Mike’s Natural Shaving Soap Review – Smooth as Cream
Mike’s Natural Shaving Soap
A soft and luxurious soap with a large assortment of scents available. The texture is very rich and thick.
Pros
Scents are unique, but not too strong
The texture is thick and soft
All Natural Ingredients
Leaves skin feeling extra smooth and soft
Tallow-based
Cons
Frequently Sold Out
Lather takes some time to build
Texture is so thick it takes time to rinse off
Another day and another soap! This time we are looking at a brand called Mike’s Natural Soaps out of Portland, Oregon, to continue the finding the best shaving soaps campaign.
As always, those who follow my articles and reviews know that these are my favorite reviews to do. I like trying new soaps and new scents, so this one was a layup for my editor to send to me.
Don’t tell him that, though, or else he will have me reviewing razors. Maybe I write too well? Who knows.
Today though, it’s going to be all about Mike.
About the brand: Mike’s Natural Soaps was started (oddly enough) by a man named Mike. As many of these stories start, Mike was really tired of the canned shaving cream and plastic razor mambo. Looking for something better, Mike started down the path of traditional wet shaving and never looked back. Now he has his own line of soaps that are so frequently sold out, you have to continually refresh the webpage just to get the scents you want. Talk about suffering from success.
Mike’s Natural Shaving Soap Product Description
Mike’s Shaving Soap is not too impressive when you get your hands on the tubs. They aren’t fancy looking or slick and stylish. They are however very practical and easy to identify.
The Goose on the label does a great deal to make it feel homey. These tubs look like something I would find on the shelf of my local outdoorsman store, right next to the bug spray and the camp soap.
Mike is a home grown business, so each of these soaps are made by him and him alone. He processes orders himself, and does all the shipping himself. Sort of the ideal small businessman.
This means that you are getting a good handcrafted product, with the trade off being that he is frequently sold out of the most popular scents, and he takes time to process the orders himself.
You may find yourself waiting for your shipment, unless you decide to spring for priority mail. While that may sound like a negative, at the risk of showing my hand too early I can say his soap is well worth the wait.
About the Scents
Mike offers 15 available scents for order on his website:
- Bay Rum
- Hungarian Lavender
- Wild Honeysuckle
- Lemongrass and Eucalyptus
- Peppermint and Rosemary
- Rose, Patchouli, and Cedarwood
- Bergamot, Orange, and Ylang-Ylang
- Coconut
- Orange, Cedarwood, and Black Pepper
- Unscented
- Vetiver
- Barbershop
- Lavandin and Eucalyptus
- Lime
- Pine and Cedarwood
Mike’s soap is pretty popular, so snagging a scent you would like is sometimes up to chance. At time of writing only the Bergamot, Orange, and Ylang-Ylang and the Wild Honeysuckle are currently in stock.
When I ordered, I managed to get two scents: the Wild Honeysuckle and the Orange, Cedarwood, and Black Pepper.
Wild Honeysuckle
This scent immediately hits with a floral aroma that quickly slips into the sweet honey scent. I grew up with a honeysuckle bush right next to my house, so this smell is very familiar to me. It doesn’t feel artificial at all, and like the natural real thing.
The scent finishes with a soft musk aroma smelling much like rain on soft fertile ground. Overall, it feels like I am going for a nice walk after a rain storm.
Orange, Cedarwood, and Black Pepper
When opening up this jar, your nose is immediately assaulted by the hit of Orange Citrus. That Orange lingers for a long time on the nostrils before slowly transitioning to the deep cedar scent.
Unfortunately (and this may just be my nose), I really cannot smell the pepper at all. Though there is this deep sandalwood note underneath it all.
Both these scents are subtle, almost hidden. They slowly fade over several hours, just leaving a nice and clean feeling on the palette.
Ingredients
From the Website directly:
“ingredients: Distilled water saponified tallow (beef) and stearic acid; vegetable glycerin; saponified kokum butter, avocado oil, and shea butter; lanolin, fragrance and/or essential oil(s); saponified coconut oil; kaolin clay, vitamin E.”
