Is Newer Better?

Boy things have changed since I got back into soap and brush many years ago.  Back then I had the choice of the British soaps, Proraso, Tabac, Mitchell’s, and very few “artisan” soaps.  Mama Bear was a hit.  Prairie Creations made good soaps.  The Shave Den was cooking.  Strop Shoppe was all that and a bag-o-chips.  Perhaps Mama Bear is still around but the other artisans are gone and for each exit has been 5 entrances.  Are they building better soaps?  Well, yes, I think so.  But what I used to buy for five bucks is 30 bucks now.  Shoot, in the case of some boutique soaps you shell out a hundo!  Do they shave better?  I’ll let you be the judge of that but for me the answer is indubitably no.  
    I still use and enjoy Tabac, The Fat, DR Harris, and Trumpers (pre-lost-their-ever-loving-mind reformulation) and I find them all slick like my front step in an ice storm.  How does the scent hold up to the current offerings?  Again, I enjoy the old tried and true just fine.  In fact more than just fine.  Tabac is a man smell my friends.  Post shave plumpitude?  Again, the old offerings still leave me feeling pretty ok in the post shave realm.  
     So what’s the use of all these come and go soapers?  I know it was a sad day for me when Tim’s Soaps shutdown and I was not going to be able to get Greek Peach anymore.  In reality, I still have some Greek Peach left and seldom get to it in my pile of tubs.  It still smells great and it still produces great lather and I’m glad I own it but the fact is I could never buy another soap and shave everyday for the rest of my life and not run out.  
     The skin care must be so much better now that it’s worth the extra dough.  Well, again, not for me.  These super fatted soaps that undoubtedly have better skin care are more fidgety in my hard water.  They take longer to lather.  The lather is super low structure and I just don’t find it as enjoyable as say, Tabac.  Seems to me the super fat and other things that are supposed to feed my skin dont do what my post shave Shea butter will do better.  Seems a super fat soap is like sewing your underpants into your trousers to save a step.  Would it work? Yes, but the kids are gonna whisper.  
     Hey, if others like these new fangled soaps, and it appears they do, I’ll not grouse.  More power to you and live like you gotta live my friend, but for me, I really don’t give a rip if my skin is MdC tight after a shave.  I’m gonna add Shea butter anyway (nope, I haven’t sewed my shorts into my trousers yet).  I want my lather to build easy and be slick and very nicely scented.  There are lots of good soaps and great scents that do that and don’t demand I use distilled water.  
    What say you fellas?

Based upon my experience, the best soaps in my large collection have come on the market in the past two years. And the VERY best soaps have been available for less than a year. Many of our talented soapmakers have been working hard at improving the performance of their soaps. Soaps that I considered to be among the best a few years ago are still quite usable, but I much prefer some of the newer soaps. That does not mean that all new soaps are great. Here is my current list of top soaps.



My top ten favorite soap bases (A+ level) in alphabetical order:

Ariana and Evans Kaisen
Declaration Grooming Milksteak
Grooming Dept Kairos
Grooming Dept Lamb Tallow
Grooming Dept Nai
Mammoth Soaps Tusk
Oaken Lab V3
Wholly Kaw Siero
Zingari Man Sego

Other elite (A level) soaps in alphabetical order:

Barrister and Mann Excelsior
Barrister and Mann SoftHeart
Gentleman's Nod Cardinal
Grooming Dept Fortis (recent release)
Highland Springs Soap Co tallow
Hub City Soap Co Raider
Murphy and McNeil Aon
Murphy and McNeil Kodiak


There is another soap that might well belong in one of these lists. That is Ethos Grooming Essentials EOS. However, they are selling on The Razor Company website for $36.00 for a four ounce tub. I hesitate spending more than $30 for any soap since there are so many wonderful soaps that can be purchased for less.

Suspect for those with normal to better skin, any decent soap is adequate. But of the classic soaps, the only one delivering a remotely acceptable post shave for my skin using a DE is Tabac.

However, the newest and best artisans deliver post shave that is other worldly by comparison to their predecessors. Those with bad skin immediately notice the difference; those of us with terribly damaged and sensative skin literally can not shave but once a week with the traditional soaps. Therein lies the difference. To quote Tolstoy:

'All Happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’

Modify this to reflect the perspective of shavers with extremes of skin quality:

‘To those with average and better skin, all soaps resemble one another in performance scent aside BUT to those with bad and damaged skin, each soap is unique in its ability to deliver a comfortably close shave without pain.’

Perhaps ineloquently phrased for some blessed with education that will sneer, it captures the spirit of gratitude those afflicted share for these modern marvels. Thanks to the developments achieved by modern soap making artisans, people like me can shave multiple days consecutively if desired - something unimaginable until recently.

Of the hundreds of soaps tried to date, ETHOS stands out, particularly the soaps with fruit powder extract and even further enhanced with EOS rich Skin Food, Replenish and Remede, followed by Grooming Dept Wholly Kaw and Cutting Edge.

Was the shave I had this morning any better than the shave I had on day one of my shave odyssey? No ... and yes.

As far as the actual quality of the shave is concerned, this morning's excellent scraping isn't much different from the shaves I used to get from a plastic disposable razor and a can of Edge shaving gel. That combo removed my beard and made me presentable to the world. It probably cost less than twenty-five cents, took no more than two minutes, and occupied almost no attention. As soon as I stepped out of the shower, I forgot about it. It was a cheap, clean, and pragmatic solution to a minor nuisance. But it didn't spark any joy.

