Castle Forbes: Lime Review
About the artisan from their website:
Castle Forbes weas created from the world’s smallest perfumery, located in the picturesque surroundings of Castle Forbes on the banks of the River Don in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The castle and 6,000 acre estate is the ancestral home of the Chief of the Forbes Clan. The perfumery was originally based in a small dairy building within the grounds and initially only made bespoke fragrances for private clients. Our mission was to create a selection of unique scents that captured the essence of the castle and the surrounding landscapes and, after much painstaking development work, our carefully crafted range of products bear the Forbes Family emblem.
From such a small beginnings, 20 years later, Castle Forbes has now developed the ultimate range of male grooming products and fine fragrances which are renowned for their quality and performance. Our distinctive ethos is born from our passion to use the best that nature can provide by selecting only the finest quality sustainable Essential Oils directly from the growers for use in our authentic formulations, our mission being to bring originality and sophistication to our elite scents. Using unique, handcrafted formulations with natural ingredients, we are able to produce shaving products which perform like no other brand and are free from parabens, coloring, artificial fragrances and are not tested on animals.
Packaging:
Castle Forbes creams come in a very nice, clear plastic tub. The lid of the tub has all of the pertinent information, except the ingredients. The label is cleanly applied to the lid with the Castle Forbes logo prominently displayed at the top.
Something that is unique that I first saw with Castle Forbes is that there is a clear plastic insert that site inside of the tub. When reinserting this piece, one can easily hear the air being pushed out. From what I can gather, this piece was included to keep the air out so the cream stays creamy. This is a nice touch, as it also helps preserve the scent.
Scent: The scent on this cream is simply lime, and it does it very well. The lime does not smell artificial at all, but is a nice, natural smalling lime scent. The scent strength on this cream is fairly strong. On my personal strength scale, I would put this at a seven or eight. It’s strong, but not overwhelmingly strong. The scent strength once lathered tones down to maybe a six or a seven. The scent strength stays constant during the shave, which is quite enjoyable.
Performance:
To start, I scooped out a quarter sized amount of cream. Normally with Castle Forbes, you don’t need that much, but I was using a badger/synthetic mixed knot and knew the knots tendency to hold onto lather.
I slowly added water, mostly via squirt bottle, and worked the lather to a consistency with which I was happy. For a cream, it took a decent amount of water to create the lather. I applied to lather to my face and found it could take more water still, so added more via the aforementioned squirt bottle.
During the shave, I had zero issues with slickness or irritation. Some may wonder with a scent strength as high as this one, is there a potential for irritation from the oils? From what I’ve seen and experienced with this one cream, I’d say that the possibility is there for those with extremely sensitive skin. Castle Forbes states right on their site, and lids that the creams are “for skin prone to niks and cuts.” They also only use all-natural essential oils instead of fragrance oils. That alone should decrease the likely hood of irritation from the scent. The lather felt wonderful when applied. My skin felt nourished from the cream before each pass.
Post shave:
Post shave I only used some Thayer’s witch hazel. Post shave, my skin felt well hydrated and nourished. I did not have any irritation or dryness post shave. For those who do no care for any post shave products and like to let the soap/cream speak for itself, I can honestly say (in my experience at least) that Castle Forbes Lime does not need any post shave products.
Price:
Castle Forbes creams are a little on the spendy side, coming in at $38.00 a tube. The tube does contain a decent amount of cream at 6.8 fl.oz, but that still calculates to $5.58 per ounce.
Final thoughts:
Over all this is a very nice cream. It can take a decent amount of water. It is fairly easy to dial in to the consistency one is looking for. It tends to be a high structure/low volume lather, so it won’t provide that lumberjack lather beard some people enjoy, but it does produce a wonderful lather none the less. I would put this artisan in the luxury category. Not based on price alone, but also performance.