Tabac Shave Soap

I am pretty new to Tabac as I just picked it up two weeks ago, but I already think its a great item for any wetshaving arsenal.

The price is not bad at around $25 a tub since it does last quite awhile according to most, but I think you could find it cheaper online, down to maybe $15-$20 (including S&H).

The smell is classic barber shop, and I actually don't notice any tobacco notes which I kind of expected from the name.

Nice lather which does last and stay moist for several passes. All in all this is a great soap in a great porcelain tub which will last for either refills or other small trinkets you place in their after the soap is gone.

Wel, not exactly and I guess it just goes to show that not everything is for everyone, no matter how popular.

So, point by point;

Price - the stuff is CHEAP. It comes very well packaged in a nice ceramic bowl with lid. You get a bi chink of soap. For $16! ow can you go wrong?

Quality - well, it's good stuff. No argument there.

Scent - mild, but if you don't like it you don't like it. I don't like it. It's not offensive, but I don't like it.

Later - gobs of lather.

Efficacy - works beautifully. Nice slick and comfortable shave.

Moisturizing - no. Not to me. But neither does it dry me out. So the neutral rating.

If you like the scent you will love this soap.

This soap provides a real good shave to me! It's so easy to get a lather, doesn't dry quickly at all and doesn't dry out my skin!
The price is very good, especially for the amount and quality you get!

Great stuff! I've only used it 3-4 times, but I'm hooked. It did take me a couple of shaves to get used to the smell. Now, I sneak sniffs of it when no one's looking! The packaging is nice enough, and small enough for me to put in my dorm room; on a related note- any college student can shovel out the $20 (with shipping or taxes/gas money) to get this soap.

Price- If this stuff lasts as long as everyone says, then $15-18 for a tub and nice ceramic bowl is a great deal.
Quality- Great packaging, nice bowl, looks great!
Scent- My lowest score. And that's only because it did take a shave or two to get to love this smell. SWMBO loves it, I love it, and it makes me feel great
Lather- just a few swirls to load the brush, a short build time for the lather makes an amazing, thick, creamy lather that never ends.
Efficacy- Great price, lather, smell, packaging. Used it with a Feather in my Merkur HD today, and the best shave that I've ever had in my life. Found my perfect combination I think 10/10!
Moisturizing- I don't need to use any ASB when using Tabac. Doesn't that say enough? But due to how much I like Tabac, I'll end up getting the after shave from them!

Please do yourself a favor and go and get a couple of pucks of Tabac!

Oh my gosh! In the immortal words of Homer Simpson - "WOOHOO!!" I'm amazed at this stuff every time I lather up, and yes, this is my first sort of "upscale" soap, can you tell? LOL Particulars - Weishi razor, Israeli Personna blade, Tweezerman badger brush, 3 passes on my head: with, across, and against, every day for about 2 weeks. This is the first product of soaps/creams I've used that has actually made my shave closer. My hairs seem to be pretty tough cutting, and my skin is somewhat sensitive - Tabac handles this perfectly. The lather has, what is to me, a somewhat paradoxical property - great slip, and also a stickiness that seems to hold the hairs up really, really well; I think I'm probably getting more softening of them also (part of this is purely because you don't want to stop brushing this stuff. Moisturizing is excellent, I just blot my head dry, and then enjoy repeatedly stroking the smoothness of it The scent is very pleasant, and they've somehow acheived "male floral" - obviously floral, but with an aggressiveness of sorts. I bought the refill, which came in a paper box, wrapped in foil; once I wet the paper lining of the foil, it came off, and so all of the packaging is recycleable, which is important to me. The price I gave a nine because I found one I couldn't believe (or maybe I'm ignorant of an even better one), and here ya go - beautyencounter.com, $10 the refill - sure beat the $20 that most places sell it for LOL So, all in all, a real quality product that I'm still enjoying very much, and intend to buy again.

What more can be said about this wonderful product! Now that I have it and have used it, I can't imagine NOT having it in my rotation!!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

This is truly a great soap; it lathers and shaves great and is certainly something you should have used at least once in your life.
Tabac has gotten a firm place in my rotation and has only a few minor issues for me.
At first there is the scent, in itself a pleasant (very) old school scent but there is simply too much of it. I noticed using it less frequent now because I find it (a little) overpowering, something I didn't notice so much when I started out with Tabac.
Secondly it is drying my face somewhat; it is the only soap in my regular rotation that needs the use of a balm afterwards.
All in all it is not my favourite soap but it is certainly one that will stay in my bathroom !

What can you say about this soap that hasn't already been said? Quite possibly the slickest soap or cream I have yet to find and it makes the finest lather of any product out there. As far as I'm concerned this is the benchmark soap that other soaps are judged against.

Some people complain about the scent, but it is a musky, manly scent that is a perfect fit for shaving. I wouldn't wear the scent in a cologne, but while shaving it is top notch.

This is the second hard soap that I tried and it was love at first sight, smell, lathering, shave, you name it... It beats all the lather related products I could find here, in Croatia... It has very pleasant and masculine scent, produces very rich lather which tends to hold my facial hair very firmly, and gives a very smooth shave...
I enjoy every moment of my shave with Tabac...

I love this stuff. The name has put me of quite some time because I don't like (read: hate) smoking and it's scent, but after I had smelled this soap I discovered it wasn't that bad. I still don't like the scent that much but it's so delicate it doesn't bother me. That is because this is the best soap/cream I have ever tried; Including the english 3T's.

There's something in this soap that my face doesn't like. And I know that I'm not the only one -- more than a few find it irritating.

It's a reasonably priced soap that provides gobs of thick lather, but I found it a bit on the drying side, and not slick enough. I get significantly better shaves from HoneybeeSpa and Proraso.

