Thoughts on The Handmade Soap Co. Shaving Soap For Him

[sp514]

**Disclosure: I received the soap for free from a recent contest ran by The Handmade Soap Co.**

I received a medicinal pack of 3 soaps from the Handmade Soap Co. yesterday and tried it this morning. I liked the vintage look of packaging and enjoyed the scents. Not too overwhelming but definitely there and pleasant. Their witch hazel soap had slight medicinal scent to it but was enjoyable as well.

As for shaving, now, I don't consider myself an expert of any kind as I'm relatively new, but I do enjoy wonderful lather from Tabac, P. 160, RR artisan soaps and Arko sticks. So I was rather surprised to see that I could not get this soap to lather like I do with my other soaps.

Best way I could describe it was that the lather felt 'inadequate' to shave with, with thin lather and small bubbles that dried up quickly. I load my brush quite heavily (brucered's ABC method), resulting in lather flying everywhere but I had to reload the brush mid lather to whip up enough to cover my face.

Overall, it was a bit disappointing despite great scent, packaging and what seems like good, natural ingredients, I couldn't shave with it and had to use another soap for the second pass.

I'll try again tomorrow, so if someone else tried their soap and made it work, let me know what I'm doing wrong.

Cheers.

[Fortitudo Dei]

You aren't doing anything wrong. The problem is that the soap maker doesn't know what they are doing. I think their packaging looks fantastic and the scent as you describe it sounds very pleasant but they seem to have put the cart-before-the-horse so to speak. Looking at the ingredient list they appear to have fallen for the artisan soap maker's "myth" that all they need to do to turn a bath soap into a shaving soap is to add castor oil (frankly I'm surprised they haven't added clay as well). Basically the chemistry of the soap is completely wrong and it will never perform well as a shaving product no matter how much you load your brush or what method you use. They have essentially made a high-quality, nice smelling bath soap. My advice is that you use it in the bath / shower and forget about shaving with it (and if possible, send some constructive feed-back to the soap maker).

[hugh4]

Man I'm still waiting on my stuff to show up from them. Thanks for putting up your thoughts on the 3 pack as I'm waiting on the very same thing and it looks like I will enjoy the other two soaps but like fort said it doesn't look like the shave soap is actually a shave soap and I'm almost bummed now. I will hold off my thoughts till I receive the package and then I'll post up my thoughts on it too.

[Blix]

While it's a nice presentation and pleasant scent, it's not usable for shaving unfortunately.
And I have the tallow version.

[Dusty1]

Looks like you have a few soap bars for the shower now.

[sp514]

You aren't doing anything wrong. The problem is that the soap maker doesn't know what they are doing. I think their packaging looks fantastic and the scent as you describe it sounds very pleasant but they seem to have put the cart-before-the-horse so to speak. Looking at the ingredient list they appear to have fallen for the artisan soap maker's "myth" that all they need to do to turn a bath soap into a shaving soap is to add castor oil (frankly I'm surprised they haven't added clay as well). Basically the chemistry of the soap is completely wrong and it will never perform well as a shaving product no matter how much you load your brush or what method you use. They have essentially made a high-quality, nice smelling bath soap. My advice is that you use it in the bath / shower and forget about shaving with it (and if possible, send some constructive feed-back to the soap maker).

I've looked up the soap in the review section and the previous reviewers, like you, decided that it's inadequate for use as a shaving soap. Thanks for your response, if I can't get it to lather again tomorrow, I'll have to resort to using it as body soap.

Man I'm still waiting on my stuff to show up from them. Thanks for putting up your thoughts on the 3 pack as I'm waiting on the very same thing and it looks like I will enjoy the other two soaps but like fort said it doesn't look like the shave soap is actually a shave soap and I'm almost bummed now. I will hold off my thoughts till I receive the package and then I'll post up my thoughts on it too.

It lathers, it just feels too foamy/airy to shave with... At least I had good experience with the witch hazel soap and all the soaps have pretty pleasant scent (I'm not a fan or carbolic soap but I knew that beforehand) so at least you can enjoy them as body soap like Fortitudo suggests. Let us know how it goes when you try them.

While it's a nice presentation and pleasant scent, it's not usable for shaving unfortunately.
And I have the tallow version.

I've read that there is a newly formulated tallow version but didn't know that it doesn't work either. Too bad it was a miss :(

[Deacon Frank]

I have tried their original (veggie-oil) and new (tallow) shave soaps. The new formulation is better than the original, but still not great. It's slick but lacks cushion, making a lather that is very similar to Ivory -- loose, airy. The one area it really shines is how it leaves the skin feeling.

I am now using mine as a component for superlather (along with Body Shop's Maca Root cream) and it works well for that. It's also a good pre-shave face wash.

