Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa stuffed your stockings with some wonderful soaps! … just probably not this one.

The main thing that Arko’s Lemon shaving cream reminded me of was Lysol Lemon scented disinfecting wipes. It’s fairly lemony, but with a bit of a chemical tinge to it that somewhat blunted the pleasantness of the scent. Not terrible per-se, but not generally something I’d plan to put on my face, y’know?

Strength-wise, it comes on reasonably strong, but fades a fair bit before the end of each pass.

Lather-wise, it was pretty decent. I would have liked a bit more slickness, but it lathered up really easily and provided a good amount of cushioning. It’s in the “good enough” category for sure. I should note that I’ve been told that Arko products are apparently especially easy to lather for those who have hard water. I’m blessed with rather soft water, so wouldn’t really know.

5/10 Scent Pleasantness

8/10 Scent Strength

7/10 Quality of Lather (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

So, overall, I’d say it’s a 5/10. The smell is distracting enough to detract from the overall experience on its own, and it’s not exactly like it’s the most luxurious cream in the world to compensate.

Cost: The sample was purchased as one of 6 cream samples from The Shave Den’s shop for $6.75 (samples of “premium” creams will add a little more to the total). Although I’ll note now that they appear to currently be out of stock of Arko samples there. Honestly, I’ve been having trouble finding a place that actually carries the Lemon scent, this place that specializes in various turkish products seems to be the only one (for $2.29 a tube), although I’m not sure if there’s much of a difference between the “Lemon” and the “Citrus” scent, especially considering how similar the packaging is. The citrus seems fairly widely available.

Gear used:

Ingredients (actually for the Arko Ice shaving cream, as I wasn’t able to find one for the Lemon. You can probably drop some or all of the menthol from the Lemon listing): stearic acid, aqua, glycerin, coconut acid, potassium hydroxide, parfum, sodium silicate, sodium hydroxide, cetearyl alcohol, sodium borate, menthol, tocopheryl acetate, potassium chloride, methylparaben, linalool, limonene