This morning was Wickham Soap Co. 1912’s English Rose’s opportunity to shine, and it honestly did not disappoint. Before I get into the performance of the soap, let’s speak a little about the artisan and the packaging. This is a British soap maker who concentrates on making high quality vegan soaps. They’ve gained quite the following amongst wet-shavers, particularly outside of the continental United States. They have a decent selection of scents available covering multiple scent profiles, from the classic fougere such as Irish Fern (a take on English Fern), Classic 24 (at take on Aventus) to Club Cola (their take on the cola scent). The labeling on the tub is color coded to reflect the scent type, with the same graphics on all but one tub, the collaboration with WCS, Le Bleu. The tubs are the typical 6 oz, low profile wide mouth tubs filled with 4 oz. of soap. The nice thing about how the soap itself is loaded into the tub is that they take the time to smooth out the surface of the soap to enable better loading. The tubs have a bottom label which lists the ingredient list for their vegan base:
Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Aqua, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Cocoa Butterate, Sodium Palmate, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Sodium Avocadate, Parfum, White Kaolin, Allantoin, Glycerine
The strength of scent off of the dry tub is a solid 2/5, maybe even creeping up to a 2.5. The soap is on the harder side of the house from a consistency standpoint, with a somewhat waxy feel to it similar to Soap Commander, but not nearly as hard as a soap like Martin de Candre. The scent itself if quite nice, a simple, singular note of rose. This is not a sweet rose such as Soapy Science’s Rosa Pura, but more on the floral side of the house. That is not to say it has no sweetness. Roses by their nature are somewhat sweet. But this would be on the red or pink rose side of the house, maybe even a yellow rose.
Loading this soap is an absolute breeze, with 15 seconds more than enough to develop lather for at least six and most likely eight passes. Truth be told, if I were worried about conservation, I could probably get away with 5-8 seconds of vigorous load time on a bloomed tub and have more than enough lather for a full three passes plus clean-ups. Lather is very customizable as well for those who prefer either a more dry lather, or wet-heads such as myself who like more water in the lather.
The overall quality of the lather this morning definitely eclipsed what I experienced in my first use of Wickham Soaps, when I used Le Bleu 11 days ago. Residual slickness did get knocked down just a hair, but is still better than 95%+ of soaps available on the market. As mentioned earlier, the type of lather can be customized very easily to your preference. I tried to find a good balance today between excellent cushion and slickness and I think I nailed it, though I’m definitely open to this soap continuing to improve with further uses.
Here is the scoring of the soap base’s performance (as always, strength of scent and preference aren’t included since they’re so subjective):
Lathering: 10/10
Cushion: 9/10
Slickness: 8.5/10
Moisturizing: 8/10
Residual Slickness: 9.5/10
Stability: 5/5
Total: 50/55
Comparable soap bases from a performance standpoint:
Soapy Science (51.5/55)
Lisa’s Natural Herbal Creations Premium line (51/55)
Martin de Candre (51/55)
The Holy Black Tallow (51/55)
Wild West Shaving Company (50.5/55)
Mystic Water (49.5/55)
Barrister & Mann Glissant (49/55)
Fine Accoutrements (49/55)
Lisa’s Natural Herbal Creations standard line (49/55)
Conclusion: This did show a very noticeable improvement over the first use of this soap base, which is fairly remarkable considering how well it performed the first time. The scent of this soap, pure rose, is quite nice. I personally prefer the sweeter version of this scent note, but this is still quite enjoyable. The quality of the lather is wonderful, moving up in ranking above soaps such as Fine Accoutrements and Barrister & Mann’s Glissant base. The price point on this soap is $18 for a 4oz tub, putting it right at $4.50 per oz, getting towards the expensive side of the house, but not yet prohibitive. With the way the soap performed today, I am even more confident that if you find a scent that you would enjoy, that it would be a worthwhile purchase and addition to your den.
https://youtu.be/3dINlPFM4EE
Ingredients: Potassium Stearate, Aqua, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Cocoa Butterate, Sodium Palmate, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Sodium Avocadate, Parfum, White Kaolin, Allantoin, Glycerine
The strength of scent off of the dry tub is a solid 2/5, maybe even creeping up to a 2.5. The soap is on the harder side of the house from a consistency standpoint, with a somewhat waxy feel to it similar to Soap Commander, but not nearly as hard as a soap like Martin de Candre. The scent itself if quite nice, a simple, singular note of rose. This is not a sweet rose such as Soapy Science’s Rosa Pura, but more on the floral side of the house. That is not to say it has no sweetness. Roses by their nature are somewhat sweet. But this would be on the red or pink rose side of the house, maybe even a yellow rose.
Loading this soap is an absolute breeze, with 15 seconds more than enough to develop lather for at least six and most likely eight passes. Truth be told, if I were worried about conservation, I could probably get away with 5-8 seconds of vigorous load time on a bloomed tub and have more than enough lather for a full three passes plus clean-ups. Lather is very customizable as well for those who prefer either a more dry lather, or wet-heads such as myself who like more water in the lather.
The overall quality of the lather this morning definitely eclipsed what I experienced in my first use of Wickham Soaps, when I used Le Bleu 11 days ago. Residual slickness did get knocked down just a hair, but is still better than 95%+ of soaps available on the market. As mentioned earlier, the type of lather can be customized very easily to your preference. I tried to find a good balance today between excellent cushion and slickness and I think I nailed it, though I’m definitely open to this soap continuing to improve with further uses.
Here is the scoring of the soap base’s performance (as always, strength of scent and preference aren’t included since they’re so subjective):
Lathering: 10/10
Cushion: 9/10
Slickness: 8.5/10
Moisturizing: 8/10
Residual Slickness: 9.5/10
Stability: 5/5
Total: 50/55
Comparable soap bases from a performance standpoint:
Soapy Science (51.5/55)
Lisa’s Natural Herbal Creations Premium line (51/55)
Martin de Candre (51/55)
The Holy Black Tallow (51/55)
Wild West Shaving Company (50.5/55)
Mystic Water (49.5/55)
Barrister & Mann Glissant (49/55)
Fine Accoutrements (49/55)
Lisa’s Natural Herbal Creations standard line (49/55)
Conclusion: This did show a very noticeable improvement over the first use of this soap base, which is fairly remarkable considering how well it performed the first time. The scent of this soap, pure rose, is quite nice. I personally prefer the sweeter version of this scent note, but this is still quite enjoyable. The quality of the lather is wonderful, moving up in ranking above soaps such as Fine Accoutrements and Barrister & Mann’s Glissant base. The price point on this soap is $18 for a 4oz tub, putting it right at $4.50 per oz, getting towards the expensive side of the house, but not yet prohibitive. With the way the soap performed today, I am even more confident that if you find a scent that you would enjoy, that it would be a worthwhile purchase and addition to your den.
https://youtu.be/3dINlPFM4EE