Castle Forbes

Castle Forbes is a Scottish grooming and fragrance house known for essential-oil-based wet-shaving products and fine perfumes. According to the company, it was founded in 1996 in a former dairy building behind Castle Forbes in Aberdeenshire, on the banks of the River Don [2]. The business began as a small family perfumery and grew into a range better known for its shaving creams, aftershave balms and eaux de parfum than for any single scent.

The brand trades as the Castle Forbes Collection and describes itself as a distinguished British house built around tradition and natural ingredients. It remains active: its online shop sells the full range at current prices, and its products are stocked by wet-shaving retailers in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. No new fragrance launches have been reported since around 2018, but there are no signs that the company has wound down.

The brand was started by Lady Forbes, who developed the early scents, working with the professional fragrance creator Andrew French [8]. The company says the venture began when the former dairy building behind the castle was converted into what it calls "the world's smallest perfumery," where Lady Forbes pursued an interest in scents and essential oils [2]. The founders drew inspiration from the countryside around the estate and aimed, in the company's words, to honour the tradition of Haute Perfumerie.

A point of potential confusion is the brand's founding date. The grooming and fragrance company dates itself to 1996 [2], and that year is repeated across its history and sustainability pages and corroborated by the wet-shaving site Sharpologist [8]. The figure "1445" appears on the brand's homepage and on a product line, but it refers to the year the Forbes Clan Chief was made Premier Lord of Scotland — ancestral clan heritage used as a product name, not the founding of the business [1].

Castle Forbes is organised around two strands: fine fragrance and what it markets as luxury grooming. The grooming line centres on shaving creams, aftershave balms and a pre-shave product, offered in scents including Lavender, Lime, Cedarwood & Sandalwood, and 1445. On the fragrance side, the eau de parfum range includes 1445, Forbes of Forbes and Gentlemen's Cologne.

What the company presents as its distinguishing approach is the use of essential oils rather than synthetic fragrance added to a base. "We are a perfumery company," it states, but argues that in a shaving routine essential oils offer "so much more in skin benefits and mood enhancing" than scent alone [6]. The brand attributes specific roles to particular oils: lime as a natural agent to help prevent bleeding, lavender to soothe irritation, and cedarwood and sandalwood for cleansing properties [6]. Sharpologist reports the company's claim to be the first UK shaving range to use only essential oils [8].

The Essential Oil Grooming Care shaving cream, which the company says was originally developed for people who find shaving uncomfortable, is described on the brand's history page as "revered by shavers worldwide." Castle Forbes positions itself in the company's phrase as "Quiet Luxury" — what it calls a "best in class shaving experience without a designer label price" [2].

The company frames its environmental approach as "sensible sustainability" and says it has held to these practices since 1996 [3]. Over roughly 2001 to 2014 it changed packaging materials, replacing rigid gift boxes with folding cartons, switching glass shaving-cream jars and balm bottles to PET, and moving heavy metalised perfume caps to lighter aluminium [3].

On formulation, Castle Forbes states that it has "not used Sulphates, SLSs, added colours or tested on animals" and was "among the first in our category to replace Parabens" [3]. The homepage similarly lists the products as free of animal ingredients and not tested on animals. These are self-stated claims; the brand site does not cite third-party certification.

Coverage of Castle Forbes sits mainly within specialist communities rather than mainstream beauty press. Sharpologist, a wet-shaving site, reviewed the brand and found its shave creams perform "fantastically" [8]. In fragrance databases, its 1445 scent — a men's aromatic fougère — has been discussed as among the closer alternatives to vintage Azzaro pour Homme, and Fragrantica ran an editorial feature on the line titled "What Real Scotsmen Smell Like" [9].

Castle Forbes is active. Its e-commerce site is live and transacting with current pricing, and its products are distributed across many wet-shaving retailers internationally. The most recent fragrance appears to date to about 2018, and there is little recent press, but the steady direct and multi-channel sales point to a small, established niche house rather than a dormant one.