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SCS' new Bulgarian Rose

Sue at Saint Charles Shave has come out today with three outstanding new products, all with the same great scent, including a Bulgarian Rose Shaving Soap, After Shave Milk, and EdT. I was very pleased to see this announcement in my monthly news letter from SCS this morning. If you like "dark rose" scents along the lines of, for example, Czech & Speake #88, or Domenico Caraceni 1913, then you absolutely need to try these new "limited edition" products from Sue while they are still available. They are only being announced through the newsletter, and are not shown in the products on SCS website.

Many of you may recall the discussion that took place in the thread below starting a couple of months ago, and continued through mid-September. In the thread, which started as a discussion about C&S #88 shaving soap, Sue at SCS was asked by one of our fellow members if she could "replicate" the scent of C&S #88 in a shaving soap, or "come up with something 'inspired by'". As you can see in the thread, Sue took this request/project and ran very hard with it, in the process developing not only a shaving soap, but also an EdT and an After Shave Milk with matching scents. I enjoyed very much, along with some other gents, the opportunity to participate in testing these products during their development, and each of these are outstanding products in their own right.

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=100261

Back some time before this thread started, after receiving a sample of Czech & Speake #88 EdT recently, which I loved, I tried other rose scent EdT's, including Domenico Caraceni 1913, L'Artisan Voleur de Roses, Czech & Speake Dark Rose, and Eau de Italie Paestum Rose, as well as SCS's Savory Rose. I would now compare the Bulgarian Rose to all of these collectively and say without hesitation that the Bulgarian Rose stands equal in quality to all of these. It's a dark rose scent, complex, with very strong sillage and longevity. To my nose, it may not be quite as "dark" as #88, but it's closer than the others I tried. As I said to Sue, though, I quit looking at the Bulgarian Rose as a replacement for #88, but rather as a product that I like on it's own merits. It's enough for me to think of it as being in the same "family" as the others, and every bit as good, with it's own unique, brilliant blend. I love the scent, the powerful sillage (be careful to not over apply!), and the longevity.

The shaving soap and after shave milk are also high quality products, with the same great scent, but unfortunately for me, the oils in these two items conflict with my highly sensitive skin. But that's true for me with nearly all scented shaving soaps, creams and aftershave products. All those things that go directly on my face during and immediately after shaving. So unless you are one of the unfortunate very few like me who have to be so careful, I'd encourage you to try these two items, too.

And Sue's prices, including shipping, blow the others listed above away at $23/1 oz for the EdT, $14/3 oz for the shaving soap, and $17/2 oz for the ASM. The EdT is priced at about what some 1/3 oz sample decants cost!

I'm going to post this in each of the cologne, shaving soap and after shave forums, so folks interested in each of the three products will be aware of their availability, and hope others who tested these will comment, too.

Thank you, Sue, for "answering the call" with such great products!

:cool:
 

Rudy Vey

Shaving baby skin and turkey necks
I was also one of the ones who tested Sue's new creations. Blatantly honest, I am not a soap guy, I have many, many creams, but this is a soap - my first one -I will buy! The second product I will get is the Aftershave milk/balm - extremely nice as well.
Well done Sue!
 
I purchased the sample sizes of the soap, ASM and EDT which Sue listed in the Vendor Corner Forum a week or so ago for $9.50 shipped.

What can I say - this was my first ever purchase from SCS and I am completely blown away. :biggrin:

I decided to try the Bulgarian Rose because it sounded intriguing especially after reading everyone's comments about C&S #88. I have not actually used any Rose scented shaving cream or soap prior to the Bulgarian Rose but was able to compare the Bulgarian Rose to cream samples that I have from each of the 3 T's. I could immediately understand what was meant by the "dark rose" description but unfortunately my nose is not sophisticated enough to describe the actual notes :redface:

I have shaved with the Bulgarian Rose for two nights in a row now and had two completely amazing shaves. The scent of the lather comes on strong in my bowl, whips up nice and creamy with just a few twirls of my best badger brush and is just as slick as my conk almond or ogallala bay rum soaps. The scent lightly lingered on for a while after and mixed very well with my Thayers Medicated SuperHazel :cool:

The ASM scent matches perfectly and allows you to remain smelling like a rose for a good hour longer. The ASM was a great consistency and left my skin feeling super soft and healthy.

