Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Review - Jeeves Of Hudson Street

Company: Jeeves of Hudson Street
Product: Bowtie Shaving Soap
Founder: Bryon Postlethwait
Veteran Owned & Operated Company

When I collected the mail last week I didn’t have to opened anything to tell that someone sent me shaving soap. The scent from the pucks just came right through the packaging. Tobacco, Barber Shop and Mountain Rain all from Bryon Postlethwait the owner and founder of Jeeves of Hudson Street. I sent him a letter asking if I could do a review of his soaps and if he had any samples. So from what he sent me I selected Mountain Rain to do this review.


I want to give you little background of Bryon. I asked him how he got started in soap making what lead him to start his own company and here is his reply. “I got into soap making through my love of wet shaving. It all began while I was attending classes at Schiller International University in Heidelberg, Germany and working the night shift time on the local military base, at the Patrick Hennery Village commissary.  It was not uncommon for me to work 16+ plus hours in a week, including class time. I was telling my good friend Ronaldo Saenz that I was routinely so busy that my only hobbies included sitting down, showering, and shaving. it didn’t take Ronaldo long to get me started on the adventure of wet shaving. My first razor was a cheap shavette, and I used it for my first year + of wet shaving, I had been given a boar brush and a stick of Arko. Along with my new shave gear Ronaldo also took the liberty of adding me to my very first shave group on Facebook, the group was The Big Shave.  After the Army had announced plans to shut down the military base my wife and I headed to Albania and then to the U.S. I decided after about two months in the states that I was going to take the opportunity of having the support of my friends and family and to attempt to create a shaving soap. So after two years and many attempts different formulas and techniques plus the encouragement from the soap artisan community I was able to get where I am now. “


 Since I had received pucks instead of tubs I’ll be writing about that type of packaging. The soaps are wrapped in two layers. The inner layer is wax paper and the outer a more decorative color paper, one for each puck with the product label holding everything tightly together. On the back, an Avery type sticker listing the ingredients which includes Water, Steric acid, Tallow, Cocoa Butter, Babassu Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Fragrance Oil / Essential Oil, Caster Oil, Glycerin. The pucks are soft to the touch and with theses I found using a bowl to be most effective method of lathering.

The scent on Mountain Rain is sweet and citrus but here’s how Bryon’s describes it. “A crisp, light, clean fragrance of pristine mountain air after the rain. Soft floral undertones mingle with juicy citrus, and hints of pine and musk to create this wonderful scent.
  On a scale of 1-10 from the puck about a 6 and when lathering it jumps to about a 7.5 in strength.

When lathering I used my Captains Choice bowl. I’ve been getting great results but it took some experimenting since this is the larger bowl with how much soap and were to place it. When using Bowtie soaps I find it necessary to start with as little water as possible then building upon this by adding just a few drops as needed.  I had my wolf whiskers brush loaded in no time with a great looking lather. I was told by Bryon that this formula was two years in the making and recently it was reformulated with a few tweaks to make it just right.

For my razor I used my new Scotch & Stowe Fatty. I’ve been using this for over a week now and I have to tell you I’m getting great results from a razor that’s $12.00 and it performed rather well with this soap. I had slickness and glide so good that it allowed me to go back over spots without reapplying lather.

So if you’ve never tried bowtie soaps I would urge you to do. The other scents I received are just as amazing.

Jeeves of Hudson Street
Bowtie Shaving Soaps Pucks $8.00 3oz    Tubs $18.00 7oz

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