[hitemfrank]

Yeah, it's not up to scratch unfortunately. That is either the old bar you have or the new bar in old packaging (I have some of the new stuff in the old packaging - it just has a label over the ingredents with the new ingredients on it)

I've tried both new and old versions (and some trial versions in between) and as Deacon Frank said the best thing about the soap is how your skin feels after the shave.

For me it will end up as a shower soap or as a pre-shave face wash.

[kingfisher]

too much olive oil

[brucered]

i'm still waiting for my Christmas PIF from them, it's been reshipped recently.

disappointing to hear the soap is not a great performer, but from what i hear (Marco had a thread) the AS balm is fantastic, so i'm still looking forward to trying that out.

[DublinShaver]

I was going to make a thread about this recently but never got round to it, bought this soap just before Christmas (the old version) and was surprised by how bad it was. I mean, did they not test it before they made it available for sale? I honestly don't understand this, I take it they're a small company, therefore why would they not make sure their product works before letting people buy it?! Crazy. I use mine as a bath soap, it's not even great for that. I was trying to support them, being Irish and all.....now I'm just baffled.

[Giant Kiwi]

I got some too.

A bit disappointing, like dublinshaver I was trying to support the local economy.

[michiganlover]

and was surprised by how bad it was. I mean, did they not test it before they made it available for sale?

If you read this board long enough (going on three years for me), you will realize that the vast majority of the artisan soapers are totally clueless when it comes to shaving soap. They have no experience with a good quality shaving soap, and hence can't possibly create a usable shaving soap.

It's next to impossible to create a good product without a baseline to compare against.

A lot of the so called "shaving soap" is really nothing more than a typical bath soap recipe, with added clay, and molded to a round puck shape. The high amount of olive oil guarantees the product will be a complete disaster for it's intended purpose.

All of this really begs the question, Who actually buys this "shaving soap" as it's certainly not us: well I think women (who buy these soaps at craft fairs) buy it for their men, who might use it once, or twice, and then it sits forever underneath the sink collecting dust.

[brucered]

i got my KIT PIF today, and i was not expecting much after all the negative feedback. but i must say, my test lather went quite well.

wast here a REFORUMLATION recently? as my ingredient list on the box soap, was covered with an ingredient sticker

here are some shots, i'll try it out in the next week or so.

[sp514]

wast here a REFORUMLATION recently? as my ingredient list on the box soap, was covered with an ingredient sticker

Maybe you got a reformulated version. Mine didn't have a sticker over the original printing

[brucered]

Maybe you got a reformulated version. Mine didn't have a sticker over the original printing

here is a scan of my soap box. not sure if it's reforumlated or not. it appears the ingredient list sticker is over top of a description that lists some of the ingredients.

anyway, here it is....Mmmmmm Beef Tallow

[eyebright]

It looks reformulated: you can see "(sustainable) palm oil, olive oil" on the original label, which appear to have been substituted with tallow, cocoa butter, shea butter and other oils in the new label.

[Blix]

Yup, that's the reformulated. Doing shower duty here.

[daitmart]

Hi Everyone,

I respect all views. Just thought you would like to know that we have reforulated the original soap. The second batch is the one showed by bruce. We will no longer sell the old soap as it is not up to scratch.

Thanks for all the reviews, positive and negative. We are picking up on all of this and will improve in anyway we can.

I would also like to add that we forgot to put the new recipe sticker on the medicinal shaving soaps. The individual shaving soaps have a sticker on them showing the new recipe. We apologies for this and any new shaving soap sold will feature the new recipe on the back. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Chat to you all soon.

[goby]

If you read this board long enough (going on three years for me), you will realize that the vast majority of the artisan soapers are totally clueless when it comes to shaving soap. They have no experience with a good quality shaving soap, and hence can't possibly create a usable shaving soap.

It's next to impossible to create a good product without a baseline to compare against.

A lot of the so called "shaving soap" is really nothing more than a typical bath soap recipe, with added clay, and molded to a round puck shape. The high amount of olive oil guarantees the product will be a complete disaster for it's intended purpose.

All of this really begs the question, Who actually buys this "shaving soap" as it's certainly not us: well I think women (who buy these soaps at craft fairs) buy it for their men, who might use it once, or twice, and then it sits forever underneath the sink collecting dust.

+1,000,000

And good for The Handmade Soap Co. to admit that their first batch sucked. It is clear to us veterans that making shaving soap it not an easy task. I will never ever ever buy from an artisan soap maker found on the internet or farmers market UNLESS B&B users have approved it. Artisan makers like Mama Bears, St. Charles, QCS, etc. have spent countless hours formulating their soap and have been properly vetted by B&B members.