I am not the kind of guy to leave the house smelling like a rose so I would not wear the EDT personally but I did try it on last night at home and can really appreciate and enjoy the complexity of this fragrance. I only used a tiny drop smeared on my wrists and neck and could smell it lightly on myself for a good 2 hours or so. The scent definitely changed throughout that time but again my nose is not sophisticated enough to go into much more detail than that.

I loved the whole SCS Bulgarian Rose experience and have already lined up my next purchases from Sue once payday hits on the 15th. :w00t:

With regards to the sample sizes provided it was worth every penny of the $9.50. I have used the soap and ASM twice and the EDT once. I would say I easily have 4 or 5 more shaves left with the soap and the ASM will easily last me through these shaves plus my testing of the Rose creams from the 3 T's :biggrin: The EDT looks like I didn't even touch it yet. I will hang onto it for a while and see if my tastes change over the holiday season.
 
Wow, can one really post in all three fora? I guess will find out over time. You can tell by the length of the posts that there is a lot of enthusiasm for these products--whcih I share as well.

I was involved in the testing and I guess the development of these items, if you can call telling people more than you know at great length development! It was a lot of fun and Sue was excellent, skilled, and a blast to work with.

I have not had the array of rose edts that jakespoppy has had, but I am very familiar with C&S 88--but not as a shaving soap--and the sandalwood/rose B&B special purchase soap. To me, this was a shaving soap not an edt or balm project at least up until the end.

Unlike jakespoppy, I am not allergic to any of this stuff as far as I can tell. As I understand it, the shaving soap Sue ended up putting out is scented solely with Bulkgarian Rosa Damascena essential oil. Pure, expensive, wonderful. Thousands of roses give up their existence for your hedonistic pleasure. This is dark rose alright, but does not seem heavy. The shaving soap, probably like all SCS products, is really excellent. Lathers up well, very moisterizing, great lubrication and cushioning, not too thirsty. Long lasting. Smells fantastic. I love the way it looks. The eo is apparently this wonderful yellow but seems softer and fluffier than a glycerine soap. By now I have seen enough of the base soap to assume that its loverly color is actually from the EO. A real pleasure to have on one's face. And the aroma lasts even through all of the bay rum and lotions I put on my face after shaving.

As I understand it the aftershave milk is scented solely with the Damansk EO, too. Again, wonderful stuff. Very soothing. Not greasy. Everything an after shave balm should be. Again not too heavy by a nice lasting aroma. Keeps close to the skin but definitely lasts. Excellent stuff.

Soap and balm would blend very nicely with 88 as an edt for instance. Like I have said about the B&B sandalwood/rose, I think these products add notes that bring some of the nicest notes in 88 more to the surface.

The edt seems pretty pure Bulgarian rose to me, too, although I know that they are other things in it, too. Really nice scent. More linear than 88 and not as dark. I think it is better this way. Again a pure, clean, deep, expensive rose scent that hangs in there very nicely. Good tenacity. Subtle and compact sillage.

If you like rose at all I think you will really like these. I think it is worth getting the sample pack even if you do not think rose is for you so much, just to learn what a true, pure Rose Damansk smells like. I really want to encourage Sue on high end expensive essential oil products. Her prices make them affordable and the clarity of these scents, at least this rose scent, is just wonderful.

Bravo, Sue!
 
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Maybe I missed this in the OP but if it's not being advertised on the site, how can one purchase either of their products? I'd be very interested in the EdT.
 
