Review: Cold River Soap Works x 6 soaps

Tried the Savon #1 last night, it's from the Class (tallow) line. Straight off the bat it's my least favoured scent (and straight off the bat my wife said she disliked it as well), very strongly Lavender dominant scent and if you didn't tell me otherwise I'd not be able to distinguish it from a pure Lavender scented soap. Alas it's not like some of the more gentle/rounded Lavender scents some other makers use and it's way too full on, especially for someone who's not a fan of Lavender scented soaps period!

The lather was good, very easy to build (but not as easy as the Vegan-Original line) and again only took 15-20sec max of loading. Used the VS Synth. Slickness, cushion etc again was very good.
 
How is the post shave? Any difference with the tallow?
 
alfredus said:
How is the post shave? Any difference with the tallow?
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Hard to say as I pushed my blade atleast a half shave too far and got a bit of irritation from it from a last ATG pass under my chin. I'd suspect it to be not quite as good as the Original(vegan) one but a few more uses will confirm this.
 
Next up was the Classic - Pura Fresco, I thought this would be a good hot day scent but not 100% sure anymore - it was a humid bugger here yesterday! Anyway it lathered VERY easily. Only took ~15sec loading. Used the VS Synth.

Very good lather, excellent all-around shave (though I think a lot of that was due to the new Polsilver I had in the Red Tip SS). Wonderful post shave feeling of plumpness and softness in my skin and as soon as I picked my wife up she commented on how good I smelt, which was solely down to the CRSW soap!

Very happy with this one.
 
Second last soap I've not used (realising this made me think my god I've got a LOT of soaps, hard to find a chance to rotate back to many others I've bought and yet to use!) - but it's CRSW Spiced Amber (Original).

Straight off the bat what a GREAT scent - I'd say it errs towards old school preferences but it's really big and punch but not in a way that was a problem. I re-smelt all of them again before writing this and it's very hard to split my favourite scent, but this is right there in a photo finish.

Used a Semogue 2000 with it (which is a wonderful brush that I bought from Drubbing a year or so back, honestly not sure why he sold it as it's a great balance of a boar with some badgerish tendencies). Loaded very lightly but got a huge amount of very good yogurty lather within 20secs of face lathering. These Original line soaps are the best I've seen by far for lathering ease - they make Arko look like MWF with a cup of hard water!

Very good cushion and slide, easily had enough for 2.5 passes - no irritation at all after. The razor was EJ DE86, Gillette Platinum (4). Good shave but the EJ left me wanting a tad after the R41's tour de force a few days ago.

The wonderful scent of the Spiced Amber really lingers nicely, my face still very slightly smelt of it this morning. These soaps are real sleeping giants and I'll bet that in 2015 CRSW starts to get more and more attention as an absolutely top echelon artisan soap maker.
 
Nick the Knife said:
These soaps are real sleeping giants and I'll bet that in 2015 CRSW starts to get more and more attention as an absolutely top echelon artisan soap maker.
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Someone said (was it you earlier?) that CRSW are taking with an Aussie regarding supplying their soaps locally DownUnder. If so, then we may all get to have a try...
 
filobiblic said:
Someone said (was it you earlier?) that CRSW are taking with an Aussie regarding supplying their soaps locally DownUnder. If so, then we may all get to have a try...
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Yes, they did say that to me. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that i didn't get a decent response from CRSW as they actually asked me about a possible Oz vendor and gave them a large and detailed response suggesting several vendor options for them. Oh well, they make great soap anyway. :)
 
Final soap used - Savon #2 (Original) - again lathered like Cujo on a hot summers day! The scent isn't my favourite - a bit citronella-ish tending towards tangello/mandarin sort of tones - still pleasant but it wasn't a WOW reaction like with several others.

Agin the main thing was it just lathered with zip effort and very little loading. Used the VS synth, which as pointed out by others recently like other synths gives a really smooth bubble free lather ever so easily.

Nice shave, not quite as good as the others but I kind of rushed it as we had a huge storm here and the missus was flipping out about whether to turn the TV etc off *sigh* - other accessories to the shave were Muhle R41 and a Polsilver Brown (3).
 
Nonick said:
How often do you roll out the R41 ?
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I only used it for the first time a few days ago, so this was the 2nd use.

Just got the head from Connaught, ~$AUD27 delivered - add the Weber Bulldog and you're sorted. Kind of nice just swapping the heads - I think I've around 5-6 others here that will all potentially mix and match, hard to go past the Weber handle though so every other handle will be never touched!
 
So what was the favourite scent?

Is there any discernible difference between the soaps? Are they all the same base formula?
 
filobiblic said:
So what was the favourite scent?

Is there any discernible difference between the soaps? Are they all the same base formula?
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Fave, ummm not sure I'd need to resniff to determine but IIRC it's splitting hairs between 4 of them - I'm not enamored with the two Savon scented ones, they're not bad just whatever bases they've used aren't in my wheelhouse of preference.

I'd definitely have to use a bunch more times and with the same brush each time to be able to tell if the Classic or Original soaps are much different - I suspect they're much of a muchness. Being that one is tallow and the other vegan there are significant base formula differences, discernable from the ingredients alone - I've read that each one has folks who feel it's superior to the other.
 
 
Used the BayRum today, can't believe I ever had qualms about its scent as it is really lovely.

I have to say its a photo finish between these and Mike's for best post-shave feel, really plush on one's skin.
 
So to resurrect this thread NtK your favourites were Bergamot & bay, and Pura Fresco how are these going several months on? Worth investing? The only offer the select line now I see
 
Nonick said:
So to resurrect this thread NtK your favourites were Bergamot & bay, and Pura Fresco how are these going several months on? Worth investing? The only offer the select line now I see
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We've all moved on to Barrister & Mann now surely....
 
Nonick said:
So to resurrect this thread NtK your favourites were Bergamot & bay, and Pura Fresco how are these going several months on? Worth investing? The only offer the select line now I see
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Yes, those two were probably my initial favourites (scent wise) - but the others (having lived with them for a while now) were all pretty good - just often quite different from each other.

FWIW I might actually have a couple of these for sale soon. :)
 
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