Cleansing Soap Set of 3 with Charcoal and Hinoki Oil

Smells so nice and is relaxing, 10/10 would buy again, doesn't dry me out and actually helped some hormonal chest acne I was getting!

I’ve been using this on my 65yo skin for several years. Some feel it is drying but I apply moisturizer afterwards and not looking or feeling dry at all from it.

Great cleansing soap

While this soap seems like quality soap, if you are buying it for the hinoki aspect, be warned, you only get the scent of hinoki upon immediately opening the soap from the wrapper. After that, it's a pleasant enough and very serviceable charcoal soap that I would say decently moisturizes and exfoliates. But if you spend over $20 on three small bars of soap because you like the smell of hinoki and thought that would be consistent throughout the soap's use, you'll be disappointed like me.Update 7/13/2023: I am adding another star to this. I am still a little disappointed by the lack of hinoki scent but this is very much a quality soap. It is very well milled and lasts for a LONG time. I still have not finished my first bar.

This soap leaves my skin feeling super soft and squeaky clean. The lather is rich and the scent is subtle. The bars are a bit smaller than average American soaps, but they last a long time. And it works great for my son who has sensitive skin!

If you're Japanese you've probably been in a temple or shrine or even hotels that uses Hinoki woods. Hinoki, or Japanese Cypress tree, has been scientifically proven to have Phytoncide (repels bacteria & virus) and Hinokitiol (anti-inflammatory), and Hinoki oil has a calming, relaxing effect on humans. It's not like I analyzed this soap, but Japanese description says this soap contains Hinoki oil and Hinokitiol. Other ingredients like papain, bentonite, kaolin are natural substances derived from papaya, clay, and granite all with cleansing properties. I use this for the whole body, my skin feels so clean, no residue, fragrance is subtle (refreshing or ashy, depending on what you expect) and only lasts while in the shower. The soap is dense and lasts a long time (definitely need use a sponge to lather it up- highly recommend Japanese/African nylon washcloth!). This is my repeat order...until I can go to Japan and buy it for less!

If not for the smell, I might give this a higher rating. The size for the price isn't exactly desirable either, but I could deal with that if not for the bizarre smell. It's not that I haven't had other activated charcoal soaps, it just smells like a very sterile hospital room. It has a potent medical smell, but even worse is the smell it leaves behind in the shower. After getting to the 2nd bar, I started noticing the smell of stale urine in my shower. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from so I cleaned the whole shower, including the drain, and threw out the bar thinking something may have tainted in the shower somehow. The smell was gone until after I opened up a new bar and used it for a week, the smell returned. I repeated the cleaning and left the bar in my other bathroom in a plastic baggy and the smell never came back. So that tells me something about the used bar or its used lather is causing this secondary urine smell. I've switched to another bar and haven't had any issues since.

I’m very much a lover of old Japanese culture, and I just love hinoki, sugi, etc. I had the pleasure of bathing in a several hinoki tubs in Japan, and they let off such a heavenly aroma when filled with steaming hot water. To my delight, I was able to purchase a larger bar of this soap at a Tokyu Hands in Kyoto a few years ago, but couldn’t bring myself to use it because it was to my knowledge irreplaceable. So I just used it as decoration, knowing any day I pleased I could start using it if I felt so compelled. Thankfully I found this item on Amazon, a package of three smaller bars of this marvelous bar soap.It’s incredibly fine-milled, and so a little goes a long way, easily working up a luxurious lather. If you’re into hinoki specifically, or just like the smell of aromatic woods, it doesn’t get much better than this, certainly not at this price-point. $20 may seem like a lot for such little soap, but because the quality is so high and it lasts so long, especially if you use it only as a facial soap as I do, it’s a well-justified investment if you love this sort of thing. Makes my shower just that much more refreshing and invigorating. I LOVE this stuff.If only they made the white horse soap variety as well!