After four days of Lisa’s, I decided to go with one of the elite soaps in my den, in Declaration Grooming’s Bandwagon. Before I begin talking about the soap itself, let’s talk about the packaging. You get 4 oz. of soap in a wide mouth, 6 oz. container. There is adequate space for you to load directly from the container itself. The tub is opaque, so you can see how much soap is in without having to open the jar. The labeling is waterproof and has a slight matte finish to it. There are no side labels. The tub costs approximately $18.00 for the 4 oz. of soap, so coming in at about $4.50 oz., making it a great performer for the price of admission, relative to other high performing artisan soaps; especially so considering that it outperforms all of them.
Bandwagon is Declaration Grooming’s take on the barbershop scent, and it is in the vein of barbershop scents such as Fine’s American Blend and Wet Shaving Products Barbershop. It does have its own vibe however, given by the notes of camphor, coumarin and tarragon. The overall impression is a slightly, ever so much, darker version of the aforementioned soaps, and is quite nice. It’s medium strong out of the tub, about a 3.5/5. The full scent listing is as follows:
The notes, as listed are: powdery-musk, sandalwood, lavender, camphor, coumarin, tarragon, bergamot, and a touch of anise
This is in their standard bison tallow base, and truth be told, calling it a soap is almost a misnomer. It is incredibly soft, more so than most Italian soft soaps, or croaps. You definitely can load directly from the tub, as I do, but I would not bloom the soap at all, and would keep your loading time to under 20 seconds. Any more and you’ll be adding water and whipping for days to get the desired consistency. The bison tallow base has a medium long ingredient list, as shown below:
Ingredients: Stearic Acid, Water, Potassium Hydroxide, Avocado Oil, Vegetable Glycerin, Bison Tallow, Mango Seed Butter, Castor Oil, Fragrance, Sodium Hydroxide, Lanolin, Bentonite Clay, Hippophae Rhamnoides (Sea Buckthorn) Fruit Extract, Salix Alba L. (White Willow) Bark Extract, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Extract, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Sorbic Acid
As stated, loading is extremely quick, especially with a stiff and dense badger brush. One could possibly get all the soap loaded you need in less than 10 seconds if they’re aggressive enough. It is a thirsty soap, and is quick to absorb whatever water you add to it. The consistency when being lathered, (in a bowl) is that of regular yogurt, and once a little face lathering is done, it’s closer to a creamy merengue. The in-shave properties of the soap are quite remarkable. There aren’t any soaps, outside of Declaration Grooming’s Icarus base, that combine the slickness, cushion and residual slickness that is demonstrated with this soap. The only place I can really fault the soap, from a performance basis, is that it’s not quite as moisturizing in the post-shave as soaps such as the Icarus base, Mystic Water, or Lisa’s new Artisan line; but not by much at all.
Lathering: 10/10
Cushion: 10/10
Slickness: 10/10
Residual Slickness: 10/10
Moisturizing: 9.5/10
Stability: 5/5
Total: 54.5/55
Comparable soap bases from a performance standpoint:
Declaration Grooming Project Icarus (55/55)
Ariana & Evans (54/55)
Wholly Kaw Donkey Milk + Hops Extract (53/55)
Eufros Tallow (53/55)
Lisa’s Natural Herbal Creations Artisan Shaving Soap (52.5/55)
Noble Otter (52.5/55)
Conclusion: There isn’t much more that I can say about the bison tallow base other than it’s a phenomenal performer, second best out of the soaps that I’ve used. Is it a perfect soap? No, not at all. It’s much too soft, and doesn’t have quite the moisturizing properties as a few other soaps available on the market today. At $4.50 an oz. it is good value for what you get. However, because it is such a soft soap, you will end up loading more soap than necessary for your shave, which takes that price per oz. down a notch. The scent of Bandwagon is a great take on the barbershop genre, very close to American Blend (based upon Yves St. Laurent Rive Gauche), and WSP’s Barbershop, but its own thing entirely. All in all, a winner of a soap from Declaration, and one of their standby’s in their line of soaps. Outside of it being slightly soft and loading heavy, and not having quite the post-shave moisturizing properties as others, this is a top-shelf soap for sure. If you’re a fan of the barbershop scents out there, then I would say that you’re remiss in not having this in your den.
