Every Taylor of Old Bond Street Scent: A Full Tour of the Creams, Soaps, and Aftershaves
Jeremiah Taylor opened his shop on London’s Bond Street in 1854, selling botanical hair and scalp preparations to Victorian society. Five generations later the family firm trades from Jermyn Street, and the white bowl with the colored lid has become one of the most recognizable objects in wet shaving. Ask a room of shavers to name a shaving cream and Taylor of Old Bond Street is one of the first answers out of anyone’s mouth.
What most people know is the Sandalwood bowl. What fewer people know is how wide the range actually runs: more than a dozen cream scents, a proper hard soap or two, aftershaves in five different formats, colognes, and a supporting cast of brushes and hardware. This is not a ranking. It is a map, so when someone in the group says “which TOBS should I try,” you can find the answer by taste instead of by guess.
How the Range Works
The house builds most of its scents as families. A scent starts as a shaving cream, and the popular ones grow matching aftershaves, colognes, bath soaps, and shampoos, so you can run one fragrance from shower to splash without anything clashing. The creams are the center of gravity: soft enough to load a brush straight from the bowl, and famous in the community for lathering easily even for first-timers. The name to know for trivia night is No. 74, the house’s own fragrance line, named for the shop’s address at 74 Jermyn Street.
Sandalwood, the Flagship
If the brand has a signature, this is it. The company describes the formula as one passed down through generations of the Taylor family, and the scent profile is bigger than the name suggests: a fougère opening of geranium, lavender, rosemary, and liquid amber over carnation and orange blossom, resting on patchouli, sandalwood, vetiver, and powdery musk. It reads less like a single woody note and more like a classic barbershop built around one.
Sandalwood also spans more formats than anything else the house makes. The Sandalwood shaving cream bowl is the classic 150g size, with a smaller bowl, a travel tube, and sample sachets below it. It is the one scent offered as a true hard puck: the Sandalwood shaving soap comes seated in a handmade acacia wood bowl, with refills sold separately. Beyond the lather there is a splash lotion, an alcohol-free version, a cologne, an aftershave gel, talc, beard oil, even a pre-shave oil. If you want to live in one scent head to toe, this is the one the range was built for.
There is also a newer remix called Spicy Sandalwood, which pushes pink pepper into the opening of the same fougère structure. Same family, sharper entrance.
The House Classics
Mr Taylor is the house fragrance, dating to 1957 by the company’s own telling. The cream lathers like the rest of the line, and the scent is the most traditionally English thing they make: lavender, bergamot, and green notes over a fern heart, with amber, leather, moss, and musk underneath. The Mr Taylor aftershave splash carries the same profile, and it is the one scent in the range offered as a proper aftershave balm.
Eton College is the citrus one, and it has a real history: the company formulated it for the barbershop it once ran at Eton itself. Lemon, orange, and mandarin up top, a floral heart, patchouli underneath, and a finish the vendor accurately calls discreet. The Eton College shaving cream is the pick for people who want fragrance during the shave that disappears politely afterward, and there is a matching splash and cologne.
St James sits between the two: a fougère opening with bergamot, mandarin, and citrus over a fruity floral heart and a woody amber base. Sweeter than Mr Taylor, rounder than Eton College. It comes as a cream and as a fragrance bottle that can be worn as cologne or splashed as aftershave.
Jermyn Street is the modern one, and the practical one. The cream is allergen-free and formulated for sensitive skin, with a fresh fougère profile of lemon, lime, lavender, and bergamot over geranium, neroli, and amber. Its whole supporting line is alcohol-free, including the aftershave and the cologne, which makes the Jermyn Street shaving cream the standard answer when someone’s face runs hot or their skin objects to splashes.
The Single-Note Creams
Around the named collections sits a shelf of creams that do exactly what the label says. These are the simplest way into the brand: pick the note you already know you like.
- Lavender, the classic floral, built on essential lavender oil.
- Rose, a delicate old-style rose, one of the great traditional shaving scents.
- Almond, sweet and rich, a scent family artisan makers have been riffing on for a century.
- Grapefruit, the loudest of the citrus options, bright and awake.
- Lime Zest, lime and orange sharpened with lavender and tarragon over patchouli and cedarwood.
- Peppermint, cooling by scent rather than menthol chill, clean and direct.
- Coconut, the beach day of the lineup, mostly seen in samples and smaller formats.
None of these demand study. They are the range’s equivalent of comfort food, and the sample sachets make it cheap to find out which one suits your mornings.
The Modern Luxury Line
The newer additions push the house somewhere its Victorian founders would not recognize, and they share a trait worth knowing: the matching 50ml aftershaves are alcohol-free and come with atomizers.
- Oud opens with quince, runs through a spiced heart of rose and saffron, and lands on oud and dry amber. The most perfume-like thing on the cream shelf.
