more bad news, Knockout shave closing shop

It's sad to hear, but..........

as many here state, it's bound to happen, and we will hear of many more in 2016-2017, is my strong belief.

I'm a creature of habits, and so far I'm staying with these 4 North American artisan soap makers:

Cold River Soap Works Select
Barrister & Mann
Caties Bubbles
RazoRock (I only mention them, because they were my first artisan from North America, and I only started collecting them because of XxX, I can't see myself going past the 4 soaps I own from them currently, as they are not as good as the 3 other artisan mentioned above)

I'm a little bit more into the European artisans at the moment, because I find that they make a quality shaving soap, only B&M, CRSWS, Caties and perhaps Mike's and Mystic Water can compete with.
The European artisans I currently have in my den is:

Meißner Tremonia - amazing soap, amazing paste, amazing scents, amazing presentation
Haslinger - cheap tallow based soap, but what a great cheap soap
Tabula Rasa - among my favourite artisans, in my Top 5 favourite soaps/creams
Savonniere du Moulin - perhaps the best shaving soap made at the moment
Savon de Volcans Bon Berger - also fantastic perfomer
Le Pére Lucien - Crazy skilled artisan soap maker, IMHO better than Martin de Candre
Martin de Candre - great soap, great presentation, a classic
Saponificio Varesino - they just seem to improve and improve, and the first release was already up there in quality
Panacrema Nuavia - have both soaps on their way to me, so base this purely on others opinion, but this should be the best soap out there at the moment
Antica Barbierra Colla - made by a real barber shop in Milan. Amazing cream and amazing soap
Baume.Be - among the best creams in production currently
Brutalt Bra - just got this soap in, and WoW, amazing soap my Norwegian friend has made. Amazing !

Claus, thank you for your comprehensive listing of your favourite European artisans - I have several soaps from some of your listed artisans but now I have a list of others from which to choose - some I had not heard of before now. This is very exciting.
Thank you
Marko

The lesson that I think we have here is - if you have acquired product (soap/aftershave/brushes etc) from an artisan and you are happy with the product, tell the world about it. There are some excellent artisans out there that you may never get the chance to experience because we have kept quiet about how good they are. I know, the risk is that if you tell the world how good they are then everybody will be buying their products and you might not be able to get it as easily. Well, if they're out of business you won't be able to get it at all. Tell the world and let the artisans deal with the challenge of excessive success rather thant he challenges of business failure.
Marko

Tell the world and let the artisans deal with the challenge of excessive success rather than the challenges of business failure.
Marko

+1 Just the way James' Wolfman product was highly touted; now he's dealing with the "challenge of excessive success".

Never heard of them.

I have feeling this is just the beginning.  The market has been saturated the past few years.

Same here. I have never heard of this company, but I'm not surprised I haven't heard of it, or heard of many others. I'm a creature of habit and when I find something that works, I don't deviate much from it.

It is hard to keep up with all these new outfits, like Bruce mentioned, the market is over saturated.

It seems like many of the people here have not heard of them, which is probably why they are going out of business.

Looking at their website, it appears they are a small online store. I agree with what you and others have said here, although I would say crowded rather than saturated. Some vendors are bound to get lost in the background noise. It seems like everybody and his brother is opening an online wetshaving store, and there must be hundreds of artisans.

Tell the world and let the artisans deal with the challenge of excessive success rather than the challenges of business failure.
Marko

+1 Just the way James' Wolfman product was highly touted; now he's dealing with the "challenge of excessive success".

Hi beamon I hear what you're saying but I believe that word of mouth (over the internet) is still the best way that artisans will flourish. Most of them have no advertising budget I suspect.

