Straight Razor Place Forums

This is marketed by Omega as a shaving soap, however it's rather soft and tacky for a soap, I'd class it more as a firm cream and have used it as such. It comes in a tube or a pot, both holding 150ml (5.2oz). I parted with the extremely reasonable sum of $13NZ for this, and I've seen the same soap available on Amazon for around $6US pp. The pot is fairly cheap black plastic, but for the price I paid, I'm not too worried about it. IMHO it doesn't look too bad anyway, and does the job. One thing I don't like about the pot is that the lid clips on somewhat loosely rather than screwing on, which means that air can get in and dry the surface slightly.

The texture of the soap is mentioned above, but I'll also add that when you first get it it has a dry leathery sort of skin to it, probably due to that loose-fitting lid I mentioned. This skin doesn't lather as well, and doesn't break up or adhere to the bristles too well, as I found the first time I tried to use this soap - I ended up chasing a small lump of soap that hid in the lather around my mug with my brush. I mashed this skin up with a popsicle stick, and the sticky soap surface that was thus exposed lathers better and adheres to the bristles nicely.

I tried this soap with two brushes, the entry level Tweezerman, and a Semogue silvertip (the 2015, in case you're interested). Both lathered very well in a mug, and did well on the face too, although I'd say that overall the mug worked better for me. It created mounds of well textured lather from a small chunk roughly the size of a pea, and has a light and pleasing menthol scent and that nice cooling feel you get from menthol. The lather lasted for several passes too, without requiring much in the way of extra effort - the odd dribble of water before a pass if it looks like it's drying up, a quick whip, and you're away again.

I'm not sure how to rate the cushion, since I'm still new to this wetshaving game, but it provided enough slickness for me to shave with without discomfort, and felt like it gave me a good cushion, although I can only compare to Col. Conk soap at this stage.

Moisturising-wise, it didn't feel like it dried my skin at all, but nor did it leave it feeling hugely moisturised, just a very light moisturising effect, if any.

Overall, given the low cost, easy lathering, and decent slickness, I'd give it a solid 8.5/10. I recommend this for other newbs wanting to try a cream but not wanting to spend a fortune. This is going in my shaving rotation and is currently my number one soap to go to (OBR and TGQ samples to come soon though, so it might be displaced!).