Penhaligon and Fitjar--is the soap really worse than the cream?

I've been very pleased with my creams from these two companies (Blennheim Bouquet and Villman, to be specific), yet I am becoming more and more of a soap junkie. It's time to reorder and I am tempted to try the soap versions but I seem to recall unfavourable comments here.

Any feedback from those with direct experience would be appreciated.

Regarding Penhaligon, the soaps are definitely worse than the creams. I haven't tried Fitjar creams or soaps but I've read that the soaps aren't as good as the creams.

I'd stay away from Penhaligon's soap. What a disappointment.

I haven't tried the Fitjar products, but I have tried both the Penhaligon's BB shaving soap and cream. The shaving cream is excellent and I'd have kept it, but I managed to track down the older version of the BB shaving soap with tallow, which is superb and I prefer soaps. The reformulated version of the shaving soap, however, that doesn't have tallow, wasn't even usable. All I could get was disappearing lather that was thin, airy, and frothy. I'd get it on one side of my face, move to the other, and the other side would have almost disappeared.

Is the Pen's soap worse than the cream.....................? YES!!!

It's horrible beyond any reason. Your mileage will not vary.

I have tried a Fitjar soap (it might have been Villman) and I thought that it was very good. Certainly a lot, lot better than Penhaligon's current soaps.

I bought some fitjar soap while i was in norway last year...i hate to say it, being a norwegian and all that I really want to support fellow countrymen, but the soap was awful! I was really looking forward to it being amazing too... I haven't tried the fitjar cream since i don't like creams. I did notice that the owner of fitjar sapekokeri has changed soap recipies a few times so It may have gotten much better or worse depending on the recipe. I am going back next week so I might pick up a newer soap and see if they got any better...

oh the soap i got was fjellheim...smells great! just doesn't lather well, also I was disappointed it has SLS in it. the image of the company, hand made soaps on an idyllic island, makes you think the products would be all natural.

I'd stay away from Penhaligon's soap. What a disappointment.

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I'd agree with that statement.........100%.

Quintar said:

oh the soap i got was fjellheim...smells great! just doesn't lather well, also I was disappointed it has SLS in it. the image of the company, hand made soaps on an idyllic island, makes you think the products would be all natural.

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That is indeed very disappointing to read. It seems the cream is the way to go here.

As regards Penhaligon, ***?! I can understand not being able to make a good new soap from scratch, but having something good to begin with and botching it up (by all accounts) is unforgivable, especially for a company with such a considerable pedigree--and at $35 for a tiny puck!

Penhaligons soap is worse than Williams. Performance similar to Herban Cowboy and Caswell Massey

Toddy said:

Penhaligons soap is worse than Williams. Performance similar to Herban Cowboy and Caswell Massey

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OK, that should have firmly killed off any potential interest and the CEO may possibly challenge you to a duel.

Have tried the fitjar Viking soap. It has performed well for me.

I have not tried either of Pen's offerings. IMO the Fitjar creams are excellent, the soaps are a work in progress. Stay away from the ones that do not contain tallow. My experience with these are that they are poor performers if you do not make superlather. The tallow containing ones re decent but not up to the standards of far more inexpensive Tabac. I understand Fitjar has recently introduced sticks, you could do worse than try one of those.

squatzilla801 said:

Is the Pen's soap worse than the cream.....................? YES!!!

It's horrible beyond any reason. Your mileage will not vary.

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+1...yup, that about sums it up. In fact, I combine BB with Williams to get a better lather...sad

I have tried some of the Fitjar cream and soaps. They are actualy different depending of what smel you bye them. I first tried the citrus cick, I preffere soaps so thats what I ordered, but something went wrong and I got the cream. But seense I wanted the soap I called inn andre told them that I got the wrong product and asked them to send meg the soap *** well. I wanted to keep the cream. With this smell the cream was the best. But I got a sample of something they call in norwegian Folgefon. This was a great summer smell. But I did not like the cream. So I ordered av Folgefon soap, and this was a great soap. Much betther than the cream.
So my conclution was to use the citrus kick cream, when I want the citrus smell, and Folgefon soap inn the summer.
Sorry if there are many miss spelled words, I amerikanske using my mobile with norwegian auto correct.

Someone told me that they used Penhaligons soaps back in the 70s and they reckoned they were really good soaps, so what went wrong?

I'll be a dissenting voice here. I do have the reformulated Pen's soap (English Fern), and don't have any trouble lathering with it. The poster who said he only got airy bubbles or drying lather - I'd recommend loading the soap more. Its a hard soap, and I found I need to load it longer than I'm used to with others. No comparison with the Pen's creams, or the Fitjar products, I have no experience with any of those.

I'm fortunate and have a bowl of the tallow EF, but it will get used to the end sometime relatively soon. I'm going to give the new formulations a try at that point.