https://youtu.be/TiVhr0_xwbk
Bandwagon is Declaration Grooming’s take on the barbershop scent, and it is in the vein of barbershop scents such as Fine’s American Blend and Wet Shaving Products Barbershop. It does have its own vibe however, given by the notes of camphor, coumarin and tarragon. The overall impression is a slightly, ever so much, darker version of the aforementioned soaps, and is quite nice. It’s medium strong out of the tub, about a 3.5/5. The full scent listing is as follows:
The notes, as listed are: powdery-musk, sandalwood, lavender, camphor, coumarin, tarragon, bergamot, and a touch of anise
This is in their standard bison tallow base, and truth be told, calling it a soap is almost a misnomer. It is incredibly soft, more so than most Italian soft soaps, or croaps. You definitely can load directly from the tub, as I do, but I would not bloom the soap at all, and would keep your loading time to under 20 seconds. Any more and you’ll be adding water and whipping for days to get the desired consistency. The bison tallow base has a medium long ingredient list, as shown below:
Ingredients: Stearic Acid, Water, Potassium Hydroxide, Avocado Oil, Vegetable Glycerin, Bison Tallow, Mango Seed Butter, Castor Oil, Fragrance, Sodium Hydroxide, Lanolin, Bentonite Clay, Hippophae Rhamnoides (Sea Buckthorn) Fruit Extract, Salix Alba L. (White Willow) Bark Extract, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Extract, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Sorbic Acid
As stated, loading is extremely quick, especially with a stiff and dense badger brush. One could possibly get all the soap loaded you need in less than 10 seconds if they’re aggressive enough. It is a thirsty soap, and is quick to absorb whatever water you add to it. The consistency when being lathered, (in a bowl) is that of regular yogurt, and once a little face lathering is done, it’s closer to a creamy merengue. The in-shave properties of the soap are quite remarkable. There aren’t any soaps, outside of Declaration Grooming’s Icarus base, that combine the slickness, cushion and residual slickness that is demonstrated with this soap. The only place I can really fault the soap, from a performance basis, is that it’s not quite as moisturizing in the post-shave as soaps such as the Icarus base, Mystic Water, or Lisa’s new Artisan line; but not by much at all.
Lathering: 10/10
Cushion: 10/10
Slickness: 10/10
Residual Slickness: 10/10
Moisturizing: 9.5/10
Stability: 5/5
Total: 54.5/55
Comparable soap bases from a performance standpoint:
Declaration Grooming Project Icarus (55/55)
Ariana & Evans (54/55)
Wholly Kaw Donkey Milk + Hops Extract (53/55)
Eufros Tallow (53/55)
Lisa’s Natural Herbal Creations Artisan Shaving Soap (52.5/55)
Noble Otter (52.5/55)
Conclusion: There isn’t much more that I can say about the bison tallow base other than it’s a phenomenal performer, second best out of the soaps that I’ve used. Is it a perfect soap? No, not at all. It’s much too soft, and doesn’t have quite the moisturizing properties as a few other soaps available on the market today. At $4.50 an oz. it is good value for what you get. However, because it is such a soft soap, you will end up loading more soap than necessary for your shave, which takes that price per oz. down a notch. The scent of Bandwagon is a great take on the barbershop genre, very close to American Blend (based upon Yves St. Laurent Rive Gauche), and WSP’s Barbershop, but its own thing entirely. All in all, a winner of a soap from Declaration, and one of their standby’s in their line of soaps. Outside of it being slightly soft and loading heavy, and not having quite the post-shave moisturizing properties as others, this is a top-shelf soap for sure. If you’re a fan of the barbershop scents out there, then I would say that you’re remiss in not having this in your den.
https://youtu.be/TiVhr0_xwbk