Next up, we’ve got a cream that I’ve been waiting far too long to review: Acqua di Parma’s Collexione Barbiere Shaving Cream. Mind you, it’s the only shaving cream the Acqua di Parma makes, so you’ll typically see it called just that, or even just AdP.

The scent is a traditional “Colonia” scented cream, which might not tell you anything about it. Basenotes outlined the scents included in AdP’s main Colonia cologne line as being made up of citrus, lavender, rosemary, rose, vetiver, sandalwood, and patchouli. Suffice it to say that my nose isn’t trained enough to pick out those details. However, it is a scent which I do find fairly pleasant.

And, before anyone asks, yes it does smell fairly similar to the RazoRock XXX, or at least the old version, as I haven’t had a chance to pick up the reformulation yet. The XXX managed to beat it handily strength-wise however, as the AdP was relatively weakly scented during the shave. It didn’t fade all that much, but it was definitely subtle.

The lather quality was superior: whipped up easily, nice wide range of acceptable water levels producing good results, producing a nice thick lather, with great glide, and some decent moisturization properties to boot.

8/10 Scent Pleasantness

7/10 Scent Strength

9/10 Lather Quality

All in all, I’m giving it a 7/10. That’s rounding down rather than up, but still. The lather was great, but the scent definitely could have been stronger to suit my tastes.

Cost: So it looks like this was actually the old version; the soap was reformulated last year, and made unscented. Honestly, there’s no way in hell that a jar of the stuff is worth $70 if we’re going on the lather quality alone. There’s better stuff out there for far cheaper. A 4.4 oz jar of the stuff will set you back $70. As for the samples shown, I got it off of someone from /r/shave_bazaar, I’m not sure they’re readily available for purchase.

Gear used:

Ingredient listing: Aqua, Stearic Acid, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Glycerin, Myristic Acid, Parfum, Propylene Glycol, PEG=150 Distearate, Limonene, Hydroxycitronellal, Menthyl Lacate, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Triticum Vulgare (Wheat) Germ Oil, Linalool, Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Malva Sylvestris (Mallow) Extract, Melissa Officinalis Leaf Extract, Tetrasodium EDTA, Citral, Benzyl Salicylate, Eugenol, Coumarin, Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, Geraniol, Hedera Helix (Ivy) Extract, Mentha Aquatica Leaf Extract, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Leaf Extract, Amyl Cinnamal.