Cucumber Lather Review:

For today's shave I used this soap and let me tell you that the shave was epic. So while I normally face lather, I also like to do a bowl lather to show how well a soap or cream performs. Here lately I really haven't been doing that to much so I'll be getting back into that. So let's start with PAA's Cucumber. The first impression is always the scent. Whether the soap is cold or has been bloomed, is another story in of itself but this one is straight up cucumber which seems a bit on the mild side before blooming. Once it's been bloomed at the temps that are listed on the back of the tin, the scent explodes. My entire bathroom smelled like someone had been slicing cucumbers in there for the past half hour which was incredible. The slickness of this soap is past epic. I had to use my alum block just to be able to grip my shaving gear that I used today. The post shave felt extremely slick and fresh with a little hint of a cooling effect to it and my skin felt like it was moist and still wet from my shave which I really loved. The cushioning ability was also epic. I didn't even need my alum block for this shave. And in terms of lather performance, see for yourself. The 1st photo below was the final results:

At first, I thought I over loaded the brush a little bit but it turned out really well because I ended up using a tad too much water this time around. Mainly due to the fact that I normally don't bowl lather:

After I finish building a lather, I let it sit for about 10 minutes to test the staying power of the lather. This one done extremely well and held up a lot longer than I was expecting it to. This little test helps determine whether a soap will last during a shave and whether or not you'd have to rebuild a lather between passes which I don't like if I have to just that:

Another thing I look for is how clean a soap rinses from your shaving gear and whether or not a residue is left behind. Tiki Bar and PAA's shaving soaps ALWAYS give me ultra clean results while the others tend to leave a tiny bit of residue behind but it's easily removed with minimal effort while these 2 brands are pretty much effortless:

All in all I am extremely pleased with the performance of this soap. I also decided to keep it in my rotation on a permanent basis but not just because of performance which was a huge factor, but due to the fact that there's not much out there in terms of cucumber scented products that are available and that's true to the vegetable. A lot of people who make cucumber scented products, tend to add stuff to it that's really not necessary with the exception to cucumber and melon based scents. A minimum amount of menthol would be great with this soap but in my humble opinion, it would ruin this soap's scent. I give this soap 5 out of 5 stars.