Hey everyone. I wanted to share my recent experience with Viking Shaving Soap. I got into some detail in a recent SOTD, but I wanted to provide a bit more information, especially on the other scents I tried and the vegan formula, 'Frø'.

As I said in the SOTD, I initially came across Viking as they had a couple news/deals mentions in the Tuesday Deal Thread. A couple people had asked if anyone had tried them, but no one had, or if they had, they didn't respond. I looked into them a bit more when I added them to TTS and decided to pick up a couple samples to make sure I wasn't adding crap :)

First of all, calling these samples isn't really accurate. These "samples" are 1.7oz and cost about $4. Considering the performance (more on that later), this is a heck of a deal. For comparison, the full 5.5oz tubs are around $10-$11. The only complaint I have about the samples is I couldn't get a good lather out of the tin as it was packed to the brim. I had to move them to a Maggard dish for loading. Life is tough.

The "samples" I picked up were Ironside, Hedeby, and Iceland. Andrew was nice enough to include a sample of Old Norse as well. Iceland is part of the 'Frø' (vegan) line, and the other 3 are tallow based. As far as scents go:

Ironside: This was the first one I tried. The notes listed on the site are musk, patchouli, leather, tobacco, amber. Unfortunately, it didn't have a very strong scent and I wasn't able to pick out any of the notes individually. It smelled good, but I definitely like a stronger scent.

Iceland: This is their heavy menthol soap. The notes listed are camphor, rosemary, fir needle, tea tree, and patchouli. This one smells super cold in the tin. You can definitely pick out the rosemary and tea tree. I'm actually not super familiar with camphor, so I'd need to find something else with that to compare, but given that it's the first note listed, I assume it's there. As far as menthol strength goes, I was expecting a bit colder. I wasn't expecting Cryogen level, but closer to Stirling's Glacial line and it seemed a little bit lower than that. Not sure if I'm building up a tolerance to menthol (is that a thing?), but I need to try Cryogen again and see if it's still too cold.

Old Norse: This smells almost identical to Maggard's London Barbershop. I probably don't need to go into much more detail.

Hedeby: This is there "Irish Tweed" clone. Smells similar to the other Irish Tweed soaps I've tried.

Performance wise, I was very impressed. I mentioned in my SOTD that I had some trouble with the Ironside (tallow) originally, but retried and it was a good lather. Good, not great, but given the price, it was still a great value. I then tried Iceland (vegan) and wow. No problems whatsoever and easily whipped into a super creamy lather. I loaded for about 45 seconds with a badger two band finest for a head (2 pass touchup), cheek (3 pass), and neck shave (2 pass) and had PLENTY of lather left over at the end. The most surprising part was that when I put the soap back into the tin (I moved it into one of the containers from Maggard's for easier loading), you couldn't even tell that it had been used. The vegan base is playing way above it's weight class here. I had to try the tallow one again to make sure it wasn't user error the first time, and it turned out it was. I used Old Norse tonight and got a lather just as creamy as the Iceland. Same lathering process as Iceland, still tons to spare. It's still drying so I haven't put it back in the tin yet, so I'm not sure how much I actually used, but either way, the performance here is really good for both bases once I stopped sucking at lathering.

If you're looking to try something new, I'd definitely consider checking out Viking Shaving Soap. I don't think you'll be disappointed!