I’m really starting to get a little tired of all this artisan this...artisan that references. Soap is soap! Who decided to brand any soap newer than twenty years with the artisan brand? How do you differentiate non artisan from artisan? You can’t because there is no such thing. It’s soap! There is no such thing as artisan soap! There are new soap companies, and old soap companies and they all make soap. Some are thicker, some are thinner. Some smell good, some smell bad. Some people feel more secure buying soap in a drugstore, some buy it online. So let’s give up all this bickering over a non relevant label that somehow snuck into the industry...and means absolutely nothing. A company that makes soap is a company that makes soap. Period!
Cut Out the Artisan Crap...Soap is Soap!
- Thread starter ouchyfoot
- Start date
Rhody
I'm a Lumberjack.
I think of artisan as small shop operations maybe a solo. Multinational corporations who manufacture soap are not generally artists.
- Thread starter
- #3
Did they start out as multinationals, or as one guy making soap? Its still a misleading and prejudicial label that’s being applied to somehow draw a line between old and new. Soap is still just soap.
For what it is worth, the definition of artisan in Merriam-Webster is:
"1: a worker who practices a trade or handicraft : CRAFTSPERSONa skilled artisan
2: a person or company that produces something (such as cheese or wine) in limited quantities often using traditional methods —often used before another noun"
Whether this means anything practical to you is up to you. To me, it suggests that, compared to a large commercial company's product,
- it may vary in quality from time to time
- the maker is more likely to experiment with scents and bases
- I shouldn't rely on it being available forever
- i can probably expect fewer ingredients that I might not want in soap
"1: a worker who practices a trade or handicraft : CRAFTSPERSONa skilled artisan
2: a person or company that produces something (such as cheese or wine) in limited quantities often using traditional methods —often used before another noun"
Whether this means anything practical to you is up to you. To me, it suggests that, compared to a large commercial company's product,
- it may vary in quality from time to time
- the maker is more likely to experiment with scents and bases
- I shouldn't rely on it being available forever
- i can probably expect fewer ingredients that I might not want in soap
- Thread starter
- #5
The companies branded as Artisans are not small one man shops. They are all widely distributed and sold internationally. The fact that everyone on B&B owns these soaps shows that they are not small exclusive batch producers.
They can't very well charge you the artisan price if they don't call it artisan soap, now can they?
Art is subjective.
Can I go to any other company and get a soap that smells like a baseball game or do I have to get it from Barrister and Mann?
To me if I can only get a scent from one company that’s an artisan.
Creed Aventus is an artisan scent to me, you can only get the real thing from one place, or from a place that buys it from them to resell.
Same for soap. There are really good generic mass produced soaps, and there are smaller niche labels that in my mind deserve the title.
Can I go to any other company and get a soap that smells like a baseball game or do I have to get it from Barrister and Mann?
To me if I can only get a scent from one company that’s an artisan.
Creed Aventus is an artisan scent to me, you can only get the real thing from one place, or from a place that buys it from them to resell.
Same for soap. There are really good generic mass produced soaps, and there are smaller niche labels that in my mind deserve the title.
- Thread starter
- #9
Nothing else smells like Arko.
To me an Artisan soap is something that is developed by an individual or a small group of individuals. It also implies that it is not mass produced but produced in limited batches over time. The latter probably being one of the bigger reasons it would be considered 'artisan'.
- Thread starter
- #11
It’s still just a soap company with a different smell. You need a product that smells different from your competitors. I wouldn’t call a Mars bar an artisan candy bar.
When I think of these dividing line type terms, I tend to think of long-established producers versus producers who are relatively new to the market. Relatively is a loose term I suppose. But...before I get creamed...pun intended...I'd like to offer this image anytime this comes up again in any thread.
I mean, you could go along with this and simplify everything this way if you like.
$10 Techs and $185 Blackland razors are just razors. They just look different for promotional purposes and it’s all a cash grab.
Camrys and Ferraris are both cars. They don’t drive the same to differentiate them from people thinking they’re the exact same car.
Pachelbel and Pantera are both just music. The only reason they sound different is a different base of buyer.
Whether or not something is art is your perception, not an absolute.
It’s worth it to me to pay for unique scents, whereas you don’t seem to think so.
In the end, soap IS soap, but there are soaps out there I’m willing to pay more for and soaps I won’t even bother to use as they don’t give me what I want out of this hobby.
It's not like a pot, made one at a time. Soap is made in batches and the wet shaving community is not as large as it should be. If you make a batch of 40 soaps daily shipping some of it internationally does not mean you are not an artisan. If they have a couple of employees, the person coming up with the formulas is the artisan.
*ahem* Pantera is not music. It's noise
So the folks for P&G coming up with bases and scents would be artisans?
I said a couple of employees, not a conglomerate.
