Tallow Soaps

I recently bought the refill for D.R. Harris Arlington, and while the performance is great - tallow soaps ROCK! - I'm finding that the scent is almost non-existant. The only other tallow soap I have is Tabac, and as we all know, that's got a scent to it!

So my question is this, are tallow soaps less fragrant than their veggie-based, tripple-milled counterparts (ignoring Tabac, of course)?

I ask because, I love the shave I get from my tallow-based soaps, and I want to get more, but I can't justify it if they all smell kind of soapy like Kent/MWF and the Arlington.

The next tallow soap on my list is Harris Marlborough, and I'm hoping that it has a nice 'woodsy' scent to it, one that I can actually still smell after my shave.

If anyone has anyother suggestions for a tallow soap with a nice scent, I'm all for it (can't control the SSAD )

Thanks for your insights!

Everybody picks up scents differently. I find Harris Almond to have an overpoweringly strong scent - I can smell it sealed in it's box in the closet. But I gave a puck to a friend and he mentioned that it had a pleasant but mild scent.

I've heard people say the Penhaligon soaps are strongly scented (they seem mild to me), and I think the Trumpers soaps are pretty strongly scented.

But it's easier to scent the heck out of a cream or glycerine soap than it is a hard soap. Part of the difference is that you don't use as much hard soap per shave as you do a cream or glycerine soap, so the scent concentration has to be much much higher in a hard soap to have the same intensity. And part of the difference is that one of the components in hard soaps (lye) tends to denature the aroma oils. Lye+water+oil = soap, and lye doesn't really care whether it's palm oil, tallow, almond oil, or that expensive essential oil that supposed to make it smell nice.

I highly recommend the Penhaligons Blenheim Bouquet. The scent is great and its a great shaver

A persons ability to detect scent is fascinating. I made a single batch of soap and sent slices of the same batch to 9 different people to test. Here are 5 of the comments pertaining to the scent.

"WOW..now that is a great scent. I'm not one for Lavender, but this is great."

"..my only minor complaint would be that it's hard to identify a 'dominant' component of the scent, if you can even call that a complaint."

"As for the scent, I was only able to smell the Valencia orange. I would try changing your ratio so it's easier to note the lavender and rosemary.
Overall, a very nice product."

"First, scent: This is Lavender scented soap. There might be just a fleeting whiff of citrus in there too but the lavender predominates. I like the fact that the scent comes through nicely strong and clean just like the pure EO it is made from. The only downside is that if you wanted a blend of scents from the three EO's you used, well the lavender dominated the others. If I didn't have the ingredient list I would have assumed lavender only."

"Great scent needs more power"

The example show the difference in scent perception. What I found is everyone - I mean everyone depending upon their surrounding, perceives scent differently. My uncles worked for the City Water Department for years and when in the sewers, could not smell the &%*#!!* unless there was something wrong with it (acidic, etc)

As I have started making soap, I am spending alot of time studying scent and scent perception, and from a soap makers point of view, it is the one thing that scares me the most. Currently I am just making soaps I like and that have natural healing properties, and if I like them, hopefully someone else will.

My next soap, by the way, will be vetiver based. Now there is a scent.

For me the Arlington soap packs a pretty good scent punch. One thing that may have happened is that the top layer of the soap could have lost some of its scent from exposure over time. Using it a few times to get that layer off will bring the strength of the scent back. There is a thread about this floating around somewhere and I believe someone put a vendor's response on this in the thread. I'll take a peek and see if I can find it.

scoopster said:

For me the Arlington soap packs a pretty good scent punch. One thing that may have happened is that the top layer of the soap could have lost some of its scent from exposure over time. Using it a few times to get that layer off will bring the strength of the scent back. There is a thread about this floating around somewhere and I believe someone put a vendor's response on this in the thread. I'll take a peek and see if I can find it.

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hmmm.... interesting, I'll give it a shot and see what happens. Though I do have to say that out of the 7 or so soaps I have, they've all smelled the same from day one thruogh now.

I know Arlington is supposed to have a citrusy-fern scent, but I'm really not sure what it is I'm smelling. To me it smells like a less intense version of T&H Luxury, with a bit more of a 'greeny' smell to it. Does that make sense to those of you who have both soaps?

Jon said:

I highly recommend the Penhaligons Blenheim Bouquet. The scent is great and its a great shaver

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Penhaligon's is tallow based? I didn't know that, this is the first time I've read that.

adildhanani said:

Penhaligon's is tallow based? I didn't know that, this is the first time I've read that.

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It is, but as of very recently less so. Previously, tallow was the #1 ingredient. Penhaligon's has recently reduced the amount and it has been bumped down on the ingredient list. A major bummer in my book.

That's disapointing

Any comments of the scent of Harris Marlborough?

To answer your question, the issue isn't so much about whether the soap is tallow-based, its about how much scent is used.

Generally, my sense is that the tallow soaps are less heavily scented than creams and much less heavily scented than most of the glycerine based soaps made by QED, MamaBear, Colleen, Honeybee Sue, etc...

As you've noted, the Tabac is a very strongly scented product and I think the soaps made by fragrance houses tend to be more strongly scented than those made by others. I personally find the Trumper soaps to have a good level of scent (present but not overpowering), but I have a fairly sensitive sense of smell.

As others have noted, this is very much a YMMV subject.

I have Trumper's Rose soap and I find that to be quite a strong scent - not sickly sweet like their cream, but still more powerful than T&H Rose cream.

Have you used the Arlington soap Suzuki?

seamus402 said:

The example show the difference in scent perception. What I found is everyone - I mean everyone depending upon their surrounding, perceives scent differently. My uncles worked for the City Water Department for years and when in the sewers, could not smell the &%*#!!* unless there was something wrong with it (acidic, etc)

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Goes to show that you can get used to anything, huh!!!