Three sandalwood soaps: Gimme the skinny

I have these three sandalwood soaps in my basket. I've never smelled any of them and reviews are fairly scant, so I'm turning to you. What can you tell about them? Do you have a preference?

Thanks!

Bouki

All good but nod to GD on base. This base right at top of game.

Scent is nice but choose soaps on base qualities - my skin horribly damaged and sensative; do not have luxury of only focusing on scent as many do

Well, you know my thoughts...

I have only used the Sir Henry's and here is my minimalist review from another post (it is mid-way down the page).



https://damnfineshave.com/thread-sir-hen...#pid207560

I own both the GD and Lodrino sandalwood so I can't really comment on Sir Henry's. Both DG and Lodrino are top in their performance so nothing to really complain about. Lodrino is softer while GD is a harder base. GD can easily be lathered from the tub. I always scoop Lodrino in my bowl.

The GD to me is closer to a woody sandalwood. The Lodrino has more creamy sweetness to it. I can definitely smell the sandalwood base but there's something else I really can't put my finger on which gives it that sweetness, slightly fake borderline chemical scent.  Maybe a sweet almond. It's been driving me nuts as my brain can't process it :-)

I am both a pure vetiver and sandalwood lover so I like it to be as close and natural as can be. To my nose GD is closer to a sandalwood version than Lodrino. The closest to a real sandalwood soap I have ever used was QED Sandalwood from a long time ago with nothing but pure Sandalwood Mysore EO. It was glycerine based but so were many other soaps a decade and more ago.

I can certainly post on Sir Henry’s Sandalwood!  Yep, yes, absolutely!  I’ve got plenty of sandalwoods and I’ll put Sir Henry’s on the top of the heap.  Best part?  I catch a whiff of it all day.  Lathers so similar to tabac I’d swear I’d see Maurer and Wirtz on the label.  This one will always be in my pile.

I have used Sir Henry's and it is a great soap that gets little traction as too many people focus on the $$ of shaving soaps as a measure which is IMO totally meaningless. The smell of Sir Henry's reminds me of the long discod. Cold River Soap Works Sandalwood. That co. is now however defunct. I have owned two GD soaps and will never ever buy another. That's all I will say about that brand. I have never heard of Ladrino until now so it must be obscure. As well, it's MSRP is insane at $32.99!! I wouldn't pay $32.99 to see Joe Biden eat a bale of hay.  

That said, the best smelling Sandalwood IMO was the OSP from the UK of which I have but one tub. Beautiful and a stellar performer. Yes, I have owned and used the old AOS Sandalwood as made by Valobra and it was good, albeit overpowering and it smelled exactly like the discod. Fine Sandalwood hard soap, with the latter dialed down a little for scent strength.

I have used Sir Henry's and it is a great soap that gets little traction as too many people focus on the $$ of shaving soaps as a measure which is IMO totally meaningless. The smell of Sir Henry's reminds me of the long discod. Cold River Soap Works Sandalwood. That co. is now however defunct. I have owned two GD soaps and will never ever buy another. That's all I will say about that brand. I have never heard of Ladrino until now so it must be obscure. As well, it's MSRP is insane at $32.99!! I wouldn't pay $32.99 to see Joe Biden eat a bale of hay.  

That said, the best smelling Sandalwood IMO was the OSP from the UK of which I have but one tub. Beautiful and a stellar performer. Yes, I have owned and used the old AOS Sandalwood as made by Valobra and it was good, albeit overpowering and it smelled exactly like the discod. Fine Sandalwood hard soap, with the latter dialed down a little for scent strength.

Thanks. If you're missing the Fine Santal, try our new Black Tie Razor Company Sandalwood.

Sent from my SM-A716U1 using Tapatalk

I have used Sir Henry's and it is a great soap that gets little traction as too many people focus on the $$ of shaving soaps as a measure which is IMO totally meaningless.

Did a rather extended review where Sir Henry bang for buck was the primary take away

https://damnfineshave.com/thread-thought...ative-skin

Sandalwood scents are interesting as the scent can come from a variety of trees in the santalum genus. The gold standard of sandalwood is Mysore Sandalwood essential oil from India extracted from santalum album. In India this is referred to as the "royal tree". Since sandalwood essential oil, especially Mysore, is expensive. Many soaps blend additional scents with sandalwood.

With respect to performance the Grooming Dept Kairos soap base is one of the very best available. I do not know which Grooming Dept soaps BPman has used, but the recent formulations are superb. The earlier Fortis formulation was designed to be a "more affordable" alternative to the more expensive luxury soaps, but the use of less expensive ingredients and less expensive scents did affect product quality. Some of Mohammad's early formulations are not as good as the recent ones.

Sandalwood Nobile is a pure sandalwood scent. Depending upon what you are looking for, it might or might not be what you are looking for.
Some sandalwoods tend to be sweeter and some tend to be dryer.

Since Mohammad named the scent Sandalwood Nobile, I presume that it contains Mysore sandalwood essential oil. However, since the fragrance ingredients are listed as "fragrance" in the formula, I cannot confirm that.

I have not tried the two other sandalwood soaps. I did note that Sir Henry's sandalwood also includes other scents like lavender and vanilla. Thus, I presume it is a sweeter scent than the one from Grooming Dept. From some reviews I read, Lodrino is a pure, earthy sandalwood scent.

All three of the soaps contain beef tallow. Lodrino disguises this by calling it adeps bovis. Many soaps made in the EU are now vegan, but the Lodrino formula still uses tallow.