Today’s review, by request, is Black Tea and Leather shave gel from Mancave Soapworks. T’is the first non-lathering gel I’ll reviewed thus far, and when I say non-lathering, I don’t mean “doesn’t lather well without a lot of water, but once you get that right lathers up quite nicely” like some other creams designed to be used brushless, I mean “doesn’t do anything whatsoever when a brush and water is used upon it.”

Needless to say, the shave performance is rather different from most. I will say it provides an extremely slick glide. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of having virtually no cushioning, not only being a gel but a relatively thin one.

Which isn’t to say that it gave a completely terrible shave, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for anyone remotely new to the whole wetshaving scene. Those a bit more experienced should be able to judge to what extent they rely upon the cushioning of their usual soap or cream.

As to be expected, you will also be using a lot more of the product on a daily basis than your average cream or soap. I ended up going through about 15 g of the stuff during the course of a 3 pass shave, and that was with laying it on relatively thinly. Thus I’d only expect to get about 8 shaves out of each jar.

The scent is a nice spicy concoction, the black tea being quite evident, with the leathery scent providing a nice base. All in all, it’s an overtly manly scent. Strength-wise, it’s fairly strong, quite noticeable throughout the shave (at least it avoids the problem that a lot of soaps have with the lathering process killing off their aroma).

9/10 Scent Pleasantness

9/10 Scent Strength

4/10 Lather Quality (reflects new scoring as outlined here)

Overall, I’d give it a 5/10. The scent delivers, but the shave isn’t all that good. Personally, I’d just go with the aftershave balm in the same scent instead.

Gear used:

Ingredients: Aqua, alcohol, glycerin, polysorbate, carbomer, triethamine, methylparaben, propylparaben, fragrance, aloe gel, aloe oil.