Tabac 2024 Reformulation

[Beefdrippings]

This morning I received an email from Bullgoose regarding a new formula Tabac. Here’s what it said:

“Tabac reformulated their shaving soap in 2021 and it was an utter disaster. They saw the error of their ways and reformulated it again in 2024 and by God...this time they got it right. Among the tweaks to the formula, Tabac added palm oil to make the lather creamier and more stable. The performance of the new Tabac in on par with stellar non-tallow soaps such as Arran Aromatics and Floris. Pick up a bowl today; it will be like catching up with an old friend.”

I really enjoyed the new veg Tabac but never tried the tallow version. I’ll try this new new 2024 version. Any thoughts from Tabac lovers? Interested or is Tabac dead to you forever?

 

[brucered]

Tabac is alive and well in my soap stash and will be for years to come.

Take the above description with a grain of salt. It's a retailers way of trying to sell it as "good as the old" but that is highly unlikely.

Would you buy it if it said "The 2021 formula sucked, the 2024 formula is better but it will never be as good as the tallow version"?

But who know, maybe they pulled a page out of the Haslinger soap book and managed to pull off a successful reformulation by removing tallow. I've heard that one is as good as the tallow.

 

[Beefdrippings]

Marketing for sure. I will buy this when my current puck runs out. I love the veg Tabac so I figure I’ll enjoy the new veg version as well. Only one way to find out I guess.

Tabac is alive and well in my soap stash and will be for years to come.

Take the above description with a grain of salt. It's a retailers way of trying to sell it as "good as the old" but that is highly unlikely.

Would you buy it if it said "The 2021 formula sucked, the 2024 formula is better but it will never be as good as the tallow version"?

But who know, maybe they pulled a page out of the Haslinger soap book and managed to pull off a successful reformulation by removing tallow. I've heard that one is as good as the tallow.

 

[pjgh]

There is a reformulation happening across the board with European (including British) traditional shaving soaps since Pentesodium Pentetate was fully outlawed by the EU in December 2023. Tabac were first with what I call the "2024-style formulation"* back in 2021 but that formulation still included the offending ingredient and so I presumed that Tabac would eventually replace with Tetrasodium Iminodisuccinate and leave the formula pretty much as is ... which is exactly what has happened.

2021
Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Laurate, Sodium Laurate, Glycerin, Aqua (Water), Parfum (Fragrance), Lauric Acid, Limonene, Linalool, Hydroxycitronellal, CI 77891, Isoeugenol, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Citronellol, Coumarin, Benzyl Alcohol, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Geraniol, Benzyl Salicylate, Cinnamyl Alcohol, Citral, Eugenol

2024
Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Laurate, Sodium Laurate, Aqua (Water), Glycerin, Parfum (Fragrance), Palm Kernel Acid, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Potassium Palm Kernelate, Limonene, Hydroxycitronellal, CI 77891, Linalool, Citronellol, Coumarin, Alpha-Isomethyl-ionone, Benzyl Salicylate, Geraniol, Cinnamyl Alcohol, Isoeugenol, Benzyl Alcohol, Citral, Eugenol, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Tetrasodium Iminodisuccinate

... everything after Parfum is minimal. Hallmarks of what I call the "2024-style formulation" are a stearate-first (or second) approach and citing "potassium laurate" and "sodium laurate" pretty much thereafter.

So, practically the same formulation and that mailshot is quite simply nonsense! It's the same, silly old (bull)goose!

The 2021 formulation was and still is absolutely stellar and quite frankly as good if not better than the older formulation. They are right in that it is (now?) on a par with the likes of Floris or any of the London Cartel because they have also moved over to this type of formulation ... although the Brits do seem to like a palmate-first approach which is basically this formulation with palmate tacked on the front. I say now, because it's rather the other way around - Tabac was first in 2021 with the rest of the market following thereafter.

Fans of Speick now have a sneak preview of how their soap ingredients will read from now on since the existing formulation pretty much follows Tabac (2021).

 

[Trollky]

Alas I now stay away from soaps with palmate/palm-kernelate as they are the main culprits in giving my skin a bit of a burning sensation.

 

[awk_m4]

Marketing for sure. I will buy this when my current puck runs out. I love the veg Tabac so I figure I’ll enjoy the new veg version as well. Only one way to find out I guess.

