After seeing positive reviews for Wickham Soaps for the better part of a year, I finally went ahead and purchased some from West Coast Shaving, as they finally broke through for the U.S. market to carry this soap. (I think Maggard Razors carried it for a little while before I was really aware of them) When they did so, they also did a collaboration scented soap with Wickham, using Bleu de Chanel by Chanel as the inspiration. Before I get into the scent, a bit about the packaging. It’s in a nice wide tub, with a waterproof top label with some tasteful graphics. The coloration of the graphics changes with the scent of the soap. There is no side label, so if you stack your soaps vertically, you will either need to fish through them, or use a label maker to label the sides. The soap is on the harder side of the house and has been smoothed out to provide a nice uniform base for the brush to load off of. Strength of scent off of the tub is about a 1.5-2/5. I don’t own any of the BdC frags, but what I remember of it, this is pretty accurate. Here are the scent notes for the more desirable of the BdC fragrances, the Eau de Parfum.
Scent pyramid for Bleu de Chanel EdP:
Top Notes: Lemon, Grapefruit, Pink Pepper, Bergamot, Coriander, Mint, Aldehydes
Heart Notes: Melon, Jasmine, Ginger, Nutmeg
Base Notes: Labdanum, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Cedar, Amber, Incense, Amberwood
This is a vegan base, so I was a little skeptical about how good it would actually perform. It does have some good butters in it, including jojoba oil, cocoa butter, and avocado oil. Here is the ingredient list:
Potassium Stearate, Aqua, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Cocoa Butterate, Sodium Palmate, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Sodium Avocadate, Parfum, White Kaolin, Allantoin, Glycerine
So, this soap lathers fast. I loaded for about 30 seconds and had way too big of a load. But the one thing you’re going to notice, is the scent blooms from about a 1.5-2/5 to about a 3.5-4/5 once lathered. You just get enveloped in the scent of the frag. It’s glorious! Because I loaded so heavily, it took almost 6 tsp of water to get the ratio right, and even then I think it could have gone even further to get the consistency where it needed to be. Just like many soaps, patience is key when lathering this soap. Qualities of the soap during the shave were great, aside from cushion, where I felt that it just wasn’t up to par. Granted, it still scored a 7, but in retrospect, I might have been a little generous there. Slickness was great. Moisturizing was good, falling a little short of Stirling, and well short of the top performers in my den such as Declaration and Ariana & Evans. With that being said, if the cushion performed as good as the lather looked, this would be as good a soap as Wholly Kaw. I’m going to have to give this another couple of uses to see if I can rectify that.
Here are the scores (as always, strength of scent and preference aren’t included since they’re so subjective):
Lathering: 9/10
Cushion: 7/10
Slickness: 9/10
Moisturizing: 8/10
Residual Slickness: 10/10
Stability: 5/5
Total: 48/55
Comparable soap bases from a performance standpoint:
Wholly Kaw (regular tallow) (49/55)
Oleo Soapworks (48.5/55)
Stirling Soaps (48/55)
Long Rifle Soaps (48/55)
Saponificio Varesino beta 4.2 (47/55)
Chiseled Face Groomatorium (47/55)
Conclusion: I went into this not really wanting to like this soap. But I do. I really do like this soap. I wish the cushion was better on this use. But I think I that I’ll be able to improve that with subsequent uses. The cost to performance ratio is ok on this, at about $4.10 per oz, so it is in line with soaps such as Noble Otter and Ariana & Evans for non-club members. It doesn’t quite perform to that level, but it’s not far off. More experimentation is required, to be perfectly honest. The scent on this particular offering is quite nice, being a clone of the BdC fragrance. From what I can remember, it’s very close, and the fact that the scent blooms out so much once lathered is extremely surprising and oh so pleasing. With all of that being said, this is one of the best vegan soaps that I’ve used, to include Saponificio Varesino. (Beta 4.3 is a better soap, but not by much) If this soap falls within your budget range, and you’re looking for a good vegan soap, I would feel comfortable recommending this to you.
https://youtu.be/P2TzgU16AZE
Scent pyramid for Bleu de Chanel EdP:
Top Notes: Lemon, Grapefruit, Pink Pepper, Bergamot, Coriander, Mint, Aldehydes
Heart Notes: Melon, Jasmine, Ginger, Nutmeg
Base Notes: Labdanum, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Cedar, Amber, Incense, Amberwood
This is a vegan base, so I was a little skeptical about how good it would actually perform. It does have some good butters in it, including jojoba oil, cocoa butter, and avocado oil. Here is the ingredient list:
Potassium Stearate, Aqua, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Cocoa Butterate, Sodium Palmate, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Sodium Avocadate, Parfum, White Kaolin, Allantoin, Glycerine
So, this soap lathers fast. I loaded for about 30 seconds and had way too big of a load. But the one thing you’re going to notice, is the scent blooms from about a 1.5-2/5 to about a 3.5-4/5 once lathered. You just get enveloped in the scent of the frag. It’s glorious! Because I loaded so heavily, it took almost 6 tsp of water to get the ratio right, and even then I think it could have gone even further to get the consistency where it needed to be. Just like many soaps, patience is key when lathering this soap. Qualities of the soap during the shave were great, aside from cushion, where I felt that it just wasn’t up to par. Granted, it still scored a 7, but in retrospect, I might have been a little generous there. Slickness was great. Moisturizing was good, falling a little short of Stirling, and well short of the top performers in my den such as Declaration and Ariana & Evans. With that being said, if the cushion performed as good as the lather looked, this would be as good a soap as Wholly Kaw. I’m going to have to give this another couple of uses to see if I can rectify that.
Here are the scores (as always, strength of scent and preference aren’t included since they’re so subjective):
Lathering: 9/10
Cushion: 7/10
Slickness: 9/10
Moisturizing: 8/10
Residual Slickness: 10/10
Stability: 5/5
Total: 48/55
Comparable soap bases from a performance standpoint:
Wholly Kaw (regular tallow) (49/55)
Oleo Soapworks (48.5/55)
Stirling Soaps (48/55)
Long Rifle Soaps (48/55)
Saponificio Varesino beta 4.2 (47/55)
Chiseled Face Groomatorium (47/55)
Conclusion: I went into this not really wanting to like this soap. But I do. I really do like this soap. I wish the cushion was better on this use. But I think I that I’ll be able to improve that with subsequent uses. The cost to performance ratio is ok on this, at about $4.10 per oz, so it is in line with soaps such as Noble Otter and Ariana & Evans for non-club members. It doesn’t quite perform to that level, but it’s not far off. More experimentation is required, to be perfectly honest. The scent on this particular offering is quite nice, being a clone of the BdC fragrance. From what I can remember, it’s very close, and the fact that the scent blooms out so much once lathered is extremely surprising and oh so pleasing. With all of that being said, this is one of the best vegan soaps that I’ve used, to include Saponificio Varesino. (Beta 4.3 is a better soap, but not by much) If this soap falls within your budget range, and you’re looking for a good vegan soap, I would feel comfortable recommending this to you.
https://youtu.be/P2TzgU16AZE
