British shaving cream overrated?

[DanNatural]

I have been wondering for a while but for all the talk about how the 3T's are the best shaving creams, why do they have so many chemicals? The chemicals in those shaving creams are exactly similar if not the same to the ones found in canned gel. If you compare Taylor to say Queen Charlotte, Queen Charlotte doesn't have all these ingredients you can't pronounce. Lets take Taylor's Avocado. The ingredients are:

Water, Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Acid, Glycerin, Triethanolamine, Sodium Hydroxide, Persea Gratissima, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, CI 19410, (Parfum contains: Benzyl Salicylate, Butylphenyl Methylpropi-onal, Citronellol, Geraniol)

Yet Queen Charlotte's Vetiver ingredients are: Saponified tallow, water, saponified castor oil, shea butter, glycerin, saponified stearic acid, cocoa butters, coconut oil, essential oil(s), saponified avocado oil, palm oil, olive oil, aloe vera extract, kaolin clay, lanolin, vitamin E.

How can one say that the ingredients in Taylor's are better than canned gel? Better than Queen Charlotte's? If Taylor is advertising Rose shaving cream, why isn't there rose essential oil listed in the ingredients? By saying this as mentioned it seems as if all of the 3T's shaving creams are synthetically scented.

 

[Danricgro]

They perform, that's all that matters to me.

 

[oscar11]

Generally, I don't think they are overrated though some are over priced. There are many good products out there use what you enjoy.

 

[malocchio]

Yes,I agree with Oscar11 ,good stuff,but overpriced.I have used many different brands of cream from Bulgaria that cost less than half of many UK creams,and are just as nice.

 

[Paludatus]

Triethanolamine is an irritant :O

 

[Mick]

Commercial products need to have ingredients with a LONG shelf life to go through the production, warehouse, and retail process and still be relatively usable once it gets to the customer.

An artisan soap like QCS, Mamma Bear, Mystic, Mikes (I know I have forgotten some) are direct from the maker to the customer so do not need any additives to help preserve it.

 

[Kentos]

I have been wondering for a while but for all the talk about how the 3T's are the best shaving creams, why do they have so many chemicals? The chemicals in those shaving creams are exactly similar if not the same to the ones found in canned gel. If you compare Taylor to say Queen Charlotte, Queen Charlotte doesn't have all these ingredients you can't pronounce. Lets take Taylor's Avocado. The ingredients are:

Water, Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Acid, Glycerin, Triethanolamine, Sodium Hydroxide, Persea Gratissima, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, CI 19410, (Parfum contains: Benzyl Salicylate, Butylphenyl Methylpropi-onal, Citronellol, Geraniol)

Yet Queen Charlotte's Vetiver ingredients are: Saponified tallow, water, saponified castor oil, shea butter, glycerin, saponified stearic acid, cocoa butters, coconut oil, essential oil(s), saponified avocado oil, palm oil, olive oil, aloe vera extract, kaolin clay, lanolin, vitamin E.

How can one say that the ingredients in Taylor's are better than canned gel? Better than Queen Charlotte's? If Taylor is advertising Rose shaving cream, why isn't there rose essential oil listed in the ingredients? By saying this as mentioned it seems as if all of the 3T's shaving creams are synthetically scented.

Who says they are "the best"? I much prefer hard soaps like MWF, Tabac, Cella, Arko, etc. I say these are the "best", but YMMV.

 

[wrinkles2]

I Still like my TOBS

 

[mdunn]

Water is a chemical, just as much as some of the 50 letter unpronounceable word ones!

Don't fall into the naturalistic fallacy that just because something is 'natural' (whatever that means) its better.

Have you tried any of the 3ts cream? Give t&h 1805 a whirl and you will see why we speak so highly of them. They're great creams.

 

[Bigsurprise]

Lets take Taylor's Avocado. The ingredients are:

Water, Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Acid, Glycerin, Triethanolamine, Sodium Hydroxide, Persea Gratissima, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, CI 19410, (Parfum contains: Benzyl Salicylate, Butylphenyl Methylpropi-onal, Citronellol, Geraniol)

Yet Queen Charlotte's Vetiver ingredients are: Saponified tallow, water, saponified castor oil, shea butter, glycerin, saponified stearic acid, cocoa butters, coconut oil, essential oil(s), saponified avocado oil, palm oil, olive oil, aloe vera extract, kaolin clay, lanolin, vitamin E.

