ETHOS Grooming Essentials A New Line

Come on guys keep the names coming.. Some excellent names so far!

Thank you!

My list of name picks…not finalized

Devotee…..intended to convey the spirituality associated with sandalwood….the mindset of the wet-shaver…..as well as Frank’s Dragonsbeard knowledge, dedication and quest for excellence…


cāntu…..Tamil for sandalwood tree. Very unexpected/unique name. Exotic connotation.  A fragrance vibe…


Attar Sandali

It is posited that distance and time clarify perspective.  Being honest, although having fought it entire life, there is wisdom in the lore of old.

Have been focusing on Grooming Dept Vanilla Almond Mallard, which is an outstanding soap, at the leading edge of the latest soap tech.

But then, for whatever reason, decided to lather up an ETHOS Safi sample from Patriot.

Good God, one immediately knows where every penny of the outrageous price goes.

I may have been mistaken regarding the gap from the world's second best soap to first....

Will likely never have the means to buy a tub but damn!!!  DEAD BALLS PERFECT in every metric....

Thank you Patriot.

It is posited that distance and time clarify perspective.  Being honest, although having fought it entire life, there is wisdom in the lore of old.

Have been focusing on Grooming Dept Vanilla Almond Mallard, which is an outstanding soap, at the leading edge of the latest soap tech.

But then, for whatever reason, decided to lather up an ETHOS Safi sample from Patriot.

Good God, one immediately knows where every penny of the outrageous price goes.

I may have been mistaken regarding the gap from the world's second best soap to first....

Will likely never have the means to buy a tub but damn!!!  DEAD BALLS PERFECT in every metric....

Thank you Patriot.

Thank you Dan for the kind words. I’m not sure if you know. That was my first soap I made which I called the Premium S base at the time but that same formula is now the new S Base formula in the current batch of Lavender Supreme and the Succes and will be used in any future S Base Shave soaps.  

I don’t think it was outrageously expensive considering the cost of the Ingredients etc  an the only pure 100% Vanilla soap ever made. There is another one that recently came out that with the matching serum is 5 times more expensive than what the Vanilla Safi if you were to add a custom Vanilla Safi Serum cost. So I think I priced it fairly and will do so on the next batch in November 2022. 

Patriot is a good man!

My list of name picks…not finalized

Devotee…..intended to convey the spirituality associated with sandalwood….the mindset of the wet-shaver…..as well as Frank’s Dragonsbeard knowledge, dedication and quest for excellence…


cāntu…..Tamil for sandalwood tree. Very unexpected/unique name. Exotic connotation. A fragrance vibe…

Thank you for the kind words Ken! and your name picks.

Come on DFS guys we need more names! We got sone very good ones but the more the merrier!  Lol 

It is posited that distance and time clarify perspective.  Being honest, although having fought it entire life, there is wisdom in the lore of old.

Have been focusing on Grooming Dept Vanilla Almond Mallard, which is an outstanding soap, at the leading edge of the latest soap tech.

But then, for whatever reason, decided to lather up an ETHOS Safi sample from Patriot.

Good God, one immediately knows where every penny of the outrageous price goes.

I may have been mistaken regarding the gap from the world's second best soap to first....

Will likely never have the means to buy a tub but damn!!!  DEAD BALLS PERFECT in every metric....

Thank you Patriot.

Thank you Dan for the kind words. I’m not sure if you know. That was my first soap I made with I called the Premium S base at the time but that same formula is now the new S Base in the current batch of Lavender Supreme and the Succes and will be used in any future S Base Shave soaps.  

I don’t think it was outrageously expensive considering the cost of the Ingredients etc  an the only pure 100% Vanilla soap ever made. There is another one that recently came out that with the matching serum is 5 times more expensive than what the Vanilla Safi  cost if you were to add a custom Vanilla Safi Serum. So I think I priced it fairly and will do so on the next batch in November 2022. 

Patriot is a good man!

Perhaps you conflate outrageously priced with unfairly priced when reading the post.

Quality ingredients, used in any quantity, will of necessity reflect the market commodity price. What is confusing is how some products contain incredibly expensive ingredients yet the soap magically costs next to nothing. Even if the expensive constituents were stolen from a remote lawless land, if genuine and present in any amount, could not be transported to US as reflected in the final soap price.

It is posited that distance and time clarify perspective.  Being honest, although having fought it entire life, there is wisdom in the lore of old.

Have been focusing on Grooming Dept Vanilla Almond Mallard, which is an outstanding soap, at the leading edge of the latest soap tech.

But then, for whatever reason, decided to lather up an ETHOS Safi sample from Patriot.

Good God, one immediately knows where every penny of the outrageous price goes.

I may have been mistaken regarding the gap from the world's second best soap to first....

Will likely never have the means to buy a tub but damn!!!  DEAD BALLS PERFECT in every metric....

Thank you Patriot.

Thank you Dan for the kind words. I’m not sure if you know. That was my first soap I made with I called the Premium S base at the time but that same formula is now the new S Base in the current batch of Lavender Supreme and the Succes and will be used in any future S Base Shave soaps.  

I don’t think it was outrageously expensive considering the cost of the Ingredients etc  an the only pure 100% Vanilla soap ever made. There is another one that recently came out that with the matching serum is 5 times more expensive than what the Vanilla Safi  cost if you were to add a custom Vanilla Safi Serum. So I think I priced it fairly and will do so on the next batch in November 2022. 

