After reading about Wild West Soap Company for a while now, it was time to make a purchase. Doc Holliday was one of the scents that I chose, being a mulled apple cider scent. WWSC is out of Oklahoma, (not Wyoming like I stated in the video), and have a wide array of scents available in both soaps, matching aftershaves and Eau de Toilet’s. They’ve gotten pretty high praise from a lot of different people ranging from the forums and across the tube of You.
When the soap arrived, (and I was prepared for this after watching a few videos), I was pretty disappointed in the packaging. Now, I knew I was only getting 2 oz. of soap for my purchase, but for $6.99 for those 2oz., it actually comes in at a pretty decent value. The tubs that they come in are just big enough for a 2oz. puck, and are made of pretty flimsy plastic. The labels are not water resistant, though they are on the top and bottom. The ingredients for the soap are listed on the top label, surrounding the center graphics. The soap formula looks to be slightly different per soap, so each one will possibly perform slightly differently.
Speaking about the ingredients, it’s actually a pretty sparse ingredient list: Tallow, Stearic Acid, Water, Glycerin, Coconut Oil, Castor Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Fragrance Bentonite Clay
So, let’s address the elephant in the room first. These soap containers suck for people who load from the tub. They are so small with no room for a brush, and the soap comes right to the top so excess proto-lather goes everywhere. The surface area the brush has to pick up soap is pretty tiny as well. It took a little time, but I was able to get a load on the brush and started building my lather.
**Edit** One thing I neglected to get into is strength of scent and actual scent profile. SoS off of the dry puck is a solid 3/5, very nice. Once lathered the strength of scent is enough that loading at about navel high, I was able to smell it. In other words, it's nice and strong. On the face, it's with you the entire shave, a solid 4.5/5 if not a full 5/5. The scent, mulled apple cider, is definitely on the gourmand side of the house without being distracting. The sweet top notes of the apple come though very nicely, but are fleeting, as the spicy heart and base notes start coming through, with a hint of bourbon/rum/brandy and creamy butter rounding out the scent. Very well constructed, and it really did take me back to drinking a warm mulled cider on a cold day in New England.
Getting into the actual lathering aspect of the soap, I was actually very happy. I added ~3 tsp or so of water, with a little more added when I took the soap to the face. The lather consistency was that of home-made whipped cream, so nice and creamy with a little bit of bubbling going on that was easily dealt with by some slow, gentle swirls in the bowl. On the face, it felt wonderful, and provided some most excellent slickness, cushion and moisturizing properties. The residual slickness was where this soap stood out for me. It was easily as good as Declaration Grooming. Stability was very nice as well…30 minutes after the shave, (so about 45 minutes after whipping it up) there was no noticeable degradation. All in all, from a shaving perspective, this was a most excellent soap. The biggest downfall was the packaging. To grade the lathering score, I split it into actual lathering and loading, each getting a possible 5 points. Since it lathered so easily, that score was a 5. But the loading was an issue. I was able to actually pick up soap, but it’s messy and a pain in the rear end, so I only gave it a 2/5.
Here are the scores for the soap base, keeping in mind that SoS and scent preference aren’t scored since they are purely subjective:
Lathering: 7/10
Cushion: 9.5/10
Slickness: 9.5/10
Moisturizing: 9.5/10
Residual Slickness: 10/10
Stability: 5/5
Total: 50.5/55
Comparable soap bases from a performance standpoint:
Martin de Candre (51/55)
Lisa’s Natural Herbal Creations Special Premium Base (51/55)
WSP Formula T (51/55)
Eufros (51/55)
Saponificio Varesino Beta 4.3 (50/55)
Mystic Water (49.5/55)
Barrister & Mann Glissant (49/55)
Conclusion: If you’re looking for a wonderful soap at a very reasonable price point, this is definitely a soap company that you should be looking at. My biggest gripe with it, as explained above, is the containers that they come in as well as the labeling. This can be remedied if you buy 2 pucks of a scent (not the Reserve soaps, those are 3.5oz and come in an actual tub), and move them into a separate container, steam the label off of one of these pucks and place it on the new tub. But if I’m paying money for a product, I would expect that they would already have this taken care of. I would definitely be willing to pay an extra $.50-1.00 an oz for tubs that were actually functional. Ok, I’ve beat that dead horse enough. If the packaging isn’t something that bothers you, this absolutely should be in your den…and at less than $7.00 a puck, try a couple. You won’t be disappointed.