I got my soap in yesterday, although I woke up too late this morning to get a shave with it. The soap itself is beautiful. I was a bit surprised at how soft it is, but I'd imagine that's due to it being freshly made. The smell is simply incredible, really it is awesome. Equally impressive was Sue's hand-written Thank You message on the package invoice. As with all my previous SCS orders, top notch service and product. Looking forward to my first shave with it.
 
Also, sign up for the news letter on saintcharlesshave.com to be notified of monthly specials. This months news letter had instructions on how to order the full size products.
 
Here's the link to the post in the Vendor's Corner for the sample set. If you want to order one of the regular size items, you should send a PM to "Sue" here on B&B.

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=109801

:cool:

Ok, well somebody has to have an answer to this. I asked Sue but she didn't give mea straight up answer. First, what does a Bulgarian Rose smell like? How does it compare to the regular/Savory Rose. I have never smelled the SCS Savory Rose so I have no way to compare the two.
 
Kind of a tough order to compare two Rose fragrances that you haven't smelled. I'd say that (based on the AS) the Savory Rose has a brighter, sweeter smell and the Bulgarian Rose is richer. Part of that is the richness of the milk too--it's so thick and golden that it looks like you should have to keep it in the refrigerator.

I think that they're both really nice. The Bulgarian Rose also goes well with Sue's Sandalwoods.
 
Ok, well somebody has to have an answer to this. I asked Sue but she didn't give mea straight up answer. First, what does a Bulgarian Rose smell like? How does it compare to the regular/Savory Rose. I have never smelled the SCS Savory Rose so I have no way to compare the two.


I'm unsure how to better explain. Savory Rose is a single note rose originally made with the help of a member here. He suggested we include a rose in our fragrances that did not include other notes.

Bulgarian rose EDT is made with bulgarian rose (rosa damascena). The soap and the aftershave are also pure BR but I have added a dozen or so other notes to the EDT, (including bergamot, woods, vitiver). It has a sharp opening note but dries down to the pure bulgarian rose that is at it's heart. Fragrance is subjective, some will love it, others will not.

Pure Bulgarian Rose is expensive. Most of the roses grown around the world do not produce oil. The Damask Rose (rosa damascena) does but is primarily grown and harvested in Bulgaria and Turkey. It takes 60,000 roses cut at the calyx to make a drop of oil, picking is done by hand. The oil is thick and dark and has colored these products with it's orange/yellow richness.

Hope this helps, Sue
 
To further clarify what I mean "By a "single note rose" I mean that the Savory Rose is a rather simple, pure rose scent. It smells like a whiff of a regular rose would smell, or at least I hope it does. I hope I am doing a better job than this, but think of a scented hand lotion that is rose or something like that. Frankly the scent is a combination of synthetics and some natural elements. The synthetics tend to make the scent a purer, one note scent, but even the natural ingrediants are not extracted solely from rose petals in the way the Bulgarian rose oil is obtained.

The Bulgarian rose on the other hand, while a pure essential oil made strictly from rose petals, is far from a single note fragrance. It is inherently mutli-faceted and complex. It is dark, more earthy, incensey, and deep, whereas the Savory Rose is brighter. the Bulgarian rose is made purely from rose, but because it is a pure natural essential oil, it is complex and has lots of scents notes in it that are natural, but which one might not associate with rose.

I have not smelled them, but one customer suggested the comparison of Savory Rose to Bulgarian Rose as the same comparison of C&S regular "Rose" to C&S "88" or "Dark Rose." One very light and traditional floral. The other with a deeper, night time quality--not as dark and deep as 88 or Dark Rose, but still not a single note rose scent.

And as I indicated earlier, the edt has other essences in it. The rose dominates, especially on dry down, but it opens with a lot more going on. All quite complemetary to the underlying dark rose scent, or any other rose scent though.
Sue
 
Ok, well somebody has to have an answer to this. I asked Sue but she didn't give mea straight up answer. First, what does a Bulgarian Rose smell like? How does it compare to the regular/Savory Rose. I have never smelled the SCS Savory Rose so I have no way to compare the two.

