Can We Categorise The Artisan Shave Soaps?

[Phog Allen]

Gents, it is truly incredible what has happened in the shave soap world the last two years or so. We have entered a phase of great innovation and product quality that I personally never believed I would see. It won't be long before the artisans take their place as the recognised best in the world.

With that, I have to say I am overwhelmed with the choices these days. And as a long time wet shaver I am like many men who were sorely disappointed at performance of small batch soaps. It was only after working as a somewhat reluctant tester for Mystic Water that I had my perspective changed. I was wondering if it would be worthwhile to broadly categorise the artisans soaps by their style? I really do not want to get into a 'best of' comparison. It is too subjective to gain any consensus at all. More like base components, strong or lighter scents, super conditioning, really soft or harder/denser, etc. I understand this is close to wiki stuff and I don't want anyone to have to come up with exhaustive lists. There are so many newer names I cannot keep track of them anymore. Lets say, Dapper Dragon. I hadn't heard of it til a few weeks ago. I understand this is like a reversed engineered MDC? We could have chaps offer up their ideas about what is similar. I will start with two I have used successfully.

Mystic Water; Tallow/stout scent/soft but very dense/uber conditioning.

Strop Shoppe Special Edition Black Tie; Tallow/stout scent/soft/great conditioning.

So, lets add soaps to those very general categories. Make up your own categories. Like I said, there can only be similarities with something like this. Will it work?

 

[msimon]

why don't we make a 1-5 rating for the characteristics for each soap?.

 

[LBussy]

Some people still think the crappy soaps out there are good .... and you have no rating system for the rater.

 

[Phog Allen]

I am hoping to avoid rating individual product or characteristics. I would rather rate that way in a proper review. This would be more like a seat of the pants, 'hey, this is similar to x, y, or z." sort of thing.

Lee, this was my biggest headache with the small batch soaps. I did not want to offend the maker but some of the stuff I used was beyond dreadful as a shave soap. I would get comments like 'all the men in my family use it'. Well, that may be but tell me how many men want to hurt the feelings of their wife, sister or mother? Thankfully we are getting well past that on the forums since the best come to the forefront pretty quickly.

 

[LBussy]

Lee, this was my biggest headache with the small batch soaps. I did not want to offend the maker but some of the stuff I used was beyond dreadful as a shave soap. I would get comments like 'all the men in my family use it'. Well, that may be but tell me how many men want to hurt the feelings of their wife, sister or mother? Thankfully we are getting well past that on the forums since the best come to the forefront pretty quickly.

OMG YES.

A few of us who started making our own soaps invaded a soap making forum filled with nice little old ladies saying that. Okay they are not old but the mental picture is just that. You DON'T want to just tell them they are full of it, but sometimes you have to. Dirt in soap is one thing but OATMEAL??! Don't even get me started on melt and pour crap.

 

[LBussy]

I understand this is like a reversed engineered MDC?

By the way ... I have been hearing the term "MdeC clone" a lot lately. MdeC is a VERY simple soap made VERY well. It has two fats, technically one is not even a fat: Stearic Acid and Coconut Oil. Every soap has water and lye, on top of that they list glycerine (not sure if this is actually an ingredient or if they have to list it because of regulations) which is naturally released as a fat becomes soap, and then fragrance. To call another Stearic/CO soap a MdeC clone is a bit harsh, and to say someone reverse engineered it is probably giving a little too much credit to the process. I make such a soap and I did it before using MdeC. I think "inspired" may be a better term, but baking bread is just baking bread sometimes.

Stearic Acid produces a dense, creamy, lasting lather. It is a prime constituent of Tallow but in the industry it is derived from plants - making this an awesome choice for any soap but especially a vegan one. Coconut oil helps produce a light, fluffy lather and is why MdeC users have so many ways to describe how easily it lathers. Combining those two for a soap is an obvious choice and was done far before MdeC did it.

What MdeC and the conversations around it DID do is make people realize that a good soap did not have to have a shopping list of ingredients. This realization caused a lot of people (me included) to give making their own soap a try. Throw in an experienced soaper like John @ LA Shaving Soap who is willing to talk to people about what he did, and you have the explosion of home-made/artisanal soaps you see now.

So, we have knowledge now that we probably did not have before. We can look at the label and demystify it. Hopefully we collectively can help people avoid The Emperor's New Clothes scenario we see all too often where someone says it's great, the next person doesn't get it but says it's great, and so on. I have done this too! Having this knowledge now can help us to narrow down what makes a good soap - or what can if done properly.

