The very best luxury soaps/creams, money no object

John, although I love my artisan soaps, I have to admit that your SOTD photos have an air of old world elegance to them exactly because of the soaps and aftershaves you use.  Sadly, the reformulations of many of the true classics you own just aren't the same.

I agree, Freddy, most of the reformulated soaps are not as good.  However, I'm sure part of my preference for the vintage ones is just that I really like stuff with history and tradition, and I always have, even when I was much younger and not so vintage myself.

John, the only thing that has been a deterrent for me with the older soaps is that they have some ingredients that I would rather not use on my skin on a daily basis. I completely understand how this would be a trivial thing to some, but it is a significant factor for me and I find a few of the artisanal soaps to be almost or just as good as these older ones, in my opinion. As always, of course, YMMV and it is wonderful to have such variety.  

Fortunately, Celestino, my skin does not react to any of the vintage soaps, although it is quite sensitive to most colognes and eau de toilettes.

churchilllafemme I haven't yet tried those, but I will say that I always enjoy looking at your SOTD stuff. Very classy!

Thank you.  When I was a kid and insisted on saving all my allowance and lawn mowing pennies in order to buy something I wanted, my dad would ask, "Why do you always need to get the best and most expensive?"  And my answer always was that if I was going to spend my money on something to own and enjoy for a long time, I wanted it to be something I could treasure and cherish.  I guess I never outgrew that....

John, you, yourself, are a classic and an incredible addition to DFS. You speak to the types of things that most of us do not think of.  Thank you for adding that "Je ne sais" to our posts here.  It makes them that much more creditable.

churchilllafemme Your philosophy of buying the best is exactly what led me to explore luxury soaps/creams in the first place (and the same with niche fragrances). I really enjoy high end products, and would rather have a small number of excellent products than a large number of mediocre products.

John, you, yourself, are a classic and an incredible addition to DFS. You speak to the types of things that most of us do not think of.  Thank you for adding that "Je ne sais" to our posts here.  It makes them that much more creditable.

Thank you for the kind words, Freddy. I'm glad that not everyone treasures the things that I do. For one thing, that would make our conversations here pretty boring, and for another, it would make it much harder for me to find and purchase the things that I really like!

I guess I should really try the new Glissant formula hearing all of these praises.

Indeed you should try a Glissant base soap Celestino. They produce wonderful lather!

A quick aside: Which B&M soaps have the Glissant base? In a quick look at the website, I only saw one where it was mentioned in the soap's description.

So far it's been limited/seasonal releases, starting* with Le Grand Chypre, then the latest release of Fireside, and then Night Music. The next seasonal, Rhapsody, will continue the Glissant roll-out. Eventually the main line (not Latha) will be moved to Glissant as well.

*Le Grand Chypre was a sort of version 1.0 of Glissant; the base was tweaked again before reaching its current (final?) version. I find it notably better now.

Anybody reading this thread that has not tried the Barrister & Mann soaps, glissant base or otherwise should know that the Barrister & Mann soaps without the glissant base are excellent soaps and I certainly wouldn't disregard them in favour of glissant based soaps purely on the basis that one thinks the glissants are "better" soaps. They're different and only slightly IMO - I used Leviathan a couple of days ago and it was wonderful - I thought to myself "why do I use any other soap?" I used TFS Hercules LE this morning and it was wonderful and I thought to myself "why do I use any other soap?" I guess its because I enjoy the variety. They're all wonderful soaps - I haven't had a bad or mediocre soap in some time based on performance - if I dock a soap on points now a days its usually because the scent is too mild or absent rather than its a poor soap or a poor lather.

churchilllafemme how do you find a reliable supply of vintage Penhaligon's and Floris soaps? I assume that you find NOS somehow but that supply would be limited wouldn't it? I also enjoy your SOTDs and I think I've told you before how much I like your Feather AS-D2 Delta Echo razors. I bought another one for my son the last time the price dipped on Amazon and I'm inspired by your collection to have Jay give my son's razor the treatment before I give it to him on his next birthday.

This is an excellent thread, so much interesting and thoughtful information. Thank you.
Mark

Indeed, non-Glissant B&M is still excellent, excellent stuff! I also shaved with Leviathan yesterday and was content as can be. From what I've noticed so far, what the Glissant base does is improves the ease and quickness of lathering the soap to good slickness, whereas the classic base takes decidedly more water to get there (as Will puts it on the site, it's a "thirsty soap"). The Glissant also feels a bit slicker than the classic base does even when the classic is properly hydrated. Indeed, Glissant is an enhancement on excellence, but to me, getting to a great, slick lather that easily is quite notable.

