Honeybee Soaps has wonderful little 1 ounce samples, pressed into a 3 inch wide disc that’ll fit well into most folks’ shaving mugs. When I went to go load my brush with this one, however, I just held it in my off hand. Mainly because I didn’t want to use the same container for both loading and lathering, and because my spare tub was full of my pre-shave soap.

This was for the most part an example of “wetter is better” when lathering. A reasonable amount of extra water didn’t thin things down all that much, but helped a lot with the slickness. The soap also produced quite a lot of lather, I certainly didn’t at any point feel the need to go and make some more. It was relatively stable, showing a bit of degradation / breakdown if you left it sitting, but less than I see from most other brands. Overall, it gave a really good shave, and left my face feeling nice and moisturized, and irritation free.

Sue at Honeybee Soaps promised “the heady scent of full springtime blooms” with this soap, and I can say she certainly delivered. Lilac is one of my favorite floral scents, and it was captured fairly in this soap.

As for the strength of the Lilac aroma, it was just right. From the moment I opened the package the lilac scent was quite evident, and once I started lathering up, the aroma filled the room. Unlike a lot of soaps out there, the lather itself managed to capture the scent as well. Once I was done my shave and rinsed off, the lilac scent did not seem to linger, or at the very least, if it did, it was weak enough that it wasn’t noticeable over my aftershave balm.

9/10 Scent Pleasantness

10/10 Scent Strength

8/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

So, I was quite quite pleased with this sample, and am greatly looking forward to the other 19 Honeybee soaps I’ve currently got to get through. 8/10. Great success!

Cost: Samples are $1.59 per ounce (which is a pretty darned good deal), full 3.5 ounce pucks are $4.49, or $5.99 for 4 ounces in a plastic tub. This is definitely not one of the cases where half the price of the soap seems to be in the container it’s in.

Gear used:

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Castor Oil, Hempseed Oil, Safflower Oil, Shea Butter, Glycerine (vegetable origin), Vitamin E, Water, Sodium Hydroxide, Sorbitol, Sorbitan Oleate, Soybean Protein, Wheat Protein, White Kaolin China Clay, Cosmetic Color and Fragrance Oil.