For those who didn’t see the comments yesterday, I received this soap from Mickey Lee Soapworks, much to my surprise. I’ll explain just a little for those who were / are confused, but I’m sure that /u/Spatreatment, and Eric and Samantha will jump in here any second to explain things. Now, I don’t like to review things if I’ve used them only once but I had to for this soap. Fortunately for me, I’m leaving for a week vacation today and am taking the soap so I'm sure I'll get well acquainted with this lovely lady.

To put it simply, /u/spatreatment and I have kicked around the idea of him starting a splash company since August when I first got a sample of his splash, Armada Blossom. When I got the sample I fell in love right away and it remains as my favorite splash today, as I use it almost exclusively. But over time it seemed like the idea would never come to fruition. I was so happy yesterday when I received the soap, not only because I was so genuinely surprised, but because I thought the idea was long dead.

I have MLS Cocoa Maya and it is one of my favorite soaps because of its scent and performance. I love everything about Eric and Samantha’s soaps - their ease of lathering, the finely curated and original scents, the slickness of 1000 slip & slides covered in baby oil that the soap exudes and the fantastic post shave to make my face feel as if it was just buffed by Kim Kardashians asscheeks (I wish). So what happens when you combine that great performance with one of my favorite scents of all time? Well a couple things: 1. A ridiculously good soap 2. a very happy Banes (with no pubes) 3. all our monies going down the drain.

I always feel like it can be tough to keep the exact fragrance of a soap when making it into an aftershave or vice versa, but MLS seem to have done an amazing job. It smells almost identical to the splash. No way in hell could I ever list all of the notes of the soap, but like I've said before it’s spicy, floral and woodsy. It blossoms, mellows out and really opens up once lathered, creating an intoxicating scent that you want to get lost in. Because the soap performed so incredibly I actually looked up the ingredients of the other MLS soaps to compare, as I wondered if the formula was changed a bit for this soap. As far as I can tell, the only difference in this formula is the addition of Lager and Rum, which is pretty fucking cool. You can feel even more like a pirate when you’re using it. The lager is definitely noticeable in the soap and it blends in well. Again, I’m not entirely sure if there is actually a discernible difference, or if it’s just in my mind, but this soap just seemed to excel in every way. Mickey Lee’s soaps are already thoroughly impressive to begin with, but it took no more than 5 seconds to create an almost perfect lather with Armada Blossom. It was one of those shaves when you’re all giddy and smiling like a moron at yourself in the mirror because you’re so excited.

One major thing about the soap that really surprised me was the longevity of the scent. Despite washing my hands numerous times I’m still able to smell the soap on my fingers and it’s even detectable through the Baux on my face. I don’t know how many people would like that you can still smell the soap, but as someone who takes the extra lather from my brush to apply to my face after I’ve finished rinsing off, this is just what the doctor ordered.

A side note - labels and packaging are not things that I typically give much attention to when it comes to soaps because I really just care about scent and performance, but I really like the label on this one.

I wanted to make a separate post for the soap because it was so incredibly kind of Eric, Samantha and /u/spatreatment to send me it. Never would I have imagined this becoming a reality. I hope you guys are aware of how much it means to me to have been sent a tub. I’m sorry I don’t know much about the future of the soap but I’m sure /u/Spatreatment, /u/Mickey_Lee or /u/Sammy_Lee can answer any of your questions if y’all just give a dollar to make ‘em holler.

TL;DR: You like good smellz? You like good soap from the people who give beer to goats and then suck on poor goat teats to get special ingredient? Then this soap for you, comrades.