Thread: No scent from DR Harris soap

Just got my first DR Harris soap -- Marlborough.

Was anxious to try it out and for the life of me I cannot detect any scent at all. My wife took a sniff and said she can pick up a subtle spicy scent.

I can smell other soaps, like TOBS sandalwood, just fine so doesn't seem to be me having no sense of smell.

Anyone else experience this?

To me DR Harris Arlington has a very mild scent. It smells soapy and clean and reminds me of a bar of ivory soap. It's far less pungent than TOBS.

My experience is limited to a single puck.

I agree. Marlborough, Arlington and especially Windsor have light scents. At least to my nose. But they are phenomenal soaps and a pleasure to shave with. I love them.

I find English soaps pretty aromatically mild in general, but I haven't tried them all. I hear Castle Forbes is pretty pungent. Gonna test that soon. I love BIG scents.

Thanks to both of you. Good to know.

I too like big scents, so sounds like DR Harris isn't necessarily the best brand for me.

I got some DR Harris Arlington back in '07. That and MWF had no scent that I could detect. I smoke tobacco pipes a lot and that might have something to do with my inability to detect a scent. Bunches of guys talk about the scent of natural stones and I've never yet had one that I could tell.

That said, what I liked about the non-scented soap was doing a combo, some call it uber lather, of a soft cream (with scent) and the aforementioned soaps. The fact that they have no scent made them ideal for mixing with something that did.

Great idea, JimmyHAD! Hadn't thought of that -- I have some Simpson citrus blast cream that I haven't been using -- might be a good combo.

How do you do the combo? I assume you start by loading the brush with the hard soap, then add a bit of the cream on top of the soap?

Originally Posted by 400E

Great idea, JimmyHAD! Hadn't thought of that -- I have some Simpson citrus blast cream that I haven't been using -- might be a good combo.

How do you do the combo? I assume you start by loading the brush with the hard soap, then add a bit of the cream on top of the soap?

When I do it I bowl lather. So I load the brush on the puck and then a dollop of cream into the bowl. Lather the melange together. I've never been good at lathering hard soap, so the bit of cream really jazzes it up well.

I do like D.R. Harris soaps, but when I had my various D.R. Harris shaving soaps (Marlborough, Windsor, Arlington, Lavender, Sandalwood) together, I began wondering whether my sense of smell was on the wane after 63 years.

Of course, it did not help that (in the mistaken belief I could tell them easily apart solely by their scent) I had peeled the sticky labels off, as they offended my sense of aesthetics.

It appears, it wasn't my sense of smell after all... :-)



B.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by beluga

I do like D.R. Harris soaps, but when I had my various D.R. Harris shaving soaps (Marlborough, Windsor, Arlington, Lavender, Sandalwood) together, I began wondering whether my sense of smell was on the wane after 63 years.

Of course, it did not help that (in the mistaken belief I could tell them easily apart solely by their scent) I had peeled the sticky labels off, as they offended my sense of aesthetics.

It appears, it wasn't my sense of smell after all... :-)



B.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Glad to hear I'm not the only one to think this way!

I had a short encounter with loss of sense of smell a few years back and was a discouraging experience, but thankfully all got back to normal after about a month. I was wondering if I had a recurrence of this last week with my new seemingly scentless Marlborough puck.

Originally Posted by HopChugger

I agree. Marlborough, Arlington and especially Windsor have light scents. At least to my nose. But they are phenomenal soaps and a pleasure to shave with. I love them.

I find English soaps pretty aromatically mild in general, but I haven't tried them all. I hear Castle Forbes is pretty pungent. Gonna test that soon. I love BIG scents.

Castle Forbes is, of course, not English. It's Scottish.

I have the Windsor soap. It's not the most pungent of my soaps, but I wouldn't call the scent light.