Sir Hare Shave Soaps and Head Shaving Oils

Since he started shaving his head, Tony (co-founder of Sir Hare) always had a dry scalp. One day he left the house and realized he forgot to put lotion on his shaved head.  He turned to his wife (Sir Hare partner and co-founder), Mindy, and asked if she had any moisturizer with her.  Mindy handed him a purple bottle containing a sparkly emulsion that smelled like something he didn’t want to apply to his head.  At this moment Tony realized that he wanted to find a better way to shave his head that didn't leave it feeling dry.

Tony recalled reading about people using oil to shave with. As a result, he and Mindy began to experiment by blending different oils together that Tony tried in his head shaving routine. Their kitchen became a lab and his head became the science experiment.   It took months and months of experimentation before they would get something acceptable.  The blends would be too thick, too thin, not moisturizing enough, or smelled funny.  Mindy and Tony kept at it until one day they had one that was just right.  The finished a blend was something that Tony really enjoyed shaving with. It provided a great shave, it smelled really good, and (most of all) his head was no longer dry.

Like most ideas, Sir Hare started with trying to solve a problem. Figuring if he had a problem with a dry scalp as a result of head shaving, then perhaps others did too.  So Mindy and Tony sought out head shavers and sent samples.  The response was very positive … and with that Sir Hare was born in late 2014 with four different scents of head shaving oil: 

The four different varieties of Sir Hare Head Shaving Oil currently available.

Beach Bum:  A blend of oils with hints of coconut to make you feel like you are relaxing in the sun sipping on a Pina Colada.
Gentleman: reminiscent of fresh and musky cologne.
Lumberjack: Pine and woodsy notes designed to smell like a breath of air from a hike through the forest.
Purist:  made for people with sensitive skin.  Purist does not contain any added fragrances and smells only of its blend of its ingredients 

Personally I’ve used the Beach Bum scent.  I’ve never with shaved with just an oil.  I’ve used the Sir Hare oil on a number of occasions.  Typically after about two days of growth, I’d massage about a dime sized onto my scalp after a hot shower and proceed to shave with just the oil.  I’ve shaved with a DE razor, HeadBlade Sport or ATX, or a Cobra CR1000.   A couple of the issues that some have mentioned are the blade clogging and difficulties with quickly washing the blade or cartridge.  For me, I usually have these problems if I’m using thicker (usually brushless) shave creams. But, I haven’t been encountering those issues when using just the head shaving oil. I do have relatively strong water pressure, so I’m kind of attributing it to that.  But as they say in the wet shaving world YMMV (Your mileage may very).  So I can see why some may have that problem whereas others may not. 

Sir Hare Beach Bum Head Shaving Oil pictured with some of my head shaving tools

Not too long after launching, Sir Hare expanded into shave soaps. Unfortunately, their first batch was not well received.  During the testing phase, the initial feedback from product testers was positive.  However once the shaving soap was generally released many seasoned wet shavers were citing problems with lathering.  They offered refunds to their customers and went back to the drawing board.

Sir Hare worked on a new formulation with the wet shaving community. The reformulated soap has received very positive feedback and Sir Hare re-released it in May of 2015. It is currently available in 3 different scents: 

Sir Hare Shaving Soap, currently available in three different scents. 

Third Eye:   A shaving soap with a sweet, warm, rich fragrance of Sandalwood and Vanilla. Sandalwood is known to help realign your mind, body, spirit, and claims to even open your Third Eye; hence the name. 
Classic Barber: A throwback barbershop scent
Drunken Sailor:  A Bay Rum fragrance.  Sir Hare dubbed it Drunken Sailor because many moons ago sailors found a way to use Rum to extract the oil from the Bay leaf which created the fragrance we know and love. 

I had the opportunity to try their Classic Barber shave soap.  The scent is fairly light and the smell (to my nose) is something that I would describe as a barbershop scent mixed with the light smell of baby oil.  Personally, I found the soap to have a nice, slick, and cushiony lather.  For me, running a badger brush under the hot tap water for a few seconds, shaking out some excess, and swirling it over the soap for about 30 seconds was enough for my regular two pass face shave. 

Sir Hare Classic Barber Shaving Soap Lather

So I asked Sir Hare if there is anything in the making that we can anticipate.  They had mentioned that there are some new scents of head shaving oil and shaving soaps that are planned for the near future.  There are also a few other products that are planned but couldn’t mention much more than that.  I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.  

Have you tried the Sir Hare Shaving Oil or Shave Soaps? Feel free to leave a comment below and let us know.