Declaration Grooming has experimented with their soap formulations a fair amount, the Icarus formula was one of the earlier moves into a premium soap. I like soaps with interesting ingredients, and certainly Icarus fulfills that:
Stearic Acid, Water, Castor Oil, Avocado Oil, Vegetable Glycerin, Mango Seed Butter, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Fragrance, Bison Tallow, Lamb Tallow, Colloidal Oatmeal, Goat’s Milk, Lanolin, Bentonite Clay, Tocopheryl Acetate, Hippophae Rhamnoides (Sea Buckthorn) Fruit Extract, Salix Alba L. (White Willow) Bark Extract, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Extract, Tetrasodium EDTA, Tussah Silk
The fragrance is very nice, aimed at autumn as the name implies. They describe the fragrance thusly:
Darkfall is a spicy oriental designed to capture the spirit of fall in the rural south. Agarwood, amber, and benzoin provide a deep, warm base for the cinnamon and clove top notes. Birch tar adds a slight smokiness that represents the ever-present smell of burning leaves that heralds the arrival of fall in Georgia.
The lather, using my Kent Infinity, was excellent, and though the soap contains clay, I experience no hesitation in loading, possibly because the Kent Infinity is rather scrubby for synthetic: very springy and resilient and a nice change of pace.
Three passes with the excellent MJ-90A from Italian Barber left my face smooth, and another old-timey aftershave, this one a bay rum, finished the job on a pleasant note.
A late start this morning, but a good one.