Penhaligone's

[Shropshire Shaver]

Hi all,

Penhaligone's English Fren soap any good? Worth the steep(ish) price tag?

 

[joe mcclaine]

Smells good, by all accounts.

 

[CMOT]

Got some Blenheim Bouqet Penhaligons at xmas. One of the best smelling soaps I know but probably the worst lather. The only two ways I can get anything usable is to rub the puck over my stubble like a stick then face lathering or using a bit of eg palmolive cream to the brush as well. Certainly one I'll use up but not a brand I'd buy.

 

[Canuck]

Penhaligons make awful shaving soap. Like CMOT I got a bowl at Christmas, it does smell amazing and the bowls are beautiful, but I've never got a decent, lasting lather out of it since I've got it, and I'm pretty experienced with hard soaps. You can get something that looks useable initially but it fizzles out after maybe half a minute.

Basically it's a very expensive shower soap. Spend the money on 2 T+H hard soaps instead.

 

[antdad]

I still have some original formula and yes it's lovely stuff, all time favorite were it still produced.

 

[dodgy]

Hiya

Sadly, the guys are right about the performance of this expensive product. There's some pucks that just don't meet expectations for something that expensive and with such a good company reputation.

Maybe two or three years ago, Penhaligon changed their soap formula....some kinda 'green' thing related. No more tallow would be my guess. among other ingredients. I wanna say they went with a palm oil substitute, but you'd have to check that. There were plenty of terrible reviews that followed.

I'd heard the mix has since been tweaked again, making it a better soap, but still not like what it used to be.

I may be off a little bit on my facts, but that's the jist of things. I've found the shaving cream is still excellent. Yeah, a highly rated product for me. Not fragrances I would use often, but great to have a few creams for a change of pace. Talk about something 'exploding into lather', that describes the creams about perfectly. It also seems like the lather's denser than usual and sure looks good. Performance overall is much better than average. One of the top 2-3 creams I've tried over the years.

Martin

 

[oscar11]

This soap has been my biggest disappointment in a shaving product. Smells wonderful but as a shaving soap it stinks.

 

[cubert]

Agree with Dodgy. The creams are brilliant.

 

[RB73]

Just picked up the Opus cream in the sale and performance wise id put this above the three T's and Harris. The balms really nice as well.

 

[IanM]

Like Antdad, I have the old formula and it's a fine performer. I've not tried the newer version, but there are people that have, and they have got it to work.

Ian

 

[barlines]

No experience of the soaps but the creams are easily amongst the best I've used.

I was in Penhaligons today looking at the sale items - 500ml of Blenheim Bouquet for £135 but I managed to leave empty handed. I may crumble when the sampler of Juniper Sling that Jaycey did the group buy on runs out tho

 

[joe mcclaine]

No experience of the soaps but the creams are easily amongst the best I've used.

I was in Penhaligons today looking at the sale items - 500ml of Blenheim Bouquet for £135 but I managed to leave empty handed. I may crumble when the sampler of Juniper Sling that Jaycey did the group buy on runs out tho

You can get those big splash bottles for half that price from the outlet stores.

Best to phone.

 

[barlines]

You can get those big splash bottles for half that price from the outlet stores.

Best to phone.

Thanks for the heads up, I want something else other than Blenheim this time around. Never seen the big splash bottles before and it was the novelty of it that caught my attention - doesn't take much!

 

[dodgy]

Thanks for the heads up, I want something else other than Blenheim this time around.

Hi there,

If you haven't sniffed Racquets before, that would be worth a look (or huff). The scent reminds me of an extremely classy barbershop kinda thing. There's a little powder in the mix, but it adds to the whole thing.

Every so often I will get out some of the old Racquets shaving cream as a treat. It's a dead ringer for the cologne, and it performs really well.

 

[barlines]

Hi there,

If you haven't sniffed Racquets before, that would be worth a look (or huff)...

Its on my list I 'huffed' everything she had in the store when I was there and it made the cut. It looks like its a bit luck of the draw with what the outlets have in from a bit of googling, but I'll give them a call tomorrow and see what I can snag.