Which soaps got better once tallow was removed?

[something better]

Soap commander makes a vegan soap. It was pretty well thought of at one time I did purchase a tub. I need to break it out and try it.

I think the proprietors of soap commander went through a divorce and she is the primary soap maker but is not very active on the board or Facebook groups.

But there’s soap at one timepretty well thought of by some reviewers, particularly if you’re looking for a vegan soap.

 

[PLANofMAN]

I totally agree with RayClem’s ranking of his top five soaps.

Got a link? I wouldn't mind taking a look at that. With respect to @RayClem he doesn't seem to rate any triple-milled soap very highly, but other than that, he seems to have a pretty decent rating formula for artisan soft soaps.

 

[geneaut]

Some people try to avoid purchasing products with palm oil, as it seems to be not environmentally, friendly as they are taking the trees and harvesting them from forests for the oil.

I know that was a criticism of Palmolive sticks.

The main issue with palm oil is that rainforests are being destroyed in many parts of the world to use the land for oil palm production. The product is sustainable, and the oil palm yields more product than most other oil-producing plants, but deforestation concerns people. The fact the product is also heavily used for biofuels worries people about its future availability.

 

[SgtCrppls]

Got a link? I wouldn't mind taking a look at that. With respect to @RayClem he doesn't seem to rate any triple-milled soap very highly, but other than that, he seems to have a pretty decent rating formula for artisan soft soaps.

I can not remember exactly but I know these 4 were on the list

Grooming Department Kairos SE is number 1

the other 3 are in no particular order

Ethos F Base
A&E
B&M Omnibus

For me it is this in this order:

Grooming Department Kairos SE
Grooming Department Kairos
Ethos Tonka Bean F Base
Any Grooming Department Soap

Doug

 

[RayClem]

Got a link? I wouldn't mind taking a look at that. With respect to @RayClem he doesn't seem to rate any triple-milled soap very highly, but other than that, he seems to have a pretty decent rating formula for artisan soft soaps.

You are correct; I do not like triple-milled soaps. The reason is that I am getting old and I have arthritis in my hands. Loading and lathering triple milled soaps takes too much effort and causes too much joint pain. Triple-milled soaps are great if you you use them every day such that they stay moist between shaves. However, I have so many soaps in rotation that I can go several months before using a soap again. By that time, the soap has dried out and it might take me 30 minutes of soaking to get the puck soft enough to load. That is too much trouble.

With my best artisan soaps, I bloom the tub for 10 seconds, load my brush for 10 seconds, and bowl lather for 30 seconds. In less than a minute overall, I can have a smooth lather ready to apply to my face.

There were two hard pucks that I used to recommend as they could provide a nice shave once you put in the effort to lather them. They were the tallow versions of Mitchell's Wool Fat and Tabac. However, as both of these soaps have now been reformulated to remove tallow, I can no longer recommend them.

My latest listing of Top Tier soaps:

Grooming Dept Kairos SE 2023 is the best soap I have every used.

Close runner ups are:

Ariana and Evans Kaizen 2e, but not the new Ultima base
Barrister and Mann Omnibus
Declaration Grooming Milksteak
Ethos Grooming Essentials F Base
Gentleman's Nod C-4
Grooming Dept Kairos SE, Kairos, Mallard, and Donkey Base
House of Mammoth Tusk
Nobel Otter latest formula
Oaken Lab V3
Wholly Kaw Siero Tallow (I have not tried their new base, nor the vegan base)
Zingari Man Sego tallow

My ratings are based on: ease of loading, ease of lathering, primary slickness, residual slickness, cushion/protection from irritation, post shave quailty and longevity. I you value the same things I do, you will like the soaps I recommend.

I do not consider scents when evaluating soap performance. I like complex, well blended scents made with high quality fragrance ingredients. I realize that the ingredients needed to produce top tier soaps and fragrances are not inexpensive.

 

[Ankerwycke]

None that I’ve tried. The new Floris No.89 is an excellent soap but it’s not as good as the old tallow version.

 

[CzechCzar]

Zero.
Some very few mentioned as "just as good", but none as better.

sadly 100% correct.

Tallow is the stupid-easy ingredient to add to shave soap to make it really exceptionally good.

Non Tallow soaps, generally, are not as good.

 

[Mitzie]

sadly 100% correct.

Tallow is the stupid-easy ingredient to add to shave soap to make it really exceptionally good.

