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Grooming Dept club

Declaration Icarus base (and Bison), Ariana & Evans, Tallow & Steel are all similar in post shave on my mug. I would say that B&M Reserve and Sudsy also work very well for me. The one that has really surprised me is PAA's CK6 soap. Slick great shaves and a great post shave as well.
 
Excellent point.

Which of these is true for any one item?
  1. The old price (item and "free" shipping) is lower than the new price (item + not-free shipping).
  2. The new price (item + not-free shipping) is lower than the old price (item and "free" shipping).
  3. It's a tie.
In many cases the shipping seems higher than I think it should, but then again I like the cheap shipping from Connaught in the UK to me in the USA. I've also noticed that it's oftentimes difficult to determine what the shipping cost will be. Free shipping may not exist but it's easy to determine what something costs me when the shipping is free.

Guess we'll find out how it goes for GD and GD customers.

Amazon of course has the best model. Their (Prime) shipping is free but you pay for it.

Happy shaves,

Jim
You absolutely pay for Amazon’s “free shipping “. They tell you up front this item can be purchased cheaper from other vendors. They offer a convenience factor whilst helping put mom and pop shops out of business.
 
Mystic Water is the best I have ever used, but I haven't tried GD. I had some Declaration Grooming Icarus soap and I don't think it was close.
 
It seems kind of BS that Mo can't directly address the issues here because he's not a B&B vendor. I can see not allowing him to generate posts to advertise his product, but he's using Facebook to respond to stuff here on B&B, where he's not able to defend himself or his product.
He could choose to defend himself directly in the thread if he wanted to pay for vendor status.

The people who run Badger and Blade make the rules, and the artisans get to choose whether they want to join in or not. I'm not saying, necessarily, that it's fair or that it's not fair, because I'm not an artisan so I have no idea how much it costs.

But Mo has a choice to respond directly in these threads. He has apparently made the decision not to do so. I respect his decision. I'm also very impressed with the pricing changes. This shows a willingness to listen to the customer base.

I've never tried Grooming Department soap and I'm not currently in the market for shaving soap (I have too many already), but when the time comes, I will give it a hard look.
 
I’ve used this soap no more than 8 times, and the donut hole has already appeared. I really cannot fathom how quickly this soap has dissipated. I am not a ‘load it like you hate it’ guy, and, in fact, I load very conservatively and frugally with synthetics only. Given the cost of this soap, the limited number of uses makes GD a very expensive soap per shave. Was this a bad batch? Am I ‘doing it wrong’? Has anyone else seen their GD soaps disappear this quickly?

Looks like a filling error tbh. Mistakes happen. I'm sure a replacement from DG would be given if you let them know :)
 
The people who run Badger and Blade make the rules, and the artisans get to choose whether they want to join in or not. I'm not saying, necessarily, that it's fair or that it's not fair, because I'm not an artisan so I have no idea how much it costs.

But Mo has a choice to respond directly in these threads. He has apparently made the decision not to do so. I respect his decision.
I agree with your points. My understanding is that the vendor fee is several hundred dollars. (I'm happy to be corrected if this is not correct.) As the owner of a small business, I can understand choosing to forego this expense especially if there are substitute ways of getting information out.
 
New soap base! He (Mo) keeps pushing to make better soaps, I think that's great. The shipping part, should be alright. I expect the soap will keep getting better, and we are the base of Grooming Dept,s business.
Things should be copacetic.
 
"Free shipping" is a mixed blessing. Cold River Soap Works used to offer free shipping on all products direct from CRSW. I suspect a lot of folks only ordered one soap. CRSW had to include the shipping cost in the price of the soap, which at that time was $24 for the Glide formula. Now they no longer include free shipping, but the price was reduced to $20. If you just order one soap, the gross pricing might be higher than $24. If you order multiples, you might end up paying less.

Although Grooming Department makes outstanding soaps, it is difficult to maintain a price in excess of $25 in today's marketplace. There are only a few artisans who try to compete at that level (APR, EUFROS, WK Bufala, Oaken Labs, Grooming Department). There are a number of excellent soaps that can be purchased for less than $20. Thus, competition is fierce.
 
He could choose to defend himself directly in the thread if he wanted to pay for vendor status.

The people who run Badger and Blade make the rules, and the artisans get to choose whether they want to join in or not. I'm not saying, necessarily, that it's fair or that it's not fair, because I'm not an artisan so I have no idea how much it costs.

But Mo has a choice to respond directly in these threads. He has apparently made the decision not to do so. I respect his decision. I'm also very impressed with the pricing changes. This shows a willingness to listen to the customer base.

I've never tried Grooming Department soap and I'm not currently in the market for shaving soap (I have too many already), but when the time comes, I will give it a hard look.