Lastly as we categorize soaps, and cuss and discuss, we need to realize that everyone's face and water is different. I sent a tub of soap home with a friend who LOVED it while he stayed with me. He got home and it behaved poorly. One can craft a soap around that but how would a guy in Kansas City possibly be able to test in water from around the country? Another guy used one of my soaps and he reported it dried his face out. Not what I expected to hear! I honestly was considering knocking back some of the superfats because I thought it was too moisturizing, now someone tells me it's too drying. It's not till you get a lot of other feedback that you begin to realize that everyone is different.

So, I say all that to point out that if I LOVE P.160 and it behaves well for me, I'm probably going to have good results from a lot of the RR line. However if I say MudderFocker doesn't behave well for me at all I'm likely to think the same of XXX. I'm not a huge fan of fougere; consequently I'm not a huge fan of the smell of MdeC. That could make me rate it worse, simply because experience is a summation of a sensory experience input.

I said "lastly" up there somewhere and apparently I did not mean it.. Let me add some of what you were looking for when you started this thread:

The Los Angeles Shaving Soap Company: A vegan soap, crafted exceptionally well. With my soft water it explodes into a very dense lather. I actually had to start loading it with a slightly dryer brush (I do this with MdeC too) in order that the ... I'll call it "protofoam" did not make too big a mess as I loaded. John absolutely did take inspiration from MdeC when he started, and he shared all but the last tweaks with us on these forums. For this transparency he should be commended. I personally seem to prefer a soap with Tallow, but this soap and MdeC are a couple of vegan soaps that I would be absolutely happy keeping in my rotation. His scents range from old standards to unique creations which only he has. He even lists an unscented soap which is a bold move. So I'm going to put this base soap in the "simple/vegan" category and call it an A+ overall. Scents are ... well if he added my beloved almond to his already wide line I could say that I would never need another company. Conditioning is on the lighter side (which I prefer) and the protection (straight user) is a solid A-. Rinses clean and causes a lighter buildup on brushes and razors (all soap leaves some).

 

[MrSmith]

The image of a bunch of "old" lady's gettin their slips in a bind is just too funny. (Mental image of Vicky Lawrence from Mama's Family spouting off)

I'll play along with the system.

Knock Out Shave; Tallow/Med-Strong Scent/cream~soft croap/slightly above average conditioning
Wet Shave Obsession; Tallow/Medium scent strength/"hard"/above average conditioning
Dapper Dragon; Tallow depends on scent I think/Medium scent strength/firm, but malleable/not sure about conditioning as I am found to be allergic to some component in their formula.
Jabonman; No Tallow/Med-Strong Scent/firm, but malleable/average conditioning
Ian S Soap (B&B member Sliceoflife); Not sure about Tallow/ Average Scent/ firm croap/above average conditioning

Guidelines:
Scent comparison:
Average scent strength would be along the lines of MWF and Cella;
Med-Strong scent strength would be along the lines of Tabac and C&S 88
Strong would be along the lines of Arko

Median for Face Conditioning would be Tabac.
Above average would fall in between Tabac and MWF, such as C&S
Average would fall around the lines of Tabac and Cella
Best would fall in the realm of MWF or better

That's all I've got right now. I'll have to dig through my soaps tomorrow to see if I've got anything hiding that I didn't list.

 

[Phog Allen]

Thank you gents. Fabulous information.

Lee, I happen to agree with about everything you said in that last post. And I don't even make soap. It goes back to the constant drumbeat I used to hear on certain forums(not really so much B&B which was much more open to ideas about home crafted soaps) that you simply couldn't make shave soaps at home like the old Brit and European firms turned out. Two things stood out to me. First was milling. In a way I will agree with the naysayers. If we are talking hard milled soaps then the investment in grating, drying, milling, and scenting equipment could get prohibitively expensive for a mom and pop operation. Trouble is, a average soap formula is no better just because it is milled. It just lasts longer because of it. The second issue that really bothered me was the fact that the very same old vaunted fragrance houses almost all started as apothecary and chemists shops. Drugstores if you will. They originally compounded all their products by hand, in house, in small batches. And they were all small family businesses. They were chemists first and the toiletries were a secondary income And they garnered enough respect to be used by the gentry and nobility. I strongly suspect their original shave soaps were very similar to what the artisans are turning out now and maybe not as good.

You comments about MDC are telling. I have never used it so cannot comment but was only referencing what I have been told about the clones, copies, or whatever they technically are called. I remember when I started investigating home crafted shave soaps. This was shortly after joining a couple of shave forums. Probably 9-10 years ago. Some very experienced ladies at a soapers forum were quick to tell me they had tried tallow and coconut combinations to no avail as a shave soap. They were not looking at the lye mixtures and hot processing and sticking with mostly stearic for shave soaps. I had no real clue but sensed something was not quite right about it. I eventually backed away from the questions since most of their efforts were toward woman's toiletries and why not? It was their best selling items. Still, I knew it was out there to be 'discovered' again. Thanks again for the great input.