Non Tallow soaps, generally, are not as good.

Tallow is rich in vitamins A, D; K & E and antioxidants. Since it's derived from animals with skin its good for human skin.

Have you ever seen a cow or sheep putting on moisturizer? -The truth is it moisturizes the skin

 

[Lane101]

Got a link? I wouldn't mind taking a look at that. With respect to @RayClem he doesn't seem to rate any triple-milled soap very highly, but other than that, he seems to have a pretty decent rating formula for artisan soft soaps.

Hi, @RayClem uses an excellent fact based set of assessment criteria based on his personal preferences. To best leverage his extensive set of ratings one needs to adjust for preferences that differ from his. A relevant example to his triple-milled soap ratings is that his criteria expect that a soap can be loaded in 10-15 seconds - favoring softer artisan products. That's just not likely with a hard triple-milled puck. My experience ranges from around 40 - 60 seconds. This is one of the reasons he recommended soaps like the older tallow based versions of MWF and Tabac. The enable a great shave but score lower due to their typical hard puck loading times.

If you drill down to certain soaps that you want to investigate further RayClem has been willing to share the details behind his ratings.

P.S. Edit, just saw RayClems subsequent post #125 above that affirms this.

Which soaps got better once tallow was removed?

Soap commander makes a vegan soap. It was pretty well thought of at one time I did purchase a tub. I need to break it out and try it. I think the proprietors of soap commander went through a divorce and she is the primary soap maker but is not very active on the board or Facebook groups. But...

www.badgerandblade.com

 

[steveclarkus]

Given the recent reformulation of Mitchell's Wool Fat and Tabac to non-tallow bases, I'm curious to know if there's any soaps out there that were actually an improvement over the original tallow base formula?

For me, the second reformulation after the tallow version of the Lea shave stick was an improvement over the first reformulation, if I remember correctly. I'm not sure it was an improvement over the tallow version. Are there others?

I’ve never been able to really tell a difference.

 

[Rekab Mit]

The 80 soaps is my rotation. I have evaluated close to 250 soaps. The 80 are the soaps that are good enough to give me a great shave with ZERO irritation in spite of my sensitive skin. I only shave every 2-3 days, so when I use a soap, I do not use it again for 6 months.

I did not start my wet shaving journey until I retired. Before that, I used either an electric shaver or a cartridge razor as I traveled about 10 days a month in my job and wet shaving was inconvenient. Once I retired, I set a goal to get the very best possible shave I could. I have explored straight razors and the stones, strops, and pastes to maintain them. I have explored various types of DE razors and blades. I have explored various types of SE razors and blades, I have evaluated soaps and creams from dozens of suppliers. It took me five years, hundreds of hours of research and testing, and thousands of dollars in hardware and software before I could get a great shave with zero irritation. When I started my wet shaving journey, I rarely got a great shave. Now I am able to get a great shave about 95% or the time. However, there are still instances where a blade may be close to EOL or my technique slips and I will get a weeper or minor irritation. But now even my bad shaves are better than the ones I got early on.

80 in rotation every 2 days, am I missing something that’s 6 months. How do you even keep track? Long shelf?

 

[steelhead52]

Soap commander makes a vegan soap. It was pretty well thought of at one time I did purchase a tub. I need to break it out and try it.

I think the proprietors of soap commander went through a divorce and she is the primary soap maker but is not very active on the board or Facebook groups.

But there’s soap at one timepretty well thought of by some reviewers, particularly if you’re looking for a vegan soap.

I have over 300 soaps in my collection and never want to admit how much I’ve spent over the years. While I agree with most of Rayclems ratings and truly love Grooming Dept. soaps, I confess that over the years my technique has improved to the point that I get BBS shaves with most soaps with a good razor like a Timeless .95 OC and a good blade like a Nacet. That said, I still find Soap Commander to be an excellent soap in that I have been able to get excellent shaves with it all around the world in some of the worst hard water conditions to be found. I’ve really enjoyed this hobby but to be perfectly honest, I would be just as happy using Soap Commander for the rest of my days and saving all the money I spent in search of the Holy Grail of soaps.