I thought it was a bit unfair how you showed us the ingredients list of TOBS Avocado and QCS Vetiver and not the shaving gel that you are comparing them to.

Here is Edge Sensitive shaving gel: Water (Aqua) , Palmitic Acid , Triethanolamine , Stearic Acid , Isopentane , Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Monoglycerides , Sorbitol , Aloe Vera (Aloe Barbadensis) Leaf JuiceAloe Vera Gel , Fragrance , PVP , Isobutane , PEG 90M , FD&C Blue 1 (CI 42090)

I think the 3T's get a lot of love because they are easy to obtain and very easy to lather. I think you will find that there are many other vendors that offer quality shaving creams/soaps with ingredients list that are more palatable.

 

[Alacrity59]

No rose in the rose and no vetiver in the vetiver. Do both makers use synthetic scent?

 

[DanNatural]

To Alacrity 59,

Queen Charlotte uses essential oil. I don't see any of the 3T's using essential oil.

Hope this answers your question.

 

[DanNatural]

To BigSurprise,

What my point was is that the Edge shaving gel and Taylor of Old Bond Street are made of chemicals. It doesn't have to be the same chemicals but it seems as if there are no essential oils in Taylor of Old Bond street to back up the fragrance being advertised (i.e. Rose, Almond etc)

 

[DanNatural]

To mdunn,

I have tried T&H 1805 and it is pretty good but it is not worth $30. The 1805 is the only shaving cream from T&H that is worth using. The others are absolutely awful. They just smell bad. Probably the worst is West Indian Limes and when I first started smelling it, I had to throw it out.

 

[mdunn]

To BigSurprise,

What my point was is that the Edge shaving gel and Taylor of Old Bond Street are made of chemicals. It doesn't have to be the same chemicals but it seems as if there are no essential oils in Taylor of Old Bond street to back up the fragrance being advertised (i.e. Rose, Almond etc)

I dont understand.. whats not made of chemicals? im enjoying the c8h10n402 with h20 and RCO[SUB]2[/SUB]H right now. (also known as a cappuccino)

To mdunn,

I have tried T&H 1805 and it is pretty good but it is not worth $30. The 1805 is the only shaving cream from T&H that is worth using. The others are absolutely awful. They just smell bad. Probably the worst is West Indian Limes and when I first started smelling it, I had to throw it out.

so you dont like the scent of some of them - all good. not everybody likes all the scents.

you dont feel its good value, again - I dont blame you for that, there are cheaper options out there that perform really well.

what I dont understand is what this has to do with the 'chemicals'? am I missing something here?

 

[Cobre]

I have read more than once that all three British T's use the same base cream, made by Creighton or something like that. They add their own scents and all that, but performance should be similar with all 3 since they use the same base

 

[Chris H]

It's all a matter of preference. The 3 T's perform consistently well, and most of them smell great. I wouldn't consider $15 for a 5.3 ounce tub of TOBS overpriced, considering the many months of use I get from it. I also like most of the artisan soaps and creams, but many do have scents that smell very artificial to me, regardless of the ingredients list. As Turtle said, many of those ingredients are preservatives to stabilize the product for transport and give it a long shelf life. Also, many of those ingredients that you listed in QCS have scary sounding chemical compound names as well as the common names. It's just a matter of how they are listed.

 

[oldtrout]

I've been using Nancy Boy signature everyday for the last two weeks and will continue to use it everyday until it is gone. I've read that NB can go bad after nine months because it doesn't have any of those those nasty preservatives. I don't know if this is true, but the stuff is too darn good to waste. It is an excellent cream. Plus, I have been enjoying using just one product continuously for a change instead of switching every two or so days.

I do love the T&H 1805 though..maybe after the NB is used up I'll use 1805 everyday until that tub is empty.

 

[DanNatural]

to mdunnn,

I will explain what you are missing. The