Wolfman is an interesting case - James' product has been incredibly popular and successful if the level of unrequited demand evident at the various forums is any indicator. Now James could have handled this success in one of several ways - he could have farmed out the production to an offshore machine shop with larger capacity (you know how that would have played out), he could have driven himself stark raving mad trying to expeditiously fill every order while maintaining the quality or at least trying to (you know how that would have played out). He could have dramatically increased his prices so that demand would fall to the point where it would meet supply (thats a short term business plan) or he could do what he's done - keep doing what he has been doing in the way that he's been doing it - maintain the quality and the reasonable (relatively) price - if people are unwilling to wait then he's ok with that because it seems enough people are willing to wait to keep him fully occupied for the foreseeable future and he gets to stay sane while he's doing it. James is a rare bird indeed, he seems to be keeping his head while those around him are losing theirs. Maybe thats why he's so good at his craft, calm, cool and collected when the average person in his position's inner capitalist would be screaming "You've got to make as many razors as quickly as possible!! There's money to be made!!"

Makes me think of a Bobby Knight quote "Do what you're supposed to do, when you're supposed to do it, in the way that its supposed to be done and do it that way every time." or something like that. I think thats how James operates.
Mark

Well said Marko.  I have known James since he started making the LASS razors and I own every single razor he has put out.  I don't care about waiting for a product of that quality.  I see around here a lot of people expressing their bitterness towards James, well James is a gentleman and at least he has been honest in keeping people aware of the delays and waiting period.  Don't like it?  Buy something else, that simple.  People acting like he owes them something, please!

This is why, this is my last post.  These places are all the same!

Sometimes closure is by choice. People start then get burned out. It's a large commitment in time and stress to run and manage something like that. When they see their family is being ignored in order to meet people's needs for shaving. It could be easy to see how someone ignores the money in favor of family. Certainly there are a lot of competition in the market too. It would be hard to put together a solid business plan in this market, But lots of people that are in it didn't start in it with plans to make money. I don't pretend to know anyone's motivation for bowing out. But I have an good idea of what it's like to run a small business. If I wasn't having fun or my family needed me more, It would not be worth it.

Always sad to see someone shut the doors but the marketplace is wildly different today with so many artisans to choose from that it was even a decade ago. Those that focus on extending their sales force, creating a quality product and are active in the community stand a higher likelihood of longer term success.

At to James at WolfmanRazors as I understand it, making razors is not his sole livelihood. He has always been straightforward with me personally and I love the HW he produces. You do have to wait but then again most good things are in fact worth the same.

I have been spitballing a new idea with him, something both he has never done nor I have seen. He mentioned straightaway that he was interested in collaborating but that it would be in the distant future based on current workload.

I am cool with that as I have another razor or two that I can use in the meantime

Always sad to see someone shut the doors but the marketplace is wildly different today with so many artisans to choose from that it was even a decade ago. Those that focus on extending their sales force, creating a quality product and are active in the community stand a higher likelihood of longer term success.

At to James at WolfmanRazors as I understand it, making razors is not his sole livelihood. He has always been straightforward with me personally and I love the HW he produces. You do have to wait but then again most good things are in fact worth the same.

I have been spitballing a new idea with him, something both he has never done nor I have seen. He mentioned straightaway that he was interested in collaborating but that it would be in the distant future based on current workload.

I am cool with that as I have another razor or two that I can use in the meantime

Hell, I would say even five years ago.

Things happen in threes. Who's next I wonder?

Sometimes closure is by choice. People start then get burned out.  It's a large commitment in time and stress to run and manage something like that. When they see their family is being ignored in order to meet people's needs for shaving. It could be easy to see how someone ignores the money in favor of family.  Certainly there are a lot of competition in the market too. It would be hard to put together a solid business plan in this market, But lots of people that are in it didn't start in it with plans to make money.  I don't pretend to know anyone's motivation for bowing out. But I have an good idea of what it's like to run a small business.  If I wasn't having fun  or my family needed me more, It would not be worth it.

Well said - its been my experience that many artisans and even vendors are doing what they do not for the money but rather for the love of doing it and its often not even their main occupation. They have day jobs like the rest of us with bosses, deadlines, clients and so on and then there's the young families that they often must attend to. Yeah, there are many reasons for doors to be closed. I am grateful for the dedication and artistry of the artisan community wherever they may be in this great, wonderful world of shaving and also the vendors that often are the first line that bring the artisan products to our doorstep. Its a tough job dealing with people, they can be impatient, demanding, unreasonable, selfish and unpleasant but at the end of the day they can also be the reason for doing the whole thing.
Marko