I'd say it's something to look forward to as more Glissant-based soaps arrive, to be grateful for when one of our best artisans switches his roster to be that much better, but certainly not something that should stop anyone from enjoying the current, fantastic, B&M line-up.

churchilllafemme how do you find a reliable supply of vintage Penhaligon's and Floris soaps? I assume that you find NOS somehow but that supply would be limited wouldn't it? I also enjoy your SOTDs and I think I've told you before how much I like your Feather AS-D2 Delta Echo razors. I bought another one for my son the last time the price dipped on Amazon and I'm inspired by your collection to have Jay give my son's razor the treatment before I give it to him on his next birthday.

That's a fine birthday present for your son; I'm sure Jay will do a great job on it.
So far as I know, there is no 'reliable' supply for the vintage English soaps. Rarely I come across a soap for sale on eBay or, if my timing is perfect, in a For Sale ad on one of the forums, but usually I have gotten them via responses to my Want to Buy ads. I have a Floris puck going into the mail today from a member of another forum who answered my recent ad. And although I prefer NOS pucks, I am quite willing to buy a slightly used one if the price is right. As with all collecting of vintage items, it has taken a lot of perseverance, but I have about a dozen Floris and Pen's backups now, as well as another half dozen or so of other tallow brands (C&E, Woods of Windsor, etc.).

churchilllafemme how do you find a reliable supply of vintage Penhaligon's and Floris soaps?  I assume that you find NOS somehow but that supply would be limited wouldn't it?  I also enjoy your SOTDs and I think I've told you before how much I like your Feather AS-D2 Delta Echo razors.  I bought another one for my son the last time the price dipped on Amazon and I'm inspired by your collection to have Jay give my son's razor the treatment before I give it to him on his next birthday.  

That's a fine birthday present for your son; I'm sure Jay will do a great job on it.
So far as I know, there is 'reliable' supply for the vintage English soaps.  Rarely I come across a soap for sale on eBay or, if my timing is perfect, in a For Sale ad on one of the forums, but usually I have gotten them via responses to my Want to Buy ads.  I have a Floris puck going into the mail today from a member of another forum who answered my recent ad.  And although I prefer NOS pucks, I am quite willing to buy a slightly used one if the price is right.  As with all collecting of vintage items, it has taken a lot of perseverance, but I have about a dozen Floris and Pen's backups now, as well as another half dozen or so of other tallow brands (C&E, Woods of Windsor, etc.).

Jay certainly does nice work from what I've seen. I like that you know what you like and stick to it. so much time, effort and money is spent chasing after the next new soap that promises the moon and doesn't always deliver - Sure we have to experiment to find what works and what we like but then it gets hard to stop .

My strong preference for Glissant is primarily due to my previous experience with the regular base in hard water. I didn't have as much trouble as I did with Mystic Water (because when I got B&M to lather, the lather was stable), but B&M original took a good while to lather and was more difficult to load than a few other soaps. Glissant accounts for hard water issues very effectively, and on my first try I got a very slick, stable lather extremely quickly. I also think that Glissant has the edge on post-shave feel and overall ease of use.

For new shavers and users with extremely hard water (which is a good portion of the US), Glissant is the better formula IMO. That's not to say that the original is bad, by any means (it's a fantastic soap), but Glissant was a huge improvement for me. If I remember correctly, I gave the original formula an 8/10 or so in a review. I'd give Glissant somewhere between 9 and 9.5/10 (and this is coming from someone with a noted preference for "luxury" products - it's that good).

My strong preference for Glissant is primarily due to my previous experience with the regular base in hard water. I didn't have as much trouble as I did with Mystic Water (because when I got B&M to lather, the lather was stable), but B&M original took a good while to lather and was more difficult to load than a few other soaps. Glissant accounts for hard water issues very effectively, and on my first try I got a very slick, stable lather extremely quickly. I also think that Glissant has the edge on post-shave feel and overall ease of use.

For new shavers and users with extremely hard water (which is a good portion of the US), Glissant is the better formula IMO. That's not to say that the original is bad, by any means (it's a fantastic soap), but Glissant was a huge improvement for me. If I remember correctly, I gave the original formula an 8/10 or so in a review. I'd give Glissant somewhere between 9 and 9.5/10 (and this is coming from someone with a noted preference for "luxury" products - it's that good).

NeoXerxes , I think thats a fair assessment. Its true that the B&M originals could be finicky to lather and if they hadn't been such wonderful performers and smelled so good I'm not sure I would have persevered. Now I know them and love them, I also love the glissant base ones too. Like having a second child, your heart just gets bigger