Here's the video: (note, I published this before I found out exactly where they're based out of, and made a mental math mistake on the scoring...saying they only scored a 49.5/55)
https://youtu.be/xvDg8PIx8JM
When the soap arrived, (and I was prepared for this after watching a few videos), I was pretty disappointed in the packaging. Now, I knew I was only getting 2 oz. of soap for my purchase, but for $6.99 for those 2oz., it actually comes in at a pretty decent value. The tubs that they come in are just big enough for a 2oz. puck, and are made of pretty flimsy plastic. The labels are not water resistant, though they are on the top and bottom. The ingredients for the soap are listed on the top label, surrounding the center graphics. The soap formula looks to be slightly different per soap, so each one will possibly perform slightly differently.
Speaking about the ingredients, it’s actually a pretty sparse ingredient list: Tallow, Stearic Acid, Water, Glycerin, Coconut Oil, Castor Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Fragrance Bentonite Clay
So, let’s address the elephant in the room first. These soap containers suck for people who load from the tub. They are so small with no room for a brush, and the soap comes right to the top so excess proto-lather goes everywhere. The surface area the brush has to pick up soap is pretty tiny as well. It took a little time, but I was able to get a load on the brush and started building my lather.
**Edit** One thing I neglected to get into is strength of scent and actual scent profile. SoS off of the dry puck is a solid 3/5, very nice. Once lathered the strength of scent is enough that loading at about navel high, I was able to smell it. In other words, it's nice and strong. On the face, it's with you the entire shave, a solid 4.5/5 if not a full 5/5. The scent, mulled apple cider, is definitely on the gourmand side of the house without being distracting. The sweet top notes of the apple come though very nicely, but are fleeting, as the spicy heart and base notes start coming through, with a hint of bourbon/rum/brandy and creamy butter rounding out the scent. Very well constructed, and it really did take me back to drinking a warm mulled cider on a cold day in New England.
Getting into the actual lathering aspect of the soap, I was actually very happy. I added ~3 tsp or so of water, with a little more added when I took the soap to the face. The lather consistency was that of home-made whipped cream, so nice and creamy with a little bit of bubbling going on that was easily dealt with by some slow, gentle swirls in the bowl. On the face, it felt wonderful, and provided some most excellent slickness, cushion and moisturizing properties. The residual slickness was where this soap stood out for me. It was easily as good as Declaration Grooming. Stability was very nice as well…30 minutes after the shave, (so about 45 minutes after whipping it up) there was no noticeable degradation. All in all, from a shaving perspective, this was a most excellent soap. The biggest downfall was the packaging. To grade the lathering score, I split it into actual lathering and loading, each getting a possible 5 points. Since it lathered so easily, that score was a 5. But the loading was an issue. I was able to actually pick up soap, but it’s messy and a pain in the rear end, so I only gave it a 2/5.
Here are the scores for the soap base, keeping in mind that SoS and scent preference aren’t scored since they are purely subjective:
Lathering: 7/10
Cushion: 9.5/10
Slickness: 9.5/10
Moisturizing: 9.5/10
Residual Slickness: 10/10
Stability: 5/5
Total: 50.5/55
Comparable soap bases from a performance standpoint:
Martin de Candre (51/55)
Lisa’s Natural Herbal Creations Special Premium Base (51/55)
WSP Formula T (51/55)
Eufros (51/55)
Saponificio Varesino Beta 4.3 (50/55)
Mystic Water (49.5/55)
Barrister & Mann Glissant (49/55)
Conclusion: If you’re looking for a wonderful soap at a very reasonable price point, this is definitely a soap company that you should be looking at. My biggest gripe with it, as explained above, is the containers that they come in as well as the labeling. This can be remedied if you buy 2 pucks of a scent (not the Reserve soaps, those are 3.5oz and come in an actual tub), and move them into a separate container, steam the label off of one of these pucks and place it on the new tub. But if I’m paying money for a product, I would expect that they would already have this taken care of. I would definitely be willing to pay an extra $.50-1.00 an oz for tubs that were actually functional. Ok, I’ve beat that dead horse enough. If the packaging isn’t something that bothers you, this absolutely should be in your den…and at less than $7.00 a puck, try a couple. You won’t be disappointed.
Here's the video: (note, I published this before I found out exactly where they're based out of, and made a mental math mistake on the scoring...saying they only scored a 49.5/55)
https://youtu.be/xvDg8PIx8JM