- Tobacco Leaf pairs its namesake with bergamot and grapefruit over lingering coffee and leather. The Tobacco Leaf aftershave is the pick for anyone whose taste runs toward the darker artisan scents.
- Cedarwood is the woody one, lifted by grapefruit and crisp pepper over a heart of precious woods.
- Royal Forest is the wildcard: bergamot, apple, blackcurrant, and pineapple over jasmine, birch, and black pepper, finished with oakmoss, ambergris, and vanilla. A fruity chypre wearing a shaving cream lid.
Aftershave Formats, Decoded
The house sells five different things under the aftershave banner, and the differences matter more than the scents do.
The classic splash lotions (Sandalwood, Mr Taylor, Eton College) are traditional alcohol aftershaves: brisk, clean, gone in an hour or two. The alcohol-free lotions (Jermyn Street, the 30ml Sandalwood, and the modern 50ml line) trade the sting for gentleness and a spray top. Aftershave creams (Jermyn Street, Oud, Tobacco Leaf, Royal Forest) are moisturizers that carry the fragrance. The Mr Taylor balm is the richest of the soothers, and the Sandalwood gel splits the difference. If you are not sure which format your skin wants, our splash versus balm guide covers the decision in full, and the classic aftershaves buyer’s guide puts the house’s splashes in context with a century of competitors.
The Actual Soaps
For a brand famous for lather, the hard-soap shelf is short and easy to summarize. The Sandalwood puck in its acacia bowl is the flagship, covered above. Beside it sits the Traditional shaving soap refill, a plain-wrapped puck sized for a mug, which is exactly what you want if a Victorian ceramic mug from their hardware shelf is already on your counter. The rest of the soap range lives outside the shave: bath soaps in Sandalwood, Jermyn Street, Eton College, and Mr Taylor, plus hand soaps in Sandalwood, Rose, Lavender, and a traditional lemon. Same scent families, bigger bars.
The Rest of the Shop
The scents are the story, but the catalog keeps going. There are badger brushes from starter pure-badger models up to super badger, cartridge razor handles for Mach3 and Fusion heads, a Victorian-styled safety razor, ceramic lathering mugs, brush stands, and a long shelf of gift boxes that pair a cream with a brush or a balm. The colognes deserve a mention of their own: most of the classic scents come in 100ml bottles, and the two No. 74 fragrances (an orange-and-bergamot Original and a Victorian Lime) are sold as dual-purpose bottles meant to work as either cologne or aftershave. If your lather routine could use a refresher before a new cream lands, our lather bowl guide covers the bowl-versus-mug question these creams keep raising.
Where to Start
Not a ranking, but a matchmaking table. If you love classic woody barbershop scents, start with Sandalwood, the one the house is known for. Sensitive skin goes straight to Jermyn Street. Citrus people split between Eton College for subtlety and Grapefruit or Lime Zest for volume. If your taste runs English-traditional, Mr Taylor; sweeter and rounder, St James. If your den already leans artisan-dark, Oud and Tobacco Leaf are the two that will feel familiar. And if you genuinely cannot choose, the sample sachets and 10ml aftershave bottles exist precisely for this problem, and they are the cheapest tour ticket the house sells.
Frequently asked questions
What is Taylor of Old Bond Street known for?
Shaving cream above all. The London house, founded in 1854 by Jeremiah Taylor, makes soft creams in screw-lid bowls that lather easily with a brush, with Sandalwood as the signature scent. The range also includes aftershaves in several formats, colognes, bath soaps, brushes, and razors.
Does Taylor of Old Bond Street make shaving soap or just cream?
Mostly cream, but there are two true soaps: the Sandalwood shaving soap in a handmade acacia wood bowl (with refills) and a Traditional shaving soap refill puck sized for a mug. Everything else on the lather shelf is soft cream.
Are Taylor of Old Bond Street aftershaves alcohol-free?
Some are. The classic Sandalwood, Mr Taylor, and Eton College splashes are traditional alcohol lotions, while the Jermyn Street line and the modern 50ml aftershaves (Oud, Tobacco Leaf, Cedarwood, Royal Forest) are alcohol-free with atomizer tops. The creams, balm, and gel are alcohol-free soothers.
Which Taylor of Old Bond Street scent should a beginner try first?
Match it to taste rather than reputation: Sandalwood for the classic woody barbershop profile, Jermyn Street for sensitive skin, Eton College for quiet citrus, and the single-note creams like Lavender or Almond if you already know the note you like. Sample sachets make trying several inexpensive.
One house, one street address, and somewhere north of fifteen scents to work through. However far down the shelf you get, you will be shaving with the same firm that was scenting London faces before the safety razor existed, and there is something quietly great about that.
Happy shaving.