To say that I didn't like the scent would be an understatement; my understanding is that that's Tabac's scent is pretty much a love-it-or-hate-it phenomenon. The best description I've heard is "Grandma's perfume drawer after a night on the town." And I think that life is too short to put up with a smell you even slightly dislike, regardless of how good the lather is -- there are so many other excellent products out there with scents that I enjoy.

Obviously, this soap works for a lot of folks, but I sold my puck after a single use.

You gotta shop around for a good price on this. I got mine for $13, but have seen some for $20.

I love the scent, but I can see how others would not. Don't let it bother you because it's not a factor when shaving.

The soap was very slick on my face which is GREAT.

Do yourself a favor and get this product!

Conrad;513327 said:

I had a strange experience with this soap. When I first pulled the foil off the soap, I positively hated the scent. It was not only powdery, but it had a kind of stale base note. I felt the same way for the first two or three times that I used the soap. Then, after a while, I started to like it. I don't know if the scent mellows over time or if I just got used to it. Now I love it because it is thick, slick, and compared to other soaps of this quality, very reasonably priced.

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+1

When I first got a whiff of a dry puck of Tabac, I thought "OMG ... what have I gotten myself into? This stuff is horrible!"

After the puck is broken in, the aroma is ... indescribable. You can read the list of ingredients, but that still doesn't quite correspond to what it actually smells like.

Not only that, but each time I wear it, the scent is slightly different. And it lasts and lasts and lasts ... I put on some Tabac ASL, Deo-stick and EdT, and here it is, 15 hours later, and I can still smell it, slightly. The scent remains subtle at first, then it goes dormant, then reacts to body heat and ... "Whooooomp, There It Is!"

Oh, yeah ... Women Dig It. Oh, YEAH!

While I find that any single Tabac product by itself is good, using them all to combined effect is MAGNIFICENT! Off the Richter scale.

I'd like to get more products in the Original scent, but all I can find online are the shaving products. Does anyone know where I can order the bath soap, shampoo and other Tabac toiletries?

One of my best wet shaving purchases to date, if not the best. I found the soap a little hard to lather at first, but persistence paid off and I got the slickest and creamiest lather I have ever produced. Great buy for the price. If you wet shave - which you obviously do if you're here - buy this product ASAP.

I started with VDH and Williams and never got that great of results but stuck with it because it was better than goo. Then I got some Tabac. Tabac has been a major part of my rotation ever since. I could if it weren't for SAD shave every day with Tabac. I don't find the scent to be anything that beyond neutral. It is neither offensive or greatly pleasing. It just smells right. It lathers right, it protects right, it is just plain right.

Yes, some soaps might lather better and some may lubricate or moisturize more. Some soaps might smell more manly or more exotic. However, for me, Tabac is fine and will probably always be one of my top soap choices.

This and Art of Shaving soaps are my favorites. Sure I have soaps from our homemade makers, and they do work well, but for me, Tabac is the s**t! I will never be without a puck of Tabac. Only negative I have is the scent, but I can live with it. My A/S lotions cover it up!

So my Tabac showed up today from fragrancex.com. Eight bucks shipped, I couldn't pass it up.

I made a couple "practice bowls", just to get the hang of making lather with Tabac, and to critique how well it lubricates, how fast it dries out, how it feels, scent when mixed, and how bad it dried out my hands after all this experimentation. Then I made another batch, and shaved.

I *hate* the smell of Tabac. Turning it into lather mitigates the smell alot (of course), but to me it is still pretty darn stinky sitting on your face as a lather. Luckily, the scent does not survive a good rinsing.

The only other negative (for me, at least), is that I have a terrible habit... actually, maybe this is a positive thing, as it's helping me break the habit.. anyway, Tabac's lubrication is the best I've seen so far (keep in mind, I'm still a newb), but you have to make sure that you only do *one* pass, and then apply more lather. Unlike alot of other creams/soaps that will allow you to do multiple passes or "blade buff" between lather applications, Tabac doesn't allow me to. The second and subsequent passes are like there's nothing there at all. This had me breaking my multiple-passes-between-lathering habit very quickly. However, that first pass is so incredibly well lubricated, I was left with *much* less irritation than what I normally have.

The lather does age a bit fast, both on the face and in the bowl. I ended up having to refresh the stuff in my bowl with more soap and water for pass number three, but then again, I'm a very slow shaver. Face lathering works very well with Tabac.

It doesn't leave your face feeling dry, but it doesn't moisturize, either. Kinda neutral in that regard.

Now having said all the negative/neutral stuff, I gotta say I FREAKING LOVE THIS STUFF! All my other creams/soaps (not that I have *that* many) are going to be sitting on the shelf collecting dust for a while. Tabac rules. Period. And when you consider the price/performance ratio, it's simply amazing. Now to just get past that smell...

Here's the ingredients list for those interested.

+1 for all the Tabac praise! I got the closest shave *ever* on my neck using Tabac lather and my finicky Fromm Eagle straight razor, can't wait to use my more beloved blades! Lubrication during shave and moisturizing after shave were unreal... I used no aftershave at all, my face felt that good.

I tried Tabac after reading Joel's rave reviews; I have to say that I am a huge fan. I haven't much experience with soaps, only having used Pre de Provence and Floris. I thought I had found the holy grail with Floris, but that was before I tried Tabac.

I happen to love the scent, it's olde time barber shop; takes me back to the days as a kid, sitting in the barber chair getting a haircut. The lather is fantastic, my Rooney stubby 2 rocks this stuff. I can't find any fault with this soap. I like it so much, in fact, that I sold my Floris and Pre de Provence. I'm a one soap man, now.

Steve