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Truefitt And Hill Sandalwood Shaving Cream Review

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There are many great shaving creams on the market today for men to choose from, but there is something about Truefitt and Hill Sandalwood shave cream that stands out. It’s not your typical old fashioned scent; it’s a modern woodsy and refreshing scent with notes of citrus and florals.  It has a light lather and luxurious feel on the skin and is rich in oils that moisturize without being greasy.

Truefitt And Hill Sandalwood Shaving Cream Background

From The Truefitt And Hill (US) Website:

The Sandalwood Shaving Cream is a glycerin-based shaving cream that offers an excellent way to achieve an incredibly close, yet comfortable shave. Although not required, we recommend using one of our badger haired shaving brushes for the optimal shaving experience.

Scent: Soft base notes of sandalwood, tonka and cedarwood, while delicate middle accords of lavender, thyme and jasmin blend easily with fruity twists of pineapple and melon. Top notes of lemon and bergamot give a perfect finishing touch.

Ingredients: Aqua (water), Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Acid, Glycerin, Perfume (Fragrance), Triethanolamine, Sodium Hydroxide, Methylparaben, Propy-Iparaben, Citronellol, Coumarin, Limonene, Linalool

Related Post: Is Your Shaving Cream Trying To Kill You? An Ingredient Teardown

What Other Reviewers Thing Of Truefitt And Hill Sandalwood Shaving Cream

Other reviews of Truefitt & Hill Sandalwood shave cream are generally quite positive.  Here’s a random sample:

Taylor And Barber:
“This shaving cream was a real treat to use. Just a small dab of cream (about the size of a dime) was enough to build lather for a full three-pass shave and plenty left over. Building my lather was exceptionally easy too. I might have used a little more water that I’m typically used to, but my newest brush holds so much that that wasn’t an issue. Shaving was extremely comfortable. I found this lather to be surprisingly slick for a cream. My experience has been that soaps tend to be slicker than creams, but that wasn’t the case here….”

Sharp Razor Palace:
“Smell: Delicate yet very pleasing smell of sandalwood with nice hints of citrus fruits…

“Shaving: The sensation on the skin is excellent, it has a very good moisturizing effect, not even the slightest sign of lather dryness during the entire pass. The razor slides very well, no signs of skin irritation with a truly pleasing sensation of smoothness, very good emollient effect…

“Conclusion: A wonderful shaving cream, very effective and pleasurable in every phase of shaving, from mounting the lather with a brush to the post shave sensations. No visible signs of skin irritations, leaving a good and delicate smell on the skin as well as a fresh sensation. A very good shaving cream…”

Amazon (affiliate link):

“This product smells NOTHING like TOBS Sandalwood, it really smells much more like it is perfume cream, in fact I am not sure if I sense much Sandalwood (in the Proraso Red sort of way). Now I loved TOBS Sandalwood but for some reason this perfumed scent from Truefitt & Hill is just intoxicating! I like it so much I find myself sniffing the container when I am in the bathroom….”

“Believe the hype; this is the best shave cream I’ve used. I created an amazing lather with my AOS silvertip brush. I was a TOBS user for many years, but now this will be on top of my rotation. My edge 2.0 blade mowed down a three day growth with ease. No irritation whatsoever and my skin felt terrific. Just smooth and silky. Not cheap, but so worth it.”

“I have been shaving with this product for nearly 10 years. It is the best saving cream I have ever used. You need to use it with a good brush, but if you do, you will be amazed how little cream it takes produce a thick, rich lather. A tub of this cream lasts 4-5 months, shaving every morning. I have tried several fragrances over the years, and none of them is especially strong (which is a plus for me). I prefer the Sandalwood, however, because it seems to work better on my sensitive skin.”

My Truefitt And Hill Sandalwood Shaving Cream Review

My opinion of Truefitt & Hill Sandalwood shaving cream largely agrees with the other reviews I’ve read.  But I do have a few additional observations.

The “Sandalwood” Scent?

If you are looking for a pure sandalwood scent, this shave cream is not it.

Related Post: What Is Sandalwood And Why Is It In My Shaving Stuff?

In my mind (and my notoriously insensitive nose) this is a “riff” on a sandalwood: a not-quite-sandalwood, woody scent base closer to the scent of Lather & Wood shave soap than that of Taylor Of Old Bond Street Sandalwood shave cream.  That woody base is offset by a pronounced citrus note for me.  Maybe not an “old man” scent like some other Truefitt & Hill scents (Grafton) but still within the “classic” realm.

I find the scent moderately strong and persistent like other Truefitt & Hill shave creams I’ve used.

Lather

Truefitt & Hill Sandalwood lathers just as well for me as other T&H shave creams: it needs a little more mixing time than other creams in my hard water and tends to be just a bit on the foamy side for me so I often start with a dryer-than-normal brush and add a few drops of water at a time to get the ratio right.  But with that slightly altered mix I get a rich, luxurious lather.

Performance

Older Truefitt & Hill shave cream formulations have been excellent performers for me, with excellent lubrication/glide and very good cushion/protection.  Newer formulations (like Apsley) perform even better in the cushion/protection aspect.  I find the performance of the Sandalwood cream closer to the newer formulations than the older formulations.  Very, very good.

Conclusion

Truefitt and Hill Sandalwood shave cream is an excellent option for anyone that wants to try something that’s a bit of a riff off of a “classic” sandalwood scent. It smells great and leaves my skin feeling soft. While the cream is a little on the expensive side it does last for awhile.

Truefitt And Hill Sandalwood shaving cream is widely available from sites including Truefitt And Hill’s own website (US and UK) and these sources among many others.

Author

Shave tutor and co-founder of sharpologist. I have been advocating old-school shaving for over 20 years and have been featured in major media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Lifehacker. Also check out my content on Youtube, X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!View Author posts

2 thoughts on “Truefitt And Hill Sandalwood Shaving Cream Review”

  1. I dread it every time you review something scented. You nose is flat-out INOP. One time I tried a famous Scottish brand’s Lime cream, based on your enthusiastic review. I should have known better as limes are extremely hard to grow in Scotland. I thought the scent was more like limes left in the bottom of a barrel after a trans-Atlantic sailing ship voyage. So, I thank you for including other people’s opinion of this sandalwood scent in the article. You do a great job, Mark, and I can’t let a little thing like a bad nose stand in the way of my appreciation for you. If not for you, I’d never have got into wet shaving.

    1. Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt. I always try to mention my poorly-educated, insensitive nose on reviews. It’s very frustrating for me to have the subtleties of smell (and taste! My sense of taste is equally ‘dull’ and I don’t get the subtleties of flavors) lost on me.

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