My Favorite Fall Soap: Autumn Woods From Subtle Art Soap Co.

Hey, welcome back to the channel, Tennessee Whiskey Shaving, with your dude of food and your favorite talking torso, Wes. What’s up, my marvelous misfits of wet shaving? Hope you had a fantastic weekend, because I’m doing absolutely phenomenal, and we’re jumping right in.

For this Terrific Tuesday review and shave, I’m going with another fall favorite of mine: Autumn Woods, by Subtle Art. This one’s in Joe’s new vegan four-butter base, V4B for short, and don’t ask me why I can never say that right on camera. Vegan four-butter base. There we go.

I didn’t get to try this one the first time around. Joe was kind enough to send me samples last year, and I fell for it hard. This is a phenomenal soap.

On my Tennessee Whiskey Proof Scale, where zero proof is the worst and one hundred proof is the best, I’m giving Autumn Woods a solid 60 proof. That’s a little stronger than Joe’s stuff usually runs, and it earns it. Subtle Art does this atmospheric blending that nails the exact moment the season shifts into fall, and I love it every time.

The Hardware

For hardware, I’m using the Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements Cygnus. Love this razor. It’s heavy, it’s got copper or brass in it, I think copper, and it just feels right for a fall shave. Like turning leaves.

To match, I grabbed my Abominable Creations brush with the Thor Yeti coin. It’s got a 70/30 badger-boar mix from Lather Yeti, one of my favorite knots. That said, Lather Yeti’s new Abomination 70/30 knot might take its spot. I’ve been breaking one in on my Timeless adjustable, and I actually think I like it better. It’s still got a little funk to it, but it’s getting there, and it’s starting to take on that flat-top look. Excellent work, Chris.

But we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about Autumn Woods.

Scent Notes

While my brush soaks and I go through the notes, I’ll splash a little on the back of each hand so I get the dry-down by the time I’m done.

Before I forget: when I picked this up, I meant to grab the full trifecta, soap and EDP both. I only got the soap. I like this stuff so much I’m going back for the EDP too.

Autumn Woods runs blood orange, blackberry, carnation, rose, pine, cedarwood, sandalwood, patchouli, and eucalyptus. Not a long list. It works anyway.

The orange hits first. It’s not sweet or juicy. It’s more of a peeled-rind brightness you get from expressing an orange peel, and it cuts through the heavier wood and earth notes so the soap never goes muddy or dark. Blackberry balances it: dark, tart, a little astringent, with a wild-foraged edge that gives the orange something to push against.

Eucalyptus is the temperature dial. A little medicinal, a little minty and cool. On paper it should read like walking through the woods on a cold morning, that crisp air hitting you.

Pine is the backbone. Crisp, resinous, deeply green, like snapping a fresh evergreen branch.

Carnation is the sleeper note in the heart. In perfumery, it’s prized for a spicy, clove-like character, and here it adds a warm, peppery, slightly vintage masculine edge that pushes back against the brighter top notes.

Rose rounds it out. Not a rose-garden scent. It just smooths the sharp edges off the pine and eucalyptus so the whole thing reads a little more luxurious.

Down in the base, cedarwood brings that high-end-humidor, freshly-sharpened-pencil dryness, the classic lumber foundation almost every masculine woody scent leans on. Sandalwood counters it: creamy, milky, a little sweet, and it’s one of those notes that holds onto the more volatile top and heart notes so they stick around longer. Cedarwood and sandalwood are peanut butter and jelly as far as I’m concerned.

Patchouli closes it out as the grounding element. Rich, musky, soil-like, like damp autumn leaves covering a forest floor.

Put it all together, and it’s the contrast that makes Autumn Woods work: cold eucalyptus against dark wild berries against damp woods. Standout in my fall rotation.

The Lather

Brush is soaked, water’s shaken out, time to load up. I’m using Joe’s vegan four-butter base here, my favorite non-tallow base he makes. This smells so good. Fall is my favorite shaving season, and Autumn Woods is a good reminder why Joe has such a good nose for this stuff. I don’t think I’ve disliked a single scent he’s put out. If I’ve got one gripe, it’s that his fragrances run a little soft or faint sometimes. Not that they smell bad. I just wish I could get more out of them.

That’s Autumn Woods for me. If you’re into fall soaps with a wood-and-citrus backbone instead of pure pumpkin-spice sweetness, give this one a look. Thanks for watching, and happy shaves, gents.