Ethos Grooming Essentials Shave Soaps Review

It’s tough keeping up with the artisan shaving soap crowd.  I finally caught up with Ethos Grooming Essentials and I’m glad I did!

Ethos Grooming Essentials Background

From the Ethos website:

“ETHOS Grooming Essentials formulas are developed using the deep-rooted knowledge I’ve gained throughout the years of personal care R&D to provide my customers with grooming products that deliver optimum results. It has become a passion of mine to source the globe in search of the earth’s most beneficial naturally derived ingredients and aromatics to create the culturally inspired Ethos Collections and all the products that are found in each one of the Collections.”

I’ve spoken to Frank, the man behind Ethos Grooming Essentials, several times and he clearly knows his stuff when it comes to skin care, essential oils, and shave products.

I purchased a couple Ethos products to try out, the Lavender shave soap (in the “Standard” base) and the Mélange d’agrumes shave cream.  Again, from the website:

Lavender Suprême Shave Soap

“Lavender Supreme Shave Soap contains nothing but 100% pure Organic Lavender Essential Oil I get from a grower in Provence, France. It’s a wonderful Lavender that is very smooth and not overly camphorous. Lavender has been used in aromatherapy for its calming and healing properties for centuries and makes for a wonderful shave experience, especially if you are a night time shaver. The lather has a nice light feeling to it on the face that provides great cushion, slickness, and post-shave. Like most ETHOS Grooming Essential products, the soap contains our proprietary EOS Complex, which means Earth • Ocean • Science. This unique blend of 36 luxurious, exotic, and beneficial skincare ingredients and other soap ingredients will enhance the skin’s overall condition and feel with continuous use.”

Ingredients: Aqua, Stearic Acid, Grass Fed Beef Tallow, Duck Fat, Castor Oil, Coconut Oil, Organic Glycerin, Shea Butter, Potassium Stearate, Sheep’s Milk, Apricot Kernel Oil, Grapeseed Oil, Jojoba Oil, Avocado Oil, Lavender EO, EOS Complex, Aloe Vera, Allantoin, Oat Amino Acids, Olive Oil, Lanolin, Lonicera Capritolim (natural preservative), Chamomile Extract, Honeysuckle Flower Extract, Calendula Extract.

Mélange d’agrumes Vegan Shave Crème

“This is our new Vegan Shave Crème. It is the perfect base to highlight complex Aroma Blends like Mélange d’agrumes that can be affected by high temperatures often found in shave soap making. The Aroma Blend can be added at room temperature in this crème base, so the strength is more pronounced. Like most ETHOS Grooming Essentials products, the soap contains our proprietary EOS Complex, which means Earth • Ocean • Science. This unique mélange of 36 luxurious, exotic, and beneficial skincare ingredients, along with ingredients such as mango powder fruit extract, coconut milk, butters and oils, and our hyaluronic acid serum, will enhance the overall condition and feel of the skin with continuous use.

“Note: You can choose the option to add a .5 oz / 15 ml bottle of the pure Aroma Blend, allowing you to increase the strength of the aroma by adding a couple of drops to your lather.”

Ingredients: Water, Aloe Vera, Stearic Acid, Glycerin, Potassium Hydroxide, Myristic Acid, Castor Oil, Coconut Oil, Illipe Butter, Organic Shea Butter, Sodium Hydroxide, Coconut Milk, Apricot Seed Oil, Avacado Oil, Kukui Nut Oil, Aroma Essential Oil Blend of Ruby Red Grapefruit, Pink Grapefruit, White Grapefruit, and Japanese Yuzu, Organic Mango Powder Fruit Extract, EOS Complex, Ceramide Complex, Hyaluronic Acid Serum, Herbal Extract Blend of Calendula, Aloe Vera, Hibiscus, Acacia, Milk Thistle.

Ethos shave soaps are premium-priced (as you might expect from the ingredient list) but come in up-scale packaging with a heavy glass jar.

What Others Say About Ethos Shave Soaps

Ethos Grooming Essentials enjoys a pretty good reputation in other reviews.  Here is a sample:

“Tonight I tried the Lavender Supreme. If you are a night shaver like me this is the set for you. The scent is so relaxing and the strength is 6/10. I haven’t smelled lavender this good in a soap ever. The closest if memory serves me well would be the original Art of Shaving lavender before it was reformulated. I started tonight with 3/4 almond size scoop and easily lathered enough for a 3 pass shave plus. This version is also thirsty and provides excellent cushion and glide with excellent residual slickness. The skin food also has a wonderful pure lavender scent and is great at leaving my face feel great without that oily feel.” [link]

“…This soap provides great glide & slickness. My stubble gives no resistance to my razor as it glides over my face. I use short strokes & go over each area I shave multiple times in quick succession. Residual slickness is very important to me using this method. Ethos has great residual slickness & I’m able to do these multiple strokes with no dragging even though the lather had been removed with a previous stroke….” [link]

“I have been using Ethos soaps and skin foods now for the last couple of days and I am very impressed. I have the clean, lavender, and pineapple noir scents and they are all very pleasing. All of the soaps are a 10/10 on slickness and the post shave feel is also top shelf as well. The use of milks in this soap make it extremely nice feeing on the face almost like silk and the post shave is amazing….” [link]

My Experience With These Ethos Grooming Essentials Shave Products

[Note: as mentioned earlier, I purchased these items.  Comments here are my opinion and have not been reviewed or approved by Ethos.]

Mélange d’agrumes

Image courtesy of Depositphotos

While Ethos classifies Mélange d’agrumes as a shave cream, I think it’s really more in the consistency of a “croap” (a cross between a cream and a soap).

Both off the jar and lathered on the face I find the scent strong and persistent.  I like to say Castle Forbes Limes (affiliate link) is like getting smacked in the face with a key lime pie; Mélange d’agrumes is like getting smacked in the face with an orange tart. And I’m saying that in a good way.

While very “orange” dominant, to me it’s like a mix of several varieties of orange.

Lathering is easy and voluminous, even in my hard water.  The lather consistency for me is a cross between meringue and yogurt.

Performance for me is outstanding in both lubrication/glide and cushion/protection.  Notably, aftershave moisturization is also outstanding.

However I did experience a mild, short-lived skin irritation with this product.  I’m guessing my skin didn’t like the strength of one of the ingredients.  YMMV of course.

Lavender Suprême Shave Soap

Like Mélange d’agrume, I found the scent of the Ethos Lavender Suprême Shave Soap to be strong and persistent, both off the jar and lathered on the face.

The first thing that struck me about the scent of Ethos Lavender Suprême is that it reminded me of Dr. Jon’s Flowers In The Dark shave soap but from the opposite direction.  While Flowers In The Dark is kind of “dirty” and “heavy” (but still in a good way!)  I think Lavender Suprême is lighter and “brighter” with an almost powdery note.

But, like Mélange d’agrume, I found the performance of Lavender Suprême to be outstanding in all respects!  I didn’t experience any skin irritation with Lavender Suprême.

Conclusion

It’s getting harder and harder to make selections for Sharpologist’s annual Best Shave Soap list–there are so many really great artisans out there.  Ethos Grooming Essentials is new to me but they are absolutely top-tier in scent and performance.