These are my luxury soaps:
SV - $135 a year.
MdC - $45 a year.
WK - $75 a year.
MdC is probably already cheap enough.
Best "luxury" tier soap bases that are good value for money?
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SV - $135 a year.
MdC - $45 a year.
WK - $75 a year.
MdC is probably already cheap enough.
I voted "Other"- Canada Shave Soap, ~$45 US shipped, and MdC, like many others have posted, are probably the two luxury soaps I have that provide the greatest relative value.
It's been a while since I checked but importing MdC to the United States costs another $45 so at the time, it cost $90 for a jar.
I see they can be bought from US retaers now but they are priced at $75.
Steve56
Ask me about shaving naked!
Yes you can get it in the US at not too bad of a premium. Catch a sale at Maggards or Pasteurs in the US and it isn’t too much more than ordering direct.
Isabelle and Hélène designed their business to be internet friendly, and it is. They ship Colissimo which is the French equivalent of USPS Priority mail. International shipping is expensive. For everything, including soap.
They do not have ‘middlemen’ anywhere that I know of, and that seems to be a very savvy business model. Anyone selling MdC who is not MdC is selling at full retail plus their own markup and shipping. That’s just the way it is.
Isabelle and Hélène designed their business to be internet friendly, and it is. They ship Colissimo which is the French equivalent of USPS Priority mail. International shipping is expensive. For everything, including soap.
They do not have ‘middlemen’ anywhere that I know of, and that seems to be a very savvy business model. Anyone selling MdC who is not MdC is selling at full retail plus their own markup and shipping. That’s just the way it is.
I'm not sure what makes a soap 'luxury', but after reading many praises here, I finally bought a tub of Stirling. It is fantastic, it and MWF are easily my favorites. There is definitely life after Tabac.
There is. And there will be, but this is like watching statues come down for no good reason... Or forcing electric vehicles on everyone when oil already comes from a renewable source. Why do we have to change a near perfect formula that's been around for decades just to please one new exec? Tabac users FAR outnumber the execs.
if we going cheap ….cella 1 kg brick …….if we are going for more pricey Stirling(but it’s still cheap for what you get and the quality of lather…) and Noble otter …I know Stirling wasn’t on there but I do really think that it’s a top tier soap as is Noble otter …. One day I’ll try SV I’ve heard it’s pretty good stuff
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Stirling was my first soap and I've had a great experience with it. I have to admit though that after trying the three new soap bases I just bought (Lothur V2, Barrister & Mann Omnibus, Ariana & Evans K2e), Stirling is a tier below. All three of those bases are superior in slickness/residual slickness, lather density when well hydrated, water tolerance, and above all else post-shave face feel. Unlike Stirling all three of those bases felt like they had long lasting (12+ hr) moisturizing qualities and did not require any the use of post-shave balms. Stirling is solid in all categories except post-shave feel but is only truly exceptional at value in my opinion. Again, I'm not bashing Stirling at all. It definitely punches above its price point. It's just kind of like the difference between a Lexus and an Audi. The smart money goes with the Lexus while the frivolous goes with the Audi.
Steve56
Ask me about shaving naked!
Because the factory that made it shut down?
Maurer and Wirtz do not make soap, and they do not make Tabac. They have Tabac made for them by someone else.
If true, it raises the question: Who's making Tabac?
Steve56
Ask me about shaving naked!
I don’t think that it matters except when the factory closes. Probably no one even knows who actually made Tabac unless they research it.
Soap making, on a global scale, seems very much like steel making. Both require large factories with many skilled workers, strict QA/QC on incoming and outgoing materials to maintain the consistency and quality of 100s of thousands of finished products, year over year. Similarly, Dovo, Boker, Wacker, Gillette, do not make steel.
And as we have seen very evidently, Czech and Speake also do not make soap, it’s made for them, by a soap factory that we also do not know the name of.
M&W need a full service soap factory to make their yearly volume of Tabac, and probably don’t have complete control over the ingredients or process unless they want to pay for hardware costs and re-training a large workforce to make a former manufacturer‘s recipe that may be rights protected. I suspect that’s not much of an issue in the cosmetics industry though.
My guess is that a modern, global soap factory makes bath soap, shaving soap, shampoo and other products in large runs with minor tweaks for multiple clients. They would run full time making some kind of soap for someone. M&W would get a letter in March, saying ‘We’re making shaving soap in August, put in your orders by May 31st’.
It’s an interesting topic. Making soap is simple. Supplying a year’s worth of Tabac to M&W and soap to several other clients requirements maybe much less simple.
OldSaw
The wife's investment
I’m not sure I understand the question. Please help an old guy out. What do you mean when you say, “soap base”? Is this for making soap? Valobra makes soap bases for a lot of different soaps, AFAIK.
I’m not even sure what most of these are.
Sometimes I just feel like an old pioneer with no more “west” left to go.
I have some of this, which I like, but I don’t use it as a base for anything else.
I’m not even sure what most of these are.
Sometimes I just feel like an old pioneer with no more “west” left to go.
I have some of this, which I like, but I don’t use it as a base for anything else.
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- #74
The best description I can come up with is the raw soap not including any ingredients added solely for scent.
Had to go with other on this one for MdC. The amount used per shave to get a great lather is minimal compared to other soaps I’ve used. In my mind that makes it a great deal for the price
Interesting list. I haven’t tried a single one of the mentioned soaps! Didn’t even know most existed.
You and me both!
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- #78
Just a reminder, everything in the list is a soap base. There are hundreds of soaps that use the bases in my list.
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