Nice post! Your experience is like mine and most others, but I have quibble with the downgraded comment. They have had to meet stricter and stricter regulations to continue to sell their product as certified something or the other. There is a post from last year that brought this up. I have always wondered if this was once more like a cream in the bowl, I guess it was.Hi everyone, this is my first post on this forum.
I've used this cream for the first time in early 2019, and have used it almost exclusively from that point till the end of 2020. About 4 jars in total, and all 4 bought in 2019.
Recently I ordered it again and I want to share my experience, after using it for 5 consecutive shaves, as sometime between 2019 and now the formula was changed. Here are some differences I noticed.
The label on the lid is the same, the one on the underside has changed a bit. The ingredient's list is mostly the same, the older jars have 'Sodium Borate' listed as the 14th ingredient, whereas on the newer this ingredient is missing. Similar to the older jars, neither an expiration date, production date or lot number are provided, which would have been nice.
The newer jars are filled to the top, even overfilled as all five that I got had dried up cream on the thread. Not all 5 were bought from the same store.
The old formula was very soft with a pearlescent sheen, an actual cream imo, similar in consistency to TOBS. This new one is quite similar to ice cream, almost no sheen and not as soft. It's less moist which makes it a bit difficult to do a face lather, and it's consistency is somewhere between a TOBS cream and a Proraso soap. The scent is slightly different, milder than before. It's also a little less yellow.
Lathering is also different. I'm using a bit more cream now to get a nice lather. Using the same amount as before with the old formula, I can only do 2 passes instead of 3. It used to make this kind of yellowish lather, but now with the new formula it's just regular white.
It's performance is still very good, extreme slickness and protection. However, after washing the lather away the skin feels tacky, almost as if I used an alum block. Whatever residue it leaves on the skin, it's also on the razor and sink. I had to scrub the sink after each shave. Even with the old formula, it still left residue on the razor and sink, but not this tacky feeling on the skin. It used to be similar to Proraso, TOBS or MdC in this respect, where scrubbing was needed on the 2nd or 3rd shave only.
Post shave was great with the old formula. My skin is a bit on the dry side, and I found the new formula a bit drying after using it daily. Not as drying as MdC though.
Given that the ingredients list is almost the same, and the ingredients themselves are listed in the same order on the label, I can only assume that the new formula has increased the weight percentages of the saponification ingredients/acids while lowering the rest, the skin nourishing ones.
Overall I think that the cream was downgraded, probably to keep the cost down. I would gladly pay a bit more for if they brought back the old formula.
I bought TOBS, MdC, Nuavia, SV and Musgo Real after finishing the cream back in 2020, and while all these are great products, I still prefer the (old) Baume cream.
I had intended to gift two of these creams, but ended up sending back three of them. As things are now, I would much recommend the TOBS Jermyn's Street as an alternative if you're looking for a similar cream.
Baume.be Pre-shave and Cream review
- Thread starter Phoenixkh
- Start date
Nice post! Your experience is like mine and most others, but I have quibble with the downgraded comment. They have had to meet stricter and stricter regulations to continue to sell their product as certified something or the other. There is a post from last year that brought this up. I have always wondered if this was once more like a cream in the bowl, I guess it was.
I was using less product for a good lather and it had better post shave. The lacking of these things and the tackiness I get are what made me come to the conclusion of downgrade.
The old formula was so soft that only dipping the tips of the brush in the cream would get a nice lather going, now we need to swirl the brush in there a bit. It was such a great experience, hence the multiple jars I ordered.
Do you have any information about the balm, did they have to change it aswell? I also got a bottle back in 2019, and just a few weeks ago it emptied. The balm's scent was extremly nice, much nicer and more complex than the cream's. This is also one of the balms that doesn't have that kind of overpowering generic cream scent blended in with it's fragrance. Kind of like Stirling balms and Nuavia balms have.
The old formula was so soft that only dipping the tips of the brush in the cream would get a nice lather going, now we need to swirl the brush in there a bit. It was such a great experience, hence the multiple jars I ordered.
Do you have any information about the balm, did they have to change it aswell? I also got a bottle back in 2019, and just a few weeks ago it emptied. The balm's scent was extremly nice, much nicer and more complex than the cream's. This is also one of the balms that doesn't have that kind of overpowering generic cream scent blended in with it's fragrance. Kind of like Stirling balms and Nuavia balms have.
You can't forget the Belgium monks. I always thought if I wanted to give up on the whole society thing. I would become a Belguim monk and brew beer.
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I see, I was just saying that the downgrade wasn't financially motivated likely. I was a bit shocked when I first got mine how firm it is, wasn't expecting that for a cream. Maybe the borax was on a list of known irritants, I can't remember what it does in soap making. The only thing I heard about the balm was that they couldn't get the scent to match the other products and pass certification so they came up with different scent. But I haven't heard that it has had any changes from when it was released.
- Thread starter
- #25
I am the OP but I had no experience with the Baume.be from a few years ago. I compared it to what I was using at the time. I was using Acca Kappa Barbershop soap for most of my previous shaves. The two are very close as far as the shave goes. I haven't noticed that tackiness mentioned but then, I never had the pleasure of using the product before it was "improved". Add to that, I use a couple post shave products that leave my face feeling very refreshed.
At the moment, I rotate Baume.be, Acca Kappa and Canada Shaving Soap. I get excellent shaves with all three but I am using one of three very fine pre-shaves, so that might be improving the performance. I have tried them without a pre-shave and have determined the three pre-shaves I'm using work for me: Baume.be, Grooming Department Pre-Shave and the Cube/Tube 2.0.... Cube in the shower and the Tube as a pre-shave.
I am glad to read about these kinds of changes. It would be very nice to have a unified soap thread where changes are documented. That would be very helpful for us newbies.
At the moment, I rotate Baume.be, Acca Kappa and Canada Shaving Soap. I get excellent shaves with all three but I am using one of three very fine pre-shaves, so that might be improving the performance. I have tried them without a pre-shave and have determined the three pre-shaves I'm using work for me: Baume.be, Grooming Department Pre-Shave and the Cube/Tube 2.0.... Cube in the shower and the Tube as a pre-shave.
I am glad to read about these kinds of changes. It would be very nice to have a unified soap thread where changes are documented. That would be very helpful for us newbies.
Hello again. I would like to withdraw what I said about the tackiness. I decided to shave with MdC this morning, since I haven't used it in months, and the same thing happened. The last time I used MdC this didn't happen so probably it's the tap water.
In the last year I've been using SV most mornings, Nuavia every now and then, and recently got a few Stirling samples. There's no tackiness left behind from these.
The cream also gives a better mileage if bowl lathered.
In the last year I've been using SV most mornings, Nuavia every now and then, and recently got a few Stirling samples. There's no tackiness left behind from these.
The cream also gives a better mileage if bowl lathered.