Same here. I’m loving my Veggie Tabac as well. I’m using it daily this month and will definitely need to replace it later this year.
If you happen to come across one of the tallow pucks, I suggest giving it a go. It’s the only tallow based soap I’ve tried and it’s what got me hooked on Tabac.
For me, I enjoy both.

 

[cymric]

Alas I now stay away from soaps with palmate/palm-kernelate as they are the main culprits in giving my skin a bit of a burning sensation.

This doesn't make much sense. A much likelier culprit is unsaponified coconut oil added to superfat the soap, as this is the only possible source of protein allergens. (Such proteins don't survive the boiling with lye-step in the soap production process.)

Anyhow, it's interesting to see what the company did in the 2024-version: they basically diluted the stearic acid = C18:0 content even further with more lauric acid = C12:0 (the main constituent of palm kernel oil), but added back in touches of C14:0 and C16:1, giving the lather back some of its heavy creaminess, but in a more supple form. Of course, the dreaded p-word is now in the formulation. I'll have to wait for a bit to order some, I can then compare the three formulations side by side .

 

[Trollky]

This doesn't make much sense. A much likelier culprit is unsaponified coconut oil added to superfat the soap, as this is the only possible source of protein allergens. (Such proteins don't survive the boiling with lye-step in the soap production process.)

Anyhow, it's interesting to see what the company did in the 2024-version: they basically diluted the stearic acid = C18:0 content even further with more lauric acid = C12:0 (the main constituent of palm kernel oil), but added back in touches of C14:0 and C16:1, giving the lather back some of its heavy creaminess, but in a more supple form. Of course, the dreaded p-word is now in the formulation. I'll have to wait for a bit to order some, I can then compare the three formulations side by side .

You might be on to something there. Is Laurate the same as or similar to Lauric Acid?

 

[cymric]

Lauric acid is CH₃-(CH₂)₁₀-COOH, so basically a long tail of unremarkable carbon atoms with saturated bonds between them, bonded to a carboxylic acid group. They are analogues of HCOOH = formic acid, CH₃-COOH = acetic acid (the stuff that makes vinegar vinegary), and CH₃-CH₂-CH₂-COOH = butyric acid which basically reeks disgustingly of vomit. The more carbon atoms you add, the less the sour nature of the carboxylic acid group makes itself felt, and the more the oily, fuel-like nature of the carbon chain appears. Remove the COOH and you actually have some form of kerosene.

Laurate is what you get when you react the compound with lye, be it the sodium or the potassium variety, in what is known as an acid-base reaction. The acidic part of the lauric acid joins with the base to form plain water, leaving the negatively charged laurate-ion CH₃-(CH₂)₁₀-COO⁻. This molecule has two distinct sides: one which Really Likes to be in water, while the other Really Hates it. But being tied together as they are, they cannot escape each other; and thus are capable of acting like a bridge between things which don't like to be in water such as air.

The reason in soaps sodium / potassium laurate appears and only little laurid acid is that the laurates dissolve much more readily, so you get lots of bridging molecules in the water, capable of holding on to a lot of air. Lauric acid doesn't readily give up its H-atom, and thus the bridging effect is much, much less pronounced... if it happens at all.

The properties of a lather occur mainly through the attraction of all of these carbon chains. The longer they are, the stronger the attraction, and the smaller the air bubbles they can hold onto. (Why that is the case would take me too far astray.) Hence rich, fat, stiff whipped cream from a soap rich in stearates (= 18 carbon atoms); and bubbly, crispy, popping foam from a soap reach in laurates.

You can in theory mix all the appropriate pure fatty acids together in precise amounts, and then saponify them. You can tune a lather to your exacting specifications. The snag is that it's too expensive to create a soap this way, so soap makers will have to approximate that ideal composition using various oils and fats.

 

[nemo]

I have been using the 2021 version in a 3017 fashion -- every shave, every day.
It's a fine shaving soap, not "an utter disaster" as Bullgoose claims.
Not sure how much better the lather could possibly get. But that's just me.
Sorry, I'm not much interested in chemistry now that I've retired.

 

[NorthernSoul]

...I really enjoyed the new veg Tabac but never tried the tallow version. I’ll try this new new 2024 version. Any thoughts from Tabac lovers? Interested or is Tabac dead to you forever?

