

Whenever I get in a new shipment of shaving soaps / creams, me and my girlfriend conduct what we call the “ceremonial smelling of the soaps”. When I got my package of samples in from Kell’s Original, it was the first time that we both ended up liking every single soap sniffed. So, needless to say, I’ve been looking forward to getting around to reviewing one of them for a while.

I would warn you that you absolutely need not be shy about using a lot of water when it comes to this soap. I ended up using quite a bit more than I usually would, which would have caused most other soaps to become far too thin. That didn’t happen with Kell’s, all the extra water helped a lot to ensure that the soap produced was nice and slippery (which wasn’t the case for my first pass without using enough water) while still remaining rich and thick. You also did end up getting quite a lot of lather made, more than I expected from a soap containing any olive oil. Perhaps the talk I’ve heard about how olive oil “kills lather dead” might be an exaggeration. Of course, I do have rather soft water, so that might be a major factor.

As for the scent, it’s a really nice complex sweet woodsy aroma. Kell’s describes it as follows: “It opens with green notes of Mandarin Leaf and Orange Blossom. Heart is heady night Floral, Bulgarian Rose and Vetiver. Dry down has sensual notes of Sandalwood, Bourbon Vanilla, Amber, Labdanum and Tonka Bean.” Alas, my untrained nose is unable to pick apart a fragrance with that much detail! All I know is that I like it a lot.

And… I’d have liked to smell it a bit more. It’s slightly under-powered; I could still make it out while shaving, I just wish I could smell it more strongly while doing so. As is often the case, the soap itself tends to have a much stronger scent than the lather.

9/10 Scent Pleasantness

8/10 Scent Strength

9/10 Lather Quality

The one ounce sample puck I used can be ordered for $2.00, or a 2.7 ounce puck for $5.25, or four ounces that comes in a tin for $8. It also comes in a shave stick too! (2.5 oz for $9) As well as the different scents, they also have formulations in each scent with different amounts of aloe vera gel. I tried out the type sans aloe. Amazon Link.

Overall, I heartily recommend this soap. 9/10. Like I said at the beginning, all the scent samples I got smelled good at first sniff (and I’ll get around to reviewing them all eventually), so I’d recommend giving the samples a go.

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Olive Oil (Grade A extra virgin), Safflower Oil, Glycerine (vegetable origin), Hemp Seed Oil (unrefined), Purified Water, Sodium Hydroxide (saponifying agent), Sorbitol (moisturizer), Sorbitan oleate (emulsifer), Soy bean protein (conditioner), Wheat Protein (conditioner)