Notice anything? No big words or scientific mumbo-jumbo. Though I did have to look up the definition of Saponified. It means to turn fat into a soap using an alkali, by the way.
These ingredients I can identify and understand. I know exactly what it is I am putting on my face. That means a great deal when you are worried about possibly having a bad reaction to any ingredient.
The Lather and Shaving Experience
For this review, I used my normal method of taking three passes at my face: once with the grain, once across the grain, and once against the grain.
I used a RazoRock safety razor, with a fresh Muhle blade in place.
I didn’t use any pre-shave with this one, because I wanted to be able to judge the texture and lather without feeling anything else. Likewise, I didn’t use any aftershave other than an alum block, so I could feel how the soap left my skin feeling after the shave.
How Does it Lather?
Lathering with this stuff is somewhat of a chore. While the Lanolin and Tallow provide for a rather rich texture, it takes some time to build a really good lather with this stuff.
Granted, shaving enthusiasts are going to argue that it is because of my synthetic brush. I would argue that I’ve never had this issue with any other soap I have tried.
Even my Fine Accoutrement bowl didn’t help as much as normal. I can’t even start to think of how it would lather in a regular mug.
That is not to say it wouldn’t lather at all, just that it took a while and did not produce as much as I thought it would.
If you are in a hurry with this soap, lather straight off the cake. That technique builds a great deal faster, but you will be running through your soap quicker and you are more likely to get shaving soap all over your hands.
The alternative would be to use more water than you think when you are charging the soap before the shave.
How is the Texture?
In one word: RICH!
This texture is thick, rich, and dare I say luxurious. It feels soft and creamy, almost like a marshmallow fluff rather than the normal sudsy soap you get from most mass market shaving soaps.
The texture feels amazingly thick and almost sticky. It took extra time to rinse off my razor and to clean it out of my brush after the shave was done.
I was expecting to have an oily residue on my skin after the shave and rinse, but it was nothing of the sort. While I did feel refreshed, my skin had an overall moisturized feeling.
Even now 3 hours after my shave, I still feel fresh and clean. My checks are soft and smooth. My partner keeps coming up and rubbing my cheeks with a smile.
I consider that a huge win.
How is the Overall Shave?
Nice and smooth, the overall shave was definitely a calming experience.
The soft scent of the soap bloomed as I lathered my face, and the thick lanolin provided a good cushion as the blade sliced through my whiskers.
It was a relaxed and soothing shave I would recommend to anyone.
Value For Money
These soaps range from $15-$20 USD based on the complexity of the scent, plus any shipping and handling that may occur.
Overall, this is a good price for a soap that I can almost guarantee most shaving enthusiasts will enjoy.
It isn’t a steal, but it is a very good deal.
Common Consumer Complaints, Review, and Positive Reports
For the most part, many people really love this soap, and it is easy to see why. Many people love the formula that gives you the top-notch texture and lather.
However, many people are not that impressed with the scents. For the most part, these scents are not anything different than what you would get from some other big name brands. I would slightly agree with that, as the Orange, Cedarwood, and Black Pepper is very much like WSPs Olympus scent. However, this soap has a much superior texture and feel to WSP.
The other complaint I see frequently is that they are sold out so often. Mike is a one man operation, so I feel like I can forgive that. However, others may not and each to their own.
Final Thoughts – Who is Mike’s Natural Shaving Soap for?
Overall, Mike’s Natural Shaving Soap is a perfect fit for the regular Wet Shaver. The Texture and Lather are good, and the feeling of cleanliness and moisturized skin is amazing.
I would not recommend this to anyone who is just getting into Wet Shaving, as there are less expensive and easier to use options on the market. However, if you have been wet shaving for a while and want to try something new? This would be right up your alley.
Mike’s has a facebook page, or you can check out his website https://www.mikesnaturalsoaps.com/.
