The first thing I would like to say is that James and Edward Atkinsons have one of the most annoying websites I’ve had the displeasure of trying to use in quite some time. I cannot fathom why companies insist upon making “fancy” flash transitions, that do nothing but waste time and impede the basic functionality of actually letting their potential customers find out information about the products they’re trying to sell. They even go so far as to impede your ability to cut and paste any information from the website. Ridiculous!

Anyways, on to the review. I would personally consider this to be a bit more of a really soft soap than a cream. It worked better for me when I loaded the brush directly on the puck, and considering that it comes in a little terracotta bowl with separate refills for the bowl, it definitely seems like the manufacturer is likewise actually treating it more like a soap than a cream. It lathers up nice and thickly, however you don’t get all that much in the way of volume. Despite that, it provided a really nice shave. Enough cushion and enough lubrication to get the job done. As well, it seemed to provide a bit more moisturization than most soaps.

As for the scent, when I order this, I was expecting (and quite looking forward to) a nice strong mango scented shave cream. I freakin’ love mangos. This is not a mango scented shave cream. This is a shave cream which uses some mango seed oil (10th non-water component on the ingredient list), because it has “long been used in beauty creams thanks to its emollient properties”. Overall, the scent is largely dominated by a silty clay-like odour, with some ashy undertones, with just a hint of a mango scent, and a little dash of menthol to boot. It’s not unpleasant by any stretch of the imagination, indeed I kind of like it, but it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting.

It’s a fairly strong scent, quite easily discernible while shaving, but not overpowering.I wasn’t able to notice it lingering at all after I finished up with my rinse / alum block.

6/10 Scent Pleasantness

9/10 Scent Strength

9/10 Quality of lather (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

Overall, I 7/10. It’s definitely recommended if you’re one of those who is only looking after a quality shave, and don’t really care what it smells like, or of course if the description I gave sounds appealing. I’m tempted to knock them down to 6/10 for having a terrible website. Then again, at least they have one, I wasn’t able to find one for the manufacturers of Cella.

Cost: $19.99 for a 100mL refill, or $39.99 for the same amount in the little terracotta bowl. I’m honestly far from convinced that the bowl is worth twenty bucks, especially as most reports I’ve seen have had complaints about it coming stained by the little stickers they use to hold the lid on during shipping.

Gear used:

Ingredient list: Aqua (water), stearic acid, palmitic acid, cocos nucifera (coconut) oil, myristic acid, glycerin, potassium hydroxide, isostearic acid, sodium hydroxide, parfum (fragrance), mangifera indica (mango) seed oil, boric acid, menthol, propylene glycol, benzyl salicylate, lauric acid, tetrasodium edta, ci 47005 (yellow 10), ci 16035 (red 40), ci 42090 (blue 1)