On the other hand, this morning's shave with finely crafted artisanal tools cost me over twenty-five dollars – a hundred times more than what I paid for my old plastic razor and goo set up. Of course, the more I use these items, the cheaper they become, but you see the point: wet shaving for most of us is a luxury. We're in it not just for a clean face, but for the adventure of exploring new tools, discovering new scents, and mastering new techniques. I'm going to think about this morning's shave for the rest of the day. I'll research the company that made the cream and wonder if their other products are as interesting. I'll plot tomorrow's shave based on today's results. I'll write about all of it. In other words, wet shaving has made a small and trivial part of life far more interesting than it once was. Nowadays I'm no longer just chasing a great shave. Instead, I'm in search of the joy of shaving, and I'm asking myself, how can I make my next shave more satisfying.

So what's the use of all the new soaps? For me, that's sort of like asking what's the use of a new poem, or a new song on the radio, or a new item on the menu at your favorite restaurant. We like variety. Maybe we like to see old things arranged in new ways. Maybe we make new connections. Maybe we come to better appreciate the way things have always been. Whatever the attraction, variety helps us stave off boredom and apathy. It tends to enrich even minor moments.

So more power to the soap cookers of the world. Chances are they'll rarely churn out anything that's monumentally superior to what we used five or even ten years ago, but their quirky concoctions and imaginative marketing are going to keep us entertained and enriched for what I hope is a long, long time.

Based on an admittedly superficial following of your posts Bouki, with all due respect, having a declining scale of expense over the life of the product is a less than accurate depiction of cost per shave.

Properly, one would measure (or estimate) the cost of software by dividing the expense over expected shaves and hardware by expected lifetime divided by expected shaving frequency.  As it stands, the mixing of different products at different points on the spectrum of life obfuscates the true cost per shave at any point. Surely, I get that there will be residual values, particularly as regards certain hardware leading to end of ownership adjustments-maybe even negative costs in cases of collectables but the adjustments could be made much more easily and reasonably using this method (why it the general methodology used in business modified to reflect amortization taxation schemes fitting social tax policy).  Characterizing your shave of today as costing $25,00 more accurately presumes you will die immediately thereafter with your family simply liquidating your shave products at zero revenue as opposed to the remaining product being stored for anticipated future usage, no?

This posited with all due respect for your shave reviews

Based on an admittedly superficial following of your posts Bouki, with all due respect, having a declining scale of expense over the life of the product is a less than accurate depiction of cost per shave.

Properly, one would measure (or estimate) the cost of software by dividing the expense over expected shaves and hardware by expected lifetime divided by expected shaving frequency.  As it stands, the mixing of different products at different points on the spectrum of life obfuscates the true cost per shave at any point. Surely, I get that there will be residual values, particularly as regards certain hardware leading to end of ownership adjustments-maybe even negative costs in cases of collectables but the adjustments could be made much more easily and reasonably using this method (why it the general methodology used in business modified to reflect amortization taxation schemes fitting social tax policy).  Characterizing your shave of today as costing $25,00 more accurately presumes you will die immediately thereafter with your family simply liquidating your shave products at zero revenue as opposed to the remaining product being stored for anticipated future usage, no?

DanLaw, thanks for taking the time to explain this to me! Your thoughts have given me some new ideas on how to estimate the cost of my daily shaves. 

Maybe I should just refrain from calling my sum a 'cost per shave'. That number is more like a representation of how many more times I should use these items before I start to feel like I've got enough of my investment out of them. I'll have to give this all some more thought.

Another perspective might be that by estimating software prod usage by weight per shave divided by container contents weight times container cost, one would get an idea of not only true cost per shave presuming retention to extinguishment but also a rough used pricing structure to compare against market pricing if selling. 

Same could be stated of the hardware and amplifying where collectability and scarcity have impacted secondary market.

If one acquired hardware with forethought, one might be able to shave at a profit per shave both short and long term, overcoming software expenses for a full panoply of preshave, soap and post shave software employed during ownership. Although possible to play the game with software, it more likely to suffer frequent price shock cycles ala The Holy Black

Interesting! And lively! Dan, I very much appreciated your interjection for the sensitive skinned members. I know I’ve read some of your other posts concerning that struggle and frankly can’t imagine having to deal with that.

I guess it depends on your definition of "Old" Over the past couple years, I have found the soap bases which give me the lathers I enjoy the most; Mike's, Mystic Water, and Shannon's. I wouldn't classify any of the three as newer since each has been around for at least a decade. Obviously, they haven't been around as long as Tabac/MWF or even Mama Bears...but definitely before some of the "big boys" and newer artisans on the market today.

I haven't been at this WS stuff long enough to be able to contribute any well-informed views on the particular topic of this thread.  However,  being a big fan of both Will Rogers and W.C. Fields, I’m always on the lookout for a memorable turn of phrase. Therefore, I feel it necessary to commend the OP on the following language (which, I suspect, will prove to be both apt and amusing in a variety of as-yet-unforeseen circumstances):

            “[That] is like sewing your underpants into your trousers to save a step.  Would it work? Yes, but the kids are gonna whisper.”

Thanks for this one.