Thread: A curious review - Imperial Drifter traditional shave soap

Let me start by saying I don't often do formal reviews of anything, especially shaving software. But I think it's a rare thing in today's world to find something that genuinely surprises you, and even more rare to find something that surprises you in a positive way. The shaving soap in question, however, is one that until recently I had never heard anything about. And it's in that spirit of rare positive discovery that I feel compelled to write a review for you fine folks.

My wife and I, like many people, like to take weekend trips to nearby historical townships and areas to window shop and site see. Living in Kansas City give us the opportunity to discover some great historical American areas. Generally I'll hunt down the local apothecary or gentleman store in search of pucks up soap that I have not used yet. These little treasures are getting harder and harder to find. As is my beautiful wife's patience for my soap-aggregating habit... So "shopping" for soap has been more of a "grab and buy" operation.
A few months ago my wife and I were visiting the town of Weston, MO which is a wonderful rustic old town with a great history and an even better main street culture. If you're ever in the area I highly recommend you take a visit. Delightful little tobacco producer there as well, but I digress. We took a side street and found ourselves in a leather goods shop that also carried things like custom Damascus knives and oddly enough, wet shaving supplies. I took the opportunity to grab one of the products that I'd never seen before, nor heard of. It was a jar of soap that said "TRADITIONAL SHAVE SOAP" on the side and the scent of "Sweet Earth" on the top. I took a quick wiff, and headed to the counter.

When I got home I took a look at the 3 soaps I had gotten from my trip. 2 pucks and the jar and I noticed that the brand was actually "Imperial Drifter". The traditional shave soap bit was merely a description and "Sweet Earth" was the scent. Now, usually when I pick up these soaps I'm not expecting much, and I'm almost always right in doing so. But I decided to take the Sweet Earth for a spin that night anyway because I like trying all new soaps even if they don't yield the greatest shave.
First thing I noticed was that the scent changed immediately upon building the lather. When dry, this soap is true to its name... a very sweet sort of mossy scent that's almost over the top. However, when I built up a lather with my boar brush it began to take on a much more funky scent. I started to smell a musky dew smell and then what I can describe only as the smell of herbal seed oils. Like I said, it was definitely funky, but it was not at all unpleasant. And then I looked down and realized that it had built up a very nice lather in just a matter of seconds. The soap itself isn't super hard so that wasn't all that surprising but the quality of the lather was quite nice. As I applied it to my beard it went on very readily with good slickness and hydration. It was different from most soaps of mine in that the lather had a slight almost oily consistency to it. Not greasy, but almost like you'd put a dab of olive oil on your brush before lathering.
The shave was impressive. I got a 2 pass BBS, which I know is an incredibly subjective thing to say and I dislike it when people use this measure in reviews. But to put it in relative context I usually require a 3 pass shave with touchups to get BBS with anything but the very best soaps and creams. Very little irritation (for me there is always some) and an enjoyable splash of aftershave. I was done.
I sort of passed this off as a lucky shave. Sometimes I just get in the zone with my shave and the right beard prep and lather make for a good 2-pass for me. But I tried it again 2 days later with very similar results.
Over the past 3 months or so I've been including this soap in my go-to rotation and it's really been a performer. I've never heard anyone speak a word about this soap or the company in general, but it's a very fine product! I've worked my way through about 1/4 of the container with results that I would liken to top-tier soaps.

All in all I was impressed at every turn by this soap, particularly for never having heard a word spoken about it. It's not the fanciest looking packaging in the world and it's not the cheapest soap unfortunately. But it's a good solid product that if you're looking to add to your collection (or just try new things like me) you should definitely consider!
TRADITIONAL STYLE SHAVE SOAP-SWEET EARTH | IMPERIAL DRIFTER


I hope you all found this informative. I know I always like reading about new soaps and scents from forum member's first hand experiences. Thanks,


Tom