Queen Charlotte Custom Soaps Arrived!

Hi everyone! Sorry this entry is so long but I wanted to give credit where it's due. Let me start by saying I get no discount from this vendor nor am I any connection to them at all. This is my independent opinion. This goes for all products I review on my blog and I will always say if I get anything free to review (hasn't happened yet but here's hoping!).
I was in bad need of some retail therapy lately so I figured I would treat myself to something I have always wanted - a nice Strawberry scented shaving soap. Now I LOVE my Key Lime Queen Charlotte shaving soap and, having tried many soaps and creams, I simply can't deny that these soaps are the best for me. I tried for a long time to give others a fair chance and to have several favourites, but you know what? I can't. His products just rock. I've tried Truefitt & Hill, Taylors of Old Bond Street, Cella, Monsavon, Tallow Palmolive, Mama Bears, Gentlemen's Best, Cremo etc. and QC stands above them all in terms of scents and lather for me. I'm not saying the others aren't great soaps though, don't get me wrong, but these tick all the right boxes on my list.


The owner of Queen Charlotte Soaps is an amazing guy called Matthew. He and I sent many e-mails back and forth and I have to give HUGE kudos to him for being so great and patient in helping me create the perfect custom shaving soaps. I decided to get a few as the shipping is quite expensive (yeah... that's it... shipping...) and in the end I settled on an Orange EO soap, a Strawberry FO soap, and a Rice Flower and Shea FO soap. I also picked up three of his bath soaps and he was kind enough to to put in two samples for me too - Rose and Vostok (free of charge with a free soap dish too as I had a large order!). 
They arrived this week (SUPER fast shipping to Ireland) and here's the haul:

And these tubs are HUGE (5 oz.). He really fills them right to the brim:

And the best part is, because he already had the fragrances there was no extra cost! Just the same price as the soaps on his website. So I'd urge any of you out there looking to get a scent you can't find elsewhere to have a chat to Matthew about this as he has tons more than the ones he has advertised on his site!

So of course I had to give it a whirl so I opened up the Orange one yesterday and tried it out. I actually started smiling when the wafts of orange scent rose up as I lathered and it was as easy as ever to get a nice thick, slick lather. I leg-lather in the shower so couldn't take pictures of that (!) but I whipped up a batch in a bowl today to share some pictures with you guys. I haven't bowl lathered in a long time so there are some tiny bubbles there but you get a good idea of the quality of this soap. Here's what we in the shaving world call lather-porn:

I'll be reviewing these soaps on here in due course and will go into more detail about the scents etc. It'll be hard not to just stick with them all the time I'm sure! Now I just have to stop myself thinking of other great scents I'd like. What? Me? A problem? Never!


- BE