Irish Shaving Soaps Review 5/5: SunRose Garden

A little bit about SunRose Garden:
The beautifully named SunRose Garden was set up by Natasha & Martin in County Wexford. Their background is in complimentary healing therapies and they are dedicated to using natural, active ingredients in their handmade products, and use as many locally sources components as possible. Their website offers a idea range of products including a face care range and gift packs. Their online shop ships worldwide and accepts all major credit cards.

Presentation:
With a lovely warm colour to both the bar and packaging, this is the only product in this review series that uses "open" packaging (ie. the product is not fully wrapped). While this is more environmentally friendly, as it minimises packaging waste, it also means that some people like myself will want to wrap it in something else for storage in between uses so that it doesn't dry out too much. On the website the "Clean Shave" bar is shown as being a round puck made in a floral mould. I'm unsure as to the reason behind this difference in presentation to what I received, however the bar is slightly soft and very malleable and so will easily fit in a shaving mug regardless of the shape. It is a good 100grams and the open-wrap presentation adds to that handmade feel in my opinion. This is not a slice cut off a larger block, this is an individual hand-crafted single bar which is a nice touch and feels more personal.


Ingredients:
Olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, rapeseed oil, avocado oil, castor oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, neem oil, green clay, spring water, glycerine, essentail oils of bergamot, sandalwood, juniper and lavender.
I like the addition of the neem oil in this product as is is known for its antiseptic properties and thus is very good for the skin in small amount like this.


Scent:
When I looked at the list of essential oils used in the soap I though "that's an unusual combination" and I was right... the result is a wonderfully unusual scent. It's the type of scent that I keep on going back to and having another sniff of trying to pick out notes and work out the breakdown of the blend. It is light but the hints of sandalwood at a touch of a musk. It is fresh but neither distinctly floral nor fruity. It is lovely, addictive and my favourite out of all of those reviewed. It doesn't increase too much upon lathering nor does it linger on the skin but I am sitting here with it in my shaving mug beside me and I just can't get enough!


Lather & Shave:
You can not use too little water with this product. Martin, the maker, suggests rubbing it directly onto the skin and he's right. It will not create a usable lather in a bowl and it is very difficult to load onto your brush. The lather is thin and bubbly (more like a bath soap) but despite that it gives quite a good, moisturizing shave. There is no cushion to it so thick haired, sensitive skin types may not find it softening enough, however it has a nice glide and my skin is lovely and soft afterwards. A bit more work to use compared to a lot of soaps though.


Cost:
€4.00 per puck from http://www.sunrosegarden.com/products/Clean-Shave.html

Summary:
It gets the highest marks for its scent and consistency (nice, soft and easy to mold into your container) yet is lacking in cushion and lather durability. It's the type of soap that can hook you with its scent and that you'll put the extra effort into to get a shave out of it for that reason alone.


- BE


This is the last entry into this set of reviews - I hope you enjoyed them all and let me know if I missed any!