Thread: Taylor of Old Bond Street "Sandalwood" Shaving Cream

Hello, and welcome to part 1 of our new daily soap Robin's Great Sandalwood Shoot-Out. Having completed the lime and lavender scented major line products, I thought I should give sandalwood a try. After all, my very first shaving cream was sandalwood scented (Castle Forbes), and I still quite like the scent. The TOBS sample used for this review was kindly provided by the good people at The Different Scent in Berlin.

Packaging: Functional, sturdy jar with a nice weight to it. It is easy to open and close even with wet fingers. The design is slightly uninspiring, though.

Texture: Very thick, and rich cream. Light caramel colour. Loading brushes of various stiffness is easy.

Scent: In theory, sandalwood should have a rich, sweet, fragrant yet delicate, woody, floral scent. Now, how shall I put it? The good news is, there is a sandalwood smell, and even a nice one. The bad news is, it is buried under what might be described as an "old school soap" scent. Absolutely not something I was expecting, and equally not in line with the rest of the TOBS scents I have come across so far, as they were all subtle, subdued, but with a nice presence. This one more resembles an aftershave type scent, and to make matters worse, lingers on for quite some time. With other TOBS scents (especially the lavender) readily available, this is so far my least favourite TOBS cream. As far as sandalwood scents are concerned, I like Mühle's a lot better.

Latherability: Typical TOBS, there is absolutely nothing to complain about here. The cream likes being whipped up with little water, but if you add a few drops later, it will explode. The lather is thick, rich, creamy, but the scent (see above) is almost overpowering for a cream. The lather, though, stays slick for a long time, certainly longer than any of my shaves last.

Cushion: Excellent as well. There could be a little more glide, I think.

Moisturising: Not too bad, but also not overwhelmingly good. A bit of Caraceni after shave balm helped.

Price: At EUR 15 for 150g, this cream provides excellent value for money. It is considerably cheaper than Castle Forbes without underperforming noticeably in any way.

Overall impression: Get a sample if you can. If you are looking for a clean, pure sandalwood scent, this cream probably is not for you, and you should take a look at The Art of Shaving's or Mühle's (Edwin Jagger) creams.

As a soap guy, I liked the product. I've not tried many other creams, but thought this was a good value. I prefer provence sante for cushion, glide, and moisture, but TOBS is good.

When you hear someone say that a little goes a long way that would be an understatement for this product. I see many posts and suggestions that an almond size will do. This product for I tend to use about a pea or lima bean size amount and still seem to make waaaayyy too much. As far as the scent... Its does has a very strong sandlewood and soap, but as I have never tried another sandlewood product I have no comaprison. I am currently waiting for a shippment of castle forbes sandlewood so i will have something to compare with. As for me this is 10 outta 10.

Amazing, mindblowing shaving cream. The thing that I noticed is how it improved my whole shave experience over the soaps I had been using. You see, however good lather I could make by laboring over the soap cup and swirling away, the lather would always be barely warm by the time I applied it to my face. Using TOBS soap, not on is the lather super rich every single time (using a tiny bit of cream), but the lather is also hot. I swirl it around on my face, not in the soap cup. No time to cool off. WHAT an EXPERIENCE! I've been at this for two years, and only now do I have a good lathering experience. Thank you, TOBS!

I love the smell of sandalwood, and as such I really do like this cream, so much so that I own a tube that lives in my grab bag as well as a tub, however I have to agree, compared to some others the scent is pretty powerful, not an issue for me as I love the smell of sandalwood, but for those days where I want it a little more subtle I wander to the C&E sandalwood soap.

But a good clear review my good man :)

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