New Penhaligon's Bayolea

shega said:

here you are. If there is anything you can derive from this information that would be helpful to understand their soaps, please do share.

Click to expand...

What information? I don't see an ingredients list in your post. It would be helpful to have the ingredients list from the current, reformulated soap so if one of you guys has one, kindly post it. The ingredients list I posted seems to be from the original formula which doesn't not contain any soap-based ingredients and any that would lather so I would describe the original cream as latherless.

hmm. picture didn't upload. I will try again later when I have access to it

shega said:

View attachment 608376

Here it is. Would love to hear some analysis: is this a quality formulation, or one that is just "good enough" to be a vehicle for the fragrance? It is very slick, I will vouch for that.

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting this! This is definitely a soap-based lathering shaving cream! A combination of Sodium and Potassium based soaps should give nice lather. Glycerin, Mineral oil and Isopropyl Myristate would contribute slip and glide. The rest is usual chelating agents which enable the soap to work better in hard water and there are fragrance chemicals and other things needed to produce a good bar. On the surface it looks good and should at least be much better than the previous formulation and hopefully a nice soap based shave cream!

Great information. May I ask what a soap-based product is? I mean, what alternatives are there (and which well known brands use those formulations). are the others better? What is MdC?

shega said:

Great information. May I ask what a soap-based product is? I mean, what alternatives are there (and which well known brands use those formulations). are the others better? What is MdC?

Click to expand...

A "soap-based" product is made from sodium or potassium (or other) salts of fatty acids. Palm Oil, Palm Kernal oil are made of fatty acids. Stearic acid is a fatty acid. These oils and fatty acids are turned into soap with potassium or sodium hydroxide and form the basis of this shaving cream. The previous list of ingredients posted for the old formula are "surfactants" or surface active agents and they make up the base for that formula. Many shaving creams (including mine) are soap-based and produce wonderful lather as a result but there are some surfactant based shaving creams that also lather well. It all depends on the formulator and the formulation. They most important thing to do here in comparing products is to look at the ingredients list and make your comparisons using that. So often this is overlooked on posts here and you really don't know what is going on in a formula until you take a look at its ingredients! Once you do you can then start making better comparisons between products.

Hope this helps!
McD? Martin de Candre, perhaps?

Penhaligon's are still confusing customers with this. I just bought a tub of the shaving cream, I prefer creams to soaps which I find too dry, and discovered the 'why are you not lathering?' feature. They have also dumbed down the jar with a plastic lid. The penhal website describes 'vegetable soap', 'rich lather', and 'maximum efficacy...shaving brush'.
I have emailed but received no reply yet.
Love the scent though.

I've tried both Blenheim Bouquet and Bayolea in the glass jar with the silver-plated lid. While Blenheim Bouquet is firm and lathers easily, Bayolea is the consistency of pudding and feels oil-based, so there's not any lather to speak of. Both give decent shaves, but Bayolea feels oily and brushless.

If you like a brushless cream, then Bayolea is a quality product, and the heavy jar is quite nice; otherwise, avoid.