 

[something better]

I have over 300 soaps in my collection and never want to admit how much I’ve spent over the years. While I agree with most of Rayclems ratings and truly love Grooming Dept. soaps, I confess that over the years my technique has improved to the point that I get BBS shaves with most soaps with a good razor like a Timeless .95 OC and a good blade like a Nacet. That said, I still find Soap Commander to be an excellent soap in that I have been able to get excellent shaves with it all around the world in some of the worst hard water conditions to be found. I’ve really enjoyed this hobby but to be perfectly honest, I would be just as happy using Soap Commander for the rest of my days and saving all the money I spent in search of the Holy Grail of soaps.

For a long time, they had an excellent reputation. I have the respect soap which is a lemon scent but I’ve always wanted to try the Rose scent supposedly it’s very nice.

 

[Tony1961]

Over the past 20 years I can't think of one reformulated hard milled shaving soap minus the tallow that has improved the soaps performance.

 

[Knobby8]

Can you add a couple drops of "Tallow" to the puck ?

Probably a silly question, but I see a lot of people add drops of glycerine to the puck each shave. So, would it be possible to have a safe liquid form of Tallow. I guess it would need an addititive to prevent it from solidifying.

 

[something better]

Over the past 20 years I can't think of one reformulated hard milled shaving soap minus the tallow that has improved the soaps performance.

I’m of the opinion that most of the changes from tallow to something cheaper like palm oil is being driven by a desire to increase the amount of money they make. The cover story that it’s hard to source tallow is just that.

If they actually lowered the price of the soap based on the cheaper ingredient being used, then I would believe it was driven by hard to find products no longer available. But switching to a cheaper ingredient and keeping the same price just trying to increase their profit margins.

You can buy Palmolive shave cream for less than half the cost of these reformulated soaps which are made with palm oil too.

Sorry, but I’ll just stick with Palmolive shaving cream if I want a Palm oil based soap. It’s much cheaper and I don’t feel like I’m being price gouged.

 

[PLANofMAN]

Can you add a couple drops of "Tallow" to the puck ?

Probably a silly question, but I see a lot of people add drops of glycerine to the puck each shave. So, would it be possible to have a safe liquid form of Tallow. I guess it would need an addititive to prevent it from solidifying.

Not that I'm aware of, and there's little to no shaving benefit from unsaponified tallow, imo, that I'm aware of.

Now lanolin, on the other hand, would give some benefits, provided you could get a hold of lanolin alcohol or one of the other highly refined/concentrated versions of lanolin. At that point, one should just start making their own shaving soap, though, because if they are thinking of using that, they are already one step ahead of most of the artisan soap makers out there.

 

[Tony1961]

I’m of the opinion that most of the changes from tallow to something cheaper like palm oil is being driven by a desire to increase the amount of money they make. The cover story that it’s hard to source tallow is just that.

If they actually lowered the price of the soap based on the cheaper ingredient being used, then I would believe it was driven by hard to find products no longer available. But switching to a cheaper ingredient and keeping the same price just trying to increase their profit margins.

You can buy Palmolive shave cream for less than half the cost of these reformulated soaps which are made with palm oil too.

Sorry, but I’ll just stick with Palmolive shaving cream if I want a Palm oil based soap. It’s much cheaper and I don’t feel like I’m being price gouged.

I totally agree with you concerning the cost of palm oil compared to tallow...there is no shortage of tallow so the obvious reason to switch to palm oil is simply due to price...sad but true.

 

[CzechCzar]

I’m of the opinion that most of the changes from tallow to something cheaper like palm oil is being driven by a desire to increase the amount of money they make. The cover story that it’s hard to source tallow is just that.

If they actually lowered the price of the soap based on the cheaper ingredient being used, then I would believe it was driven by hard to find products no longer available. But switching to a cheaper ingredient and keeping the same price just trying to increase their profit margins.

You can buy Palmolive shave cream for less than half the cost of these reformulated soaps which are made with palm oil too.

Sorry, but I’ll just stick with Palmolive shaving cream if I want a Palm oil based soap. It’s much cheaper and I don’t feel like I’m being price gouged.

Now we are getting somewhere.

 

[Mr. Shavington]

I totally agree with you concerning the cost of palm oil compared to tallow...there is no shortage of tallow so the obvious reason to switch to palm oil is simply due to price...sad but true.

Yes. I’m sure there are still plenty of cows in the world, and not very many traditional wet shavers.

Actually, this made me think. I would think a large proportion of traditional wet shavers are in India, where cartridges never took off. But I guess they don’t sell beef tallow soaps there for religious reasons. I wonder what shaving soaps are popular there - do any of you know?