Thread: Review of Sebum Gold type Green Shave Soap.

So, back in Boston there is this outfit branding itself as a luxury shave goods maker with a line of soaps and post shave oils. They tout all natural ingredients and different ingredients.

The items ship in a box with their name embossed on the inside and for packing material they use something I haven't seen in decades, excelsior. That's basically wood shavings. It was THE packing material in the 1950s 60s and before. Everything comes in heavy apothecary glass bottles with eyedropper dispensers made from ground glass and natural rubber or heavy glass bottles using an aluminum and cork top sealed with rubber. The labels on their products are made from natural wood. They claim the bottles on the 5 oz products take 20 minutes to fill and seal.

I do have some of the post shave oils and they are great stuff but that's for another forum and another day.

The products are sold classified by colors. The soap comes in green, gold, purple and blue. No the soap isn't that color it just means the differing types like the purple is "mint Julep and lavender and the blue is "earths rarest essential oils, and the green are woodland essential oils and they have a Latte too. Prices are around $65-75 for 7 oz of product and they are all very small batch products and seem to sell out pretty fast. Then you go on a waiting list.

So on to the soap.

What makes a soap a soap?
From their site:
"Our soap base is Saponified oils of Kokum Butter, Illipe Butter, Virgin Red Raspberry Seed Oil, and Essential Oil Blend. All great skin food, but our real advantage is what we don't use. Take a look at your top 5 soaps. Chances are the first ingredient on the list says one of these three things: Stearic Acid, Potassium Stearate, or Sodium Stearate. They are just 3 different ways to say stearic acid.
Stearic acid is very important to shaving soap to suspend a lather that does not break down. Other soapers typically use 50-70% of this cheap ingredient in their formula. The problem is, there is no such thing as a stearic acid nut, tree, or flower. So that means it is synthetically produced with chemicals; most commonly leached from Palm Oil by using a toxic nickel slurry as a catalyst. This can result in trace amounts of colloidal nickel in the finished product."

They claim their product has stearic acid however it's a byproduct of the natural products they use.

The product isn't a hard soap or a croap either. It's just kind of a soft soap but not too soft.

They recommend using a synthetic brush that is damp and start building lather and add water a few drops at a time and you wind up with a lather like "sour cream" in consistency.

Their method worked like a charm and it was fast. Just about any soap I use with my one synthetic I need to reload the brush. This time I didn't have to. All the qualities important like glide and cushion and lube were top of the line. I honestly don't see any reason any brush would do just as well as long as you don't soak it at first.

Scent of course is subjective and I'm afraid my aging olfactory lobes aren't what they used to be but it had a medium strong but not overpowering woodsy scent. Nothing sweet or flowery but a no nonsense authentic scent. It kind of reminds me of some of the scents Meisner soaps have which I've described the same way. No, it doesn't smell like any Meisner soap. it's just not your typical English or Italian type scent. After cleaning off just a hint of the scent lingers which is very nice.

The container is very heavy glass with walls around a quarter inch thick and a large cork as a cover. If you dropped it on your toe you'd be in big trouble.

Yes, I like it and it's definitely a Tier One Soap. I think even Obie would like it.

Thank you for your review.

I do like au natural shaving products but unfortunately many fall by the wayside.
I just looked at the Sē'bŭm gold website and felt the psuedo bullshite rammed down my throat, which is a shame, however I know you have tried many, many soaps and if you think Obie might like it, it might be worth keeping an eye out.

Originally Posted by markbignosekelly

Thank you for your review.

I do like au natural shaving products but unfortunately many fall by the wayside.
I just looked at the Sē'bŭm gold website and felt the psuedo bullshite rammed down my throat, which is a shame, however I know you have tried many, many soaps and if you think Obie might like it, it might be worth keeping an eye out.

Well, they are marketing an expensive product and when you do that you have to justify the price somehow so you push the packaging and presentation and production. They are no different than any other outfit doing the same. Look at the site for the oneblade razor and you see the same type of stuff.

With what you say about the product, at least they do deliver the goods to go with the fancy packaging and that is how it should be. They are trying to cater to a certain type of clientele, customer would be too mundane a term here, and seem to know how to do it. Nothing wrong with an excellent product presented properly.


Bob

Hm. Their prices put them in Meißner Tremonia / Martin de Candre territory. Performance wise, that is a very, very high bar to clear. And they have borrowed heavily from Meißner's model (refills, all organic products, heavy glass jars - and I like the old style packing, that's a really nice touch).

Unfortunately, they do not seem to offer sample sizes, and after a few major mis-investments (Santa Maria Novella, anyone - despite the really nice flagship store and their really, really nice perfumes?), I am most certainly not forking out major cash for a niche product whose makers are overly fond of Instagram filters to make their packaging more hipster compatible.

So there. Other than that, pics or it never happened, as they say

Actually the jars they use are nothing like Meisner Tremonia. I have plenty of Tremonia shave soaps and A/S products and comparing the two is like comparing a Buick to a Mercedes 500 class.

Actually the soap itself is no better than Meisner performance wise. As to the natural claims you have to ask a Chemist.

In fact I just weighed a jar of Tremonia Lavender DeLuxe. Not full but almost and it's 325 G. The Sebum is 710 G full.

Could you take a picture of the ingredients list please?

Originally Posted by markbignosekelly

Could you take a picture of the ingredients list please?

A picture? You'll have to trust me it's a short list:

in order: Saponified Oils of kokum Butter, Illipe Butter, Virgin Red Raspberry Seed Oil, Essential oil Blend (Fragrance)

That's it.

Several people have raved about the post shave oil and the soaps on another forum. I've been tempted to try the green as I think I would like the scent, but I can't convince myself to spend $200 for both. Thanks for your review.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Actually the jars they use are nothing like Meisner Tremonia. I have plenty of Tremonia shave soaps and A/S products and comparing the two is like comparing a Buick to a Mercedes 500 class.

You're talking to a German, Nelson. The Mercedes always wins. It will be always be uglier and have fewer gadgets, but it will still win. So there.

And I said "borrowed", not "copied".

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Actually the soap itself is no better than Meisner performance wise. As to the natural claims you have to ask a Chemist.

Well, excellent. I have long given up on US ingredients lists, because for some unknown reason, the FDA's regulations for soaps result in pretty meaningless data. The EU's regulations are much better in this particular case (it's the other way round for perfumes, funnily enough).

But I appreciate your comment on performance. That saves me the investment. I still consider Meißner Tremonia my personal benchmark†, both in terms of performance (outstanding) but also price (challenging). No need for another high price product unless it's significantly better. So, thank you very much.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

In fact I just weighed a jar of Tremonia Lavender DeLuxe. Not full but almost and it's 325 G. The Sebum is 710 G full.

Oh, yes! Let's do weight wars! Anyone in for a lead jar? Also too, Sebum ships 200g of soap, Meißner‡ just 90 (if memory serves).

Either way, thanks for the informative review. I wish there were more reviews like that here.

Happy Easter,
Robin

† Actually, the "GBP 2 for 5 pucks" Italian mystery soap I picked up at Scottish Fine Soaps's factory outlet is just as good. Too bad the sample puck I sent Obie got lost in the mail despite €16 for shipping...

‡ Just for the record, that sign that looks like a B in Meißner is an sz ligature. If in doubt, use "ss", that's the recommendation for German German (might be different in Austria - you never know).