Patriot is a good man!

Perhaps you conflate outrageously priced with unfairly priced when reading the post.

Quality ingredients, used in any quantity, will of necessity reflect the market commodity price. What is confusing is how some products contain incredibly expensive ingredients yet the soap magically costs next to nothing. Even if the expensive constituents were stolen from a remote lawless land, if genuine and present in any amount, could not be transported to US as reflected in the final soap price.

Now you touched on a subject that’s something that does annoy me and I’m with you on that.  So when I see a label that lists a bunch of aroma ingredients like Sandalwood EO, Rose Absolute, Tobacco Absolute, Tonka Bean Absolute, Neroli EO, Tuberose Absolute, Jasmine Absolute, Frangipani, Red Champaca and a bunch of others in the list of of a $25 jar of Shave soap then I know it’s financially impossible unless they got those ingredients for free! In reality their probably aroma chemicals. 

Call it deceptive marketing or whatever but in my opinion it’s not fair to the customers. Also I see sometimes the way notes are listed it would make the untrained or unknowledgeable buyer think that these are real natural ingredients when in truth they are just aroma chemicals or even more inexpensive fragrance oils. This happens a lot in the Cologne and perfume world, where all these exotic aroma notes are listed in the initial copy but when you look down farther there may be an option to look at the ingredients list and in many cases every single aroma ingredient is an aroma chemical so for example you may see a bottle of Tom Ford or Creed that sells for north of $400 per bottle and then the next thing you see is a dupe by ALT for $40 with the exact same aroma chemicals in it. So I’m many cases you are paying for the custom packaging these designer fragrances come in, their marketing costs and of course the name.  I will note there are some not so well known perfumers who do use either all natural or a combination of of both aroma chemicals and naturals but they don’t have the huge marketing budgets to make OTC known an are only known by the real Frag Heads! 

My approach is pricing my products according to what’s in them. Example my soon to be released Tonka Bean will be more expensive than my Lavender. It’s simple Tonka Bean costs considerably more per oz.  Also when I try and duplicate or should I say make my version of a existing cologne for example I look at the fragrance profile notes of that scent and see how many of them that I know are aroma chemicals that  I can replace with natural essential oils, absolutes or resins etc. sometimes you can replace them all or sometimes their is no natural alternative so you end up with a mixture of both in the blend.

 Oud is probably the most misrepresented of any of the top 10 most expensive aroma ingredients.used out there.  
Here’s a few examples of what some authentic Oud costs. 

2 years aged Cambodian Oud $900.00  an oz
9 years aged Thai Oud $5,770.00 an oz 
Malaysian Oud 2 years aged $1,050.00 an oz
Are there some a bit less? Yes but still in the hundreds of dollars per oz range. Of course there’s some watered down or should I say mixed with Jojoba oil advertised as real Oud that can be bought for less but believe me their a far cry from the real deal. I just saw a YouTube review of a shave soap that sells for $24.00 and the reviewer said now this is a very powerful real Oud forward scent. I cringed! Lol So when you see the mention of Oud in a $20 Shave soap know it’s either a pre made fragrance oil or an Aroma Chemical cause it’s certainly not the real deal. 

As you know the Argarwood oil ( Oud ) and the Oud Resin I use in the Dragonsbeard aroma blend was obtained for free and I swear it was an act of God how I obtained it. I’ll have to tell that story publicly one day and they are both from Cambodia and at todays prices would cost Thousands If I had to pay for them. The Dragonsbeard Shave soap would be in the Hundreds of dollar price jar range easily. I got it for free and I made the decision back to the V1 to not change what’s it’s really worth and have fun with it. Nice thing about Oud and Sandalwood is they both get better with age unlike many essential oils that get rancid over time.  
So when I see a $20 Shave soap with a list of aroma ingredients that would make that soap sell for no less than $50 and up I just shake my head and move on because you’ll never see me publicly call them out or get in a debate about the ingredient list or price. It’s not my job and I don’t want any drama. Just trying to stay in my own lane here.  What I think is maybe people that care should do their research themselves. 

Also a note, there are also sone skin beneficial ingredients that are costly that would add to the price more than one would think that are also sometimes misrepresented and reflected in the final price of the product. Also packaging is a factor. 

Sorry for the long rant but you definitely touch on a subject that matters to me. Example when I see a post where someone posts up something about let’s say my Lavender Supreme and then someone will chime in and say ETHOS is to expensive ( although they’ve never tried it ) an such and such a brand has a Lavender soap that’s only $10 and then I’ll buy it just for the hell of it and it’s obviously synthetic lavender. Yeah that bugs me a bit but you can’t blame the guys that posted it as he probably really believed it was real lavender because of the manner in which it was marketed by the manufacturer. 

Anyway…
Have a great weekend all.

Very insightful. Now it all makes sense. I could never figure out how a number of artisans were able to put enough incredibly expensive EOs into their products yet charge only $17-$25 or so. I imagine they would be instantly exposed if their products were actually analyzed in a lab. Unfortunately, given the small size of their operations they fly under the radar of regulatory agencies….and they know it…and make a conscious decision to make false claims about their ingredients. A case study in deceptive labeling and advertising. It’s pretty apparent who they are…but I’m not going there.

Ok let’s all get back to naming the new Shave Soap! 

Come on guys the guys on the other form are smoking you!   

Is this a challenge! Yep it is!  Lol 

All in fun my friends all in fun! 

Enjoy your weekend!