Review: Le Pere Lucien Oud-Santal Tallow Limited Edition

Bottom line up front: Great soap, fabulous scent. IMHO this limited edition should become a regular one. By all means do yourself a favor and buy this soap.
I missed out on the original issue, and was really excited when they announced an additional batch. The soap comes in very nice and spacious steel can, and although it is not cheap, the 200 gr. of it is pretty generous amount making the price comparable to many other great artisan creations.
The intriguing and really perfume-quality scent, besides the obvious agar- and sandalwood combination, includes some sweet flowery (lavender or patchouli) sub-motifs - making it mellow and dreamy on one hand but very well-balanced by the down to earth woody components - on the other.
The soap consistency is more that of a "croap" - easily loadable even by the softest of brushes. I'd really like it to be a bit more cured at the factory - as in its present state it's very uneven mix of extremely soft and creamy substance with multiple random-sized inclusions of hard and more soap-like lumps inside of it. I actually left it open at my working table to cure for additional couple of weeks, simultaneously enjoying the great aroma.
Another slight issue is this soap's performance in hard water. Don't get me wrong: the soap is great! But for such a great one I'd expect it to perform equally well in any kind of water, while in reality the slickness (and only it) was somewhat undermined by my very hard tap water, and really revealed itself only when I used resin-softened one.
In any other aspect this soap is on par with any first tier soap I own: great and stable lather (use a lot of water - this soap is a thirsty one), perfect skin hydration, good protection and cushion effect, nice slickness (in soft water) - this soap will definitely save you a few nicks. And did I mention the heavenly bouquet already? :-)
After the shave my skin feels great, and the scent lingers for a long time - so you'd better use similarly scented aftershave.
All in all, LPL now resides in my top 5 - out of a few dozens I own.