Tade 16% Laurel Shaving Soap

I have read about this, and as a person that succombs to the temptation of the exotic, I bought it as soon as I came across it.


I come from somewhere where I grew up with french olive oil soaps. I kid you not, this is the best smelling olive oil like soap I have ever smelled. Too bad the performance makes me cry in pain.

Believe me, I wanted to like this soap. I tried a lot to like it. I tried to force myself to like it, but I can't.
When it comes to latherability, this is he worse thing I have came across lest shaving with water. I started to dislike soaps because of it!
Maybe in other cicumstances I would have liked it, who knows. I just can't get myself to praise it, or give it more of the benefit of the doubt after I have used L'othantique père et fils. L'othantique is better than this soap in performance and latherability, by leaps and bounds. It gave me the best lather I have ever experienced, and I do know soaps and creams. I am looking forward to trying their premium triple milled Le Collectionneur. If their standard shaving soap is that good, how good is their premium one!

Well, I tried all I could with this soap, but the lather disappears rapidly, and I consistely have horrible shaves with it. I even tried to experiment with how much water this soap needs by using a dry Rooney and then watering drop by drop, I couldn't find any solution.

I hope that it is YMMV and that you will be happy using this soap. The smell is very nostalgic for me, and brings me back to my childhood, before the tugging and the razor burns just make me reach for my L'othantique!

PRICE: I paid 5.50 GBP for my puck of Tade Shaving Soap, but think that I was undercharged. It generally retails for around 10-12 EUR on the continent, but given the quality of the product it still represents exceptionally good value for money. In terms of cost vs. quantity, you get 100g for your money, so there is little difference between this and a refill of any of the top shelf English soaps in terms of the amount you get and the money you pay. Personally, I think this is as efficacious as anything that is currently being offered by any of the 3T's. This soap is a little softer than tripe-milled though, so it will get used up faster. After a couple of months usage, there is a notable depression in the middle of the soap.
QUALITY: This is a quality product, of that there is no doubt, but it's real strengths lie in it's performance. If you are looking for name brand prestige and rare ingredients you won't find them here, but this soap works as well as anything on the market. Given the low cost the overall quality of this product is astounding.
It comes in a screw top, hard-plastic case that would undoubtedly make for a nice travel container, but it's a little small for easy lathering if you choose not to transfer the soap to another bowl.
SCENT: At first I wasn't impressed by the scent, or more accurately lack thereof, of the Tade Shaving Soap. However, it is meant to be a product suitable for even the most sensitive of skins and therefore keeps itself to pure plant oils without adding any extra fragrance. Given that this is how the soap is meant to be I think it is unfair to mark it down too much for it's lack of scent.
It smells like a slightly less smelly version of the original Hydrolast Shaving Cube, but any noticable scent has all but vanished with regular use,
Whilst anyone is unlikely to by this based on scent alone, it isn't particulalry offensive either, so I don't think that the scent is a limiting factor.
LATHER: This is where things start to get interesting. In my opinion the lather I get off of this soap is as good as any tallow-based lather that is available today. That was hard to admit to for a confirmed tallow junkie like myself, but it's true. All of the words that are regularly bandied about on the shaving forums when it comes to describing good lather apply here: dense, lubricious, protective, rich, thick, unctious and then some. When people talk about a soap giving them the same lather as a cream this is what they mean.
Given the all natural ingredients and lack of any lathering aids I was somewhat apprehensive when I first used this soap, I put 1/2 a tsp. of water on the puck and then loaded the brush with soap. After loading up the brush the bristles were actually completely gummed up with a thick, gunky mass of soap, it was very difficult to get the bristles apart to add water to the brush. Normally soap like this doen't like a lot of water, particularly not my locally very hard water, but the Tade soap can absorb massive amounts of water without losing it's consistency.
Lather never has a very good life span when used with my local water. Normally it will dry out in between passes and adding any more water will simply wash it out of the brush altogether, the Tade soap on the other hand easily absorbs 2 or 3 more tsps. of lather before each pass and actually gets better as it goes on.
EFFICACY See above. It's in it's performance where this soap really shines, and there is very little I can add to what has already been said. For those who weren't paying attention I'll say it again, this soap's lather is: dense, lubricious, protective, rich, thick and unctious. It rivals what you can get with most creams and is very stable to boot.
Despite the thickness of the lather the soap still cuts very closely and provides a comfortable, smooth shave, free of irritation and redness; it is also remarkably slick.
Both the quality of the shave and the skin care you get from this soap are head and shoulders above the competition.
MOISTURISING As previously mentioned, this soap is designed with the most sensitive of skins in mind and as such it doesn't contain any harsh drying ingredients. The lather you get from the soap is very rich and wet and often I don't feel the need for any aftershave product (although I've got so many I still use them as a matter of course.)
Whilst it provides a good level of moisturising, it never leaves my rather oily skin feeling too greasy either. The end result of a shave with Tade is comfortable, smooth and well hydrated skin, without any hint of irritation or tightness.
Laurel Oil is a mild exfoliant as well, and as such, regular use of the soap also serves to improve the overall condition of one's skin.


When I first bought this soap I was very surprised that it hadn't recieved any more discussion on the various shave fora; particulalry in light of the results that I was getting with it.
I have had a number of people contact me since to say that they found the lather to be very poor, whilst slick it had no volume and disappeared quickly. Upon further investigation it turned out that some were confusing the shaving soap with regular Tade Aleppo soap, but there were still a number of individuals who weren't happy with the shaving soap either. I'm afraid I can offer no explanation for this. Whilst YMMV, remains one of the cornerstones of wet-shaving philosophy, I don't understand how people could experience such divergent results from the same product.
For me at least, the Tade soap will always have a place in my rotation. In terms of lather and overall shave quality it is better than anything else I have tried. The scent was the only thing that I didn't like about this soap, but on reflection, seeing as it isn't supposed to have any potentially irritating ingredients in it, I think that is wrong to expect an unscented soap to blow you away with it's scent. Therefore, I can find nothing wrong with the soap, in my eyes it is one of the best products out there, period.
If I didn't know that others weren't as impressed as I, then I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone who'd listen, as it is I've found the perfect soap for me, and if anyone is willing to take a chance with it, I hope they feel the same.

The discussion thread for this review can be found here http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?p=905503#post905503