 

[LBussy]

Two things stood out to me. First was milling. In a way I will agree with the naysayers. If we are talking hard milled soaps then the investment in grating, drying, milling, and scenting equipment could get prohibitively expensive for a mom and pop operation. Trouble is, a average soap formula is no better just because it is milled. It just lasts longer because of it.

That's exactly right.

We don't want longevity, we want lots of soft, cushiony lather. Look at the WISE men: every conversation about how to lather that is pretty much removing all the work the manufacturer did to make it into a nice hard puck. I just had a brief exchange with another shaver who mentioned Dach's flakes are easier to lather than the puck. Well that makes sense doesn't it? The way to get better performance from a puck is to un-puck it.

To this end we find an additional thing to consider with a shaving soap: the consistency of the end product. Cella is nice and soft. Loading it is incredibly easy. Creams are even easier to load, pucks take some work. Creams are presented as they are because the soap maker wanted to sell a cream. Croaps however are a function of using a different hydroxide (lye): Potassium Hydroxide versus Sodium Hydroxide. Traditionally lye was made from wood ashes and that was a solution of potassium carbonates and potassium hydroxide. "Someone" figured out Sodium created harder soaps (which were easier to package, transport, and sell). A hypothesis is that ashes from seaweed made harder soap owing to the higher sodium content (producing sodium carbonate and sodium hydroxide). Another possibility and something done today is to boil the solution in salt water.

So, generally speaking, a potassium hydroxide (KOH) saponified fat is softer. It also happens that the salt (what you call a saponified fat) from KOH soap is more easily dissolved - leading to easier loading. If it loads easier/faster it's likely to be perceived as a better latherer. Whether that's true or not given equal amounts of soap is questionable, it it is likely that the average user will probably get more potassium soap on a brush quicker than a sodium one.

So back to your point: We don't need to care about milling and hard pucks - but some people do prefer them. It's a matter of taste and possibly a change to one's process.

They were not looking at the lye mixtures and hot processing and sticking with mostly stearic for shave soaps. I had no real clue but sensed something was not quite right about it. I eventually backed away from the questions since most of their efforts were toward woman's toiletries and why not? It was their best selling items. Still, I knew it was out there to be 'discovered' again.

Stearic acid = Good. If you take for granted that a good shaving soap will have a good portion of it, hot process is almost a necessity because stearic acid is solid under 156.7 °F. As you say most soap makers don't use Hot Process. The normal process involves mixing your stuff at room temp till it "traces" (starts to thicken) and then pouring it into molds. Cold process flows, levels itself, is easy to stir in additives and scents, and is basically "pretty." Hot process makes mashed potatoes, is more challenging to work with, things happen fast, and often is not "pretty." It's no wonder those old ladies tried to make their bath soaps into shaving soaps by adding dirt and calling it good.

Cold process is a more "calm" thing ... my wife and I have made it together. Things don't happen too fast and it gives you time to talk, explain, think. Hot process happens NOW. Hot Process is the Avenged Sevenfold of soap making. Cold Process is the Coldplay.

This is why the contemporary artisanal shaving soaps, at least the ones that started life as shaving soaps and not some ladies' hand soap, are often croaps. It's also why very old formulas are often croaps - tradition demands it.

 

[tclobaugh]

Great and informative discussion gents.

As far as soaps go, I'm new enough that it's hard for me to make as qualitative judgement but I will share my observations and try to describe by comparison.

I've found that Mikes and Mystic Waters are similar in performance, scent strength and conditioning, but I find myself preferring MW.

I've found PPF and Synergy are very similar in qualities, with my preference falling to PPF. Performance is great with strong scent. I can't speak to conditioning as all have caused me face irritation (I'm quite sensitive).

 

[LBussy]

I can't speak to conditioning as all have caused me face irritation (I'm quite sensitive).

Name me another place where gentlemen can get together and say things like "I'm sensitive" and not be made fun of.

I just discovered LA Soap has an unscented. John's ingredients are among the simplest I know of and of all the unscented soaps (fragrances are typically the irritant) his is definitely the most simple. Simple means you are not guessing anymore:

http://lashavingsoap.com/products/plain-shaving-soap

I'd say give that a try - even ask for a sample. If you get irritation from that I'd say it's back to canned goo for you.

 

[tclobaugh]

Name me another place where gentlemen can get together and say things like "I'm sensitive" and not be made fun of.

