remains..... vanilla. It's a nice smelling vanilla, but it's just not a scent that I want to necessarily want to smell like all day..... and the scent does last all day. I still smell like vanilla when I go to bed at night. Amber agrees that I smell like vanilla, however she likes it. She said it reminds her of Vanilla Fields, a perfume she used to use, and she likes smelling it on me. Eric mentioned that this was a masculine scent, and could not be mistaken as unisex and I wholeheartedly disagree with that. I think this definitely goes both ways, so to speak.
A quick note on burning. After my first use, I did note a slight burn. It didn't last long. On the second use, I had a slight burn, which lasted just a few seconds. After that, no burning at all.
A couple more shaves, then I'll be ready to send this on......