The vendor fee used to be posted on the forum as common knowledge so I hope I'm not overstepping by stating what it is, or at least what it used to be. The fee was $500 per year with an additional start up fee of $100 for the first year. So if it's the same now, then figure $600 the first year and $500 every year after that. For a small business this is a big enough expense that some might choose to forgo it.
 
I agree with everything I understand you to say here. There aren't many soaps being compared to GD in terms of post shave, but the post shave for a soap I find drying to my skin might be great for you.

Having someone change my mind is way off my radar. The soap itself could be only thing which might have a shot at that one.

On the theory that the most expensive soap is the one you have but don't use I'm just trying to increase the odds I won't add to the boxes of shaving soap.

It occurs to me to mention nobody's mentioned MWF. Used to hear how great its post shave feel was, but I think maybe we're talking about a different animal here. I think a good many of us are interested in long term benefits (not just a nice feeling). Somebody referred to this as post-post shave. I'm not saying MWF doesn't do that for you, but for me its post shave feeling was great yet it seemed drying to my skin.

Unless I'm way off base the soaps being mentioned are very rich in great oils and such. Must be something to this soap enrichment conspiracy. Well, bad term. It's widely done because it works.

Happy shaves,

Jim
Why not get on the list for the Soap Sample Pass Around that was graciously originated by Dfoulk? There is space on the list. There are 5 boxes of soap passing around. Each box has over 100 soaps in small 1/4 ounce containers to try and the final box has Grooming Dept samples. One box even had a sample of Talbot Gateway to the Arctic.

I thoroughly enjoyed trying out dozens of soaps and sniffing the scent of 100’s all for the cost of postage and the effort of sending the box to the next guy on the list. I would have never known about Lisa’s Natural Soap had I not done the pass around.
CFA42F54-BFD4-4588-B3B6-D59383BAD014.jpeg
 
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This same situation arose here at B&B two days ago (Tuesday) with different vendor. The vendor did not want to break any forum rules and did not have a paid vendor subscription at B&B, but B&B members were interested in hearing from him. So in order to respond to member questions and concerns, some information from him got passed along.

I don't know if every forum charges a vendor fee, but B&B is among those that do. The fees force many artisans to pick and choose which forums they subscribe to, so the only way for people in other forums to get information about the vendor is either to go elsewhere or to hear it reported indirectly.
 
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Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
The complaint doesn't seem that justified imo. Not enough soap in the tub or cost is too much. You clearly cant keep everyone happy as his soaps sell out like hot cakes he doesn't imo have to come here to defend himself imo
 

Chan Eil Whiskers

Fumbling about.
"Free shipping" is a mixed blessing. Cold River Soap Works used to offer free shipping on all products direct from CRSW. I suspect a lot of folks only ordered one soap. CRSW had to include the shipping cost in the price of the soap, which at that time was $24 for the Glide formula. Now they no longer include free shipping, but the price was reduced to $20. If you just order one soap, the gross pricing might be higher than $24. If you order multiples, you might end up paying less.

Although Grooming Department makes outstanding soaps, it is difficult to maintain a price in excess of $25 in today's marketplace. There are only a few artisans who try to compete at that level (APR, EUFROS, WK Bufala, Oaken Labs, Grooming Department). There are a number of excellent soaps that can be purchased for less than $20. Thus, competition is fierce.

Dragonsbeard is also priced at over $25.

I understand the price competition. I also understand that the ingredients going into products vary in what they cost the manufacturer. My understanding is Dragonsbeard is loaded with expensive ingredients added to be of specific benefit to the skin.

The competition I care about at the moment is quality - post-post shave combined with slickness, ghost lather, and all the other attributes I care about in a shaving soap. That's not me saying price is unimportant to me.

If M&M is as good a many gentlemen say it is it should be a formidable competitor particularly when price is factored in.

Happy shaves,

Jim
 

Chan Eil Whiskers

Fumbling about.
The complaint doesn't seem that justified imo. Not enough soap in the tub or cost is too much. You clearly cant keep everyone happy as his soaps sell out like hot cakes he doesn't imo have to come here to defend himself imo

Excellent point.

There are all sorts of things I don't know about the shaving soap business and about Mo's business in particular, but he sure is sold out a lot.

His products look to be in great demand, but the competition is fierce.

I like my Grooming Dept soaps and grab them instead of one of the many other soaps I have, many of which are admittedly excellent soaps, because I find GD soap a bit better (at least a bit). That doesn't mean I'm not looking for the very best soap available. Since I'm sure others are forever attempting to up the standards we as soap consumers, er, soap hoarders, er, soap beta testers who pay for the privilege are forever on the lookout for the latest and greatest.

It can be argued that the differences are marginal. In that case we have many great options. It can also be argued that the state of the art is still progressing in significant ways in which case we're right to be on the lookout if we want the very best.

What is soap? (meme).jpg


At least that's how I see it. I think we all see how lucky we are.

Happy shaves,

Jim
 
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