I'm open to trying the newer formula, but won't really need any for a long time. I stocked up on Speick and Tabac during the tallow apocalypse a few years back. May as well use what's in stock, after all.

You might be on to something there. Is Laurate the same as or similar to Lauric Acid?

When lauric acid is saponified this yields some combo of potassium laurate and sodium laurate. Companies have leeway in how they specify the ingredients on soaps, so you might see either form in lists of ingredients.

 

[mladenius]

Products which contains cheap palm oil products are in every way inferior to the ones with tallow, shea and cocoa butter. This recent reformulation of Tabac is very similar or the same as cheap, massively produced hand soap bars.
BTW 2021 Tabac formula is fine and it's far from disaster.

 

[cymric]

Products which contains cheap palm oil products are in every way inferior to the ones with tallow, shea and cocoa butter. This recent reformulation of Tabac is very similar or the same as cheap, massively produced hand soap bars.

An opinion, certainly. I see that tallow, shea and cocoa have lost none of their supposedly magical properties in the many years I've been away from this forum.

Also, how all of a sudden the 2024 Tabac with just the addition of what I presume to be a small amount of palm kernel oil is now on par with cheap, massively produced hand soap bars... while its main workhorses remain unchanged is a bit of a mystery. Magic again, I suppose.

 

[Raz0rboy]

I was a fan and still have a really vintage one of this piece of history but today in the year of the Lord 2024 there are better soaps imho …

 

[mladenius]

An opinion, certainly. I see that tallow, shea and cocoa have lost none of their supposedly magical properties in the many years I've been away from this forum.

Also, how all of a sudden the 2024 Tabac with just the addition of what I presume to be a small amount of palm kernel oil is now on par with cheap, massively produced hand soap bars... while its main workhorses remain unchanged is a bit of a mystery. Magic again, I suppose.

I am not a chemist but If I understood it right for a quality shaving soap stearic acid is important. Tallow, cocoa and shea butter are good sources of stearic acid. Palm oil products are not. But they are much cheaper so to maximize profit manufacturers often put palm oil in combination with added detergents for better foaming qualities and which makes soap much cheaper to produce. If you compare ingredients of some cheap hand bar soaps and some recent reformulation of traditional shaving soaps you will not find that much of the difference.

 

[htownmmm]

So initially, Tabac removed Tallow from their shave soap and presented the world with their 1st reformulation that was supposed to be as good as the original Tabac w/ Tallow.

Now they have released a reformulation(2nd) of the reformulation(1st) which is supposed to improve their current version of Tabac.

Sounds like an admission of guilt to me.

marty

 

[jonwilson]

this is rather strange that tabac reformulated their reformulated soap from 2021. The 2021 reformulated version at at least to me and some others on here who have used it lathers very good. Has just about the same scent as the tallow version of tabac. Just as good as the tallow version of tabac. The 2021 version of tabac performs just as good if not better than the original tallow version.

 

[jonwilson]

Alas I now stay away from soaps with palmate/palm-kernelate as they are the main culprits in giving my skin a bit of a burning sensation.

I have seen ZERO EVIDENCE that soaps with palmate/palm kernelate give anyone's skin a burning sensation. There is probably another ingredient in the soap that is causing a burning sensation to your face.

 

[NorthernSoul]

I am not a chemist but If I understood it right for a quality shaving soap stearic acid is important. Tallow, cocoa and shea butter are good sources of stearic acid. Palm oil products are not. But they are much cheaper so to maximize profit manufacturers often put palm oil in combination with added detergents for better foaming qualities and which makes soap much cheaper to produce. If you compare ingredients of some cheap hand bar soaps and some recent reformulation of traditional shaving soaps you will not find that much of the difference.

It's true that stearic acid is found naturally in higher concentration in fats like cocoa and shea butter.

Chemically speaking, most vegetable stearic acid is actually produced from coconut and palm oils. For making soap, stearic acid concentration is increased through a fractionation process.

 

[bebo8]

tabac original scent is one of those that you either love or hate. in my case i've always loved it and luckily so did my wife! i haven't used this one since the old formula and have been wondering about the new formula. Glad i found this thread. i'll be traveling to europe in the next few weeks and i am definitely going to pick it up to give it a try