I just discovered LA Soap has an unscented. John's ingredients are among the simplest I know of and of all the unscented soaps (fragrances are typically the irritant) his is definitely the most simple. Simple means you are not guessing anymore:

http://lashavingsoap.com/products/plain-shaving-soap

I'd say give that a try - even ask for a sample. If you get irritation from that I'd say it's back to canned goo for you.

I've actually got a sample already on order

And for record, I'm not sensitive, just my face.

 

[August West]

And for record, I'm not sensitive, just my face.

 

[SliceOfLife]

MdeC is a VERY simple soap made VERY well. It has two fats, technically one is not even a fat: Stearic Acid and Coconut Oil. Every soap has water and lye, on top of that they list glycerine (not sure if this is actually an ingredient or if they have to list it because of regulations) which is naturally released as a fat becomes soap, and then fragrance. To call another Stearic/CO soap a MdeC clone is a bit harsh, and to say someone reverse engineered it is probably giving a little too much credit to the process. I make such a soap and I did it before using MdeC. I think "inspired" may be a better term, but baking bread is just baking bread sometimes.

Well said. Yes MdC is made very well, but the simplicity of the soap really trumps that. It's hard to make a MdC copy poorly. It's a soap that takes a lot of doing to mess up. I believe about 3 months after my first batch of soap was made, I had a MdC clone rolled out as a goof (photodocumented ten minute MdC clone in a 1qt saucepan) that outperformed 99% of soaps on the market. I don't really care for pure K-soaps, so I never made a larger batch of it, but lots of artisans do now, and I'd be surprised if any of them didn't perform well. I doubt any of them dry the soap for 60 or 90 or however many days MdC does, and precious few offer as refined a package as a brain bowl of MdC, but when you get down to comparing costs, it really is a question of what those niceties are worth to you. Given that, calling a soap a MdC-clone says a lot about it. It's a high or pure K-salt soap of Stearic and Coconut; which will lather thick, tacky when underwetted, and easily. The texture will be soft when fresh and take on an almost brittle structure if left open and unused for a month or more. Describing the performance of each soap is really a lot of hassle for nothing when the words "MdC clone" get the same information across.

 

[LBussy]

It's a high or pure K-salt soap of Stearic and Coconut; which will lather thick, tacky when underwetted, and easily. The texture will be soft when fresh and take on an almost brittle structure if left open and unused for a month or more. Describing the performance of each soap is really a lot of hassle for nothing when the words "MdC clone" get the same information across.

Tacky when under wetted ... you sir win teh Interwebz. That is exactly the issue I am having with someone trying one of my soaps. While mine is not what I would consider an MdeC clone, it is a K-salt. Do you think that has to do with that property or something else?

I've never left my soap lid open for a month so I can't comment on the rest.

 

[Vespasian]

Fascinating. I have had terrible luck with most artisan makers, who will remain nameless; one, at least, highly praised here. Mainly my fault, being spoiled as I am by D. R. Harris and Tcheon Fung Sing. Too many artisan soaps I have used have a high proportion of bentonite clay in their ingredients, a short-cut to slickness I don't like.

One happy exception: Queen Charlotte Soap Rose Otto. So I'll keep trying artisan soaps, even if I have to retire the bulk of them to the shower.

 

[LBussy]

Fascinating. I have had terrible luck with most artisan makers, who will remain nameless; one, at least, highly praised here. Mainly my fault, being spoiled as I am by D. R. Harris and Tcheon Fung Sing. Too many artisan soaps I have used have a high proportion of bentonite clay in their ingredients, a short-cut to slickness I don't like.

I keep saying this, and I'm pretty sure I offend people each time I do so, but Bentonite (dirt) does not belong in shave soap. People (those little old ladies) take a bar soap, add clay, and call it a shaving soap.

It does have a use in soap to help fix fragrances, but I think there are better ways to do that. It is not "instant shaving soap" and I don't want dirt in my soap.

 

[tclobaugh]

I think most of the more talked about artisans around here don't use clay, but I agree it is something to be aware of and watched for. Mudder Focker is the only soap with dirt in it that I'm interested in. I don't think the dirt was added for slickness, however, but to improve after shave feel. Many people speak very highly of it.

 

[coonskinner]

I don't care for soaps that have clay.

I find that it makes them sticky.

 

[LBussy]

I don't care for soaps that have clay.

I find that it makes them sticky.

IanS pointed out that a lather without enough water may feel sticky - that may be a component of it since bentonite does absorb about 250-300% of it's weight in water before becoming plastic. Not defending the use of dirt, just pointing that out.

Not tried Mudde Focker yet.