I can see how it would be hard to imagine how one scent compares with another when you haven't smelled either. I don't understand the technical structure like Sue does, so I'll describe it from a fairly novice layman's perspective. I have tried both the Savory Rose, and the Bulgarian Rose EdT's. To me, as has been described, the Savory Rose smells just like plucking a single rose and smelling it. A very obvious rose scent, fairly "light" as you would expect. The Bulgarian Rose to me, is more like a large bouqet of flowers which are predominantly roses, but also has some other flowers in it that have a deeper, darker, richer scent than the rose, and it might also have wet dirt in the bottom of the vase that gives it a hint of a sour smell mixed in with the very strong rose/floral scent. It's very strong and rich and pungent smelling, like when you lean over to smell and get a strong blast in your face, and you know you'll keep smelling that for quite a while. It's a beautiful thing! I wish I had a better word than "sour", but it's a really good thing and it's the same type of rich sourness that I get with Floris Vetiver, and to a lesser degree with C&S 88.

I don't know if this helps, but if you're still unsure or puzzled, I'd suggest getting one of the 3-item sample sets that Sue is selling for $9.50, then you'll know first hand. That's practically a no-brainer!

:cool:
 
The Bulgarian Rose to me, is more like a large bouqet of flowers which are predominantly roses, but also has some other flowers in it that have a deeper, darker, richer scent than the rose, and it might also have wet dirt in the bottom of the vase that gives it a hint of a sour smell mixed in with the very strong rose/floral scent. It's very strong and rich and pungent smelling, like when you lean over to smell and get a strong blast in your face, and you know you'll keep smelling that for quite a while. It's a beautiful thing! I wish I had a better word than "sour", but it's a really good thing and it's the same type of rich sourness that I get with Floris Vetiver, and to a lesser degree with C&S 88.

:cool:

Wow those are some impressive scent descriptions. That and Sue's description: "The EDT is a blend of bulgarian rose, woods, bergamot, vetyver, moss, myhrr, light florals, frangipani, cassis, geranium and tar. It opens sharply and dries down to the heart of rose." were enough to send me back to the EDT to make sure my own descriptions above was accurate.

I had said: "The edt seems pretty pure Bulgarian rose to me, too, although I know that they are other things in it, too. Really nice scent. More linear than 88 and not as dark. I think it is better this way. Again a pure, clean, deep, expensive rose scent that hangs in there very nicely. Good tenacity. Subtle and compact sillage."

I would revise that. There is a whole lot more going on in the edt than the Bugarian rose at least until dry down. It does ooen "sharply"/agreesively. 88 has an aggressive opening that one might not think was inherently pleasent and Sue was trying to get at that a bit with the edt. (Not the soap and ASM. They are pure Bulgarian rose.) And it works. I thnk it is the frangipani that comtributes to that a lot. I think it has a lot to do with the pungent, earthy, sourness jakespoppy talks about above. What I am thinking off is definitely in 88 as a important part. To me there is kind of a decayed/rotten fruit smell to it. I also get the cassis, geranium and tar. I think virtually all rose scented productsa re going to have some geranium in them, except of course for the ASM and shavng soap we are talking about.

Anyway this complex pungent funk says good edt to me. Compex and sophisticated. It not that those aromas are so nice, but there is omething about them that does good and interesting things to the rest of the secent including the predominant rose Damansk. I think such things help make a scent more masculine, too. Also, I susped these things are involved scent that evolve a lot on the skin. Sue' scent is less lnear than I was thinking, and really does behave like 88, with the same kind fof complexity.

I really do think that those that like 88 and similar rose-based or rose like edts will like this version a lot. Both the pure version BR ASM and shaving soap, and the complexity of a true edt.
 
I just ordered all three after I decided to look for some more rose scented shave stuff. :thumbup:

It seems like this thread is a little old so I'm breathing some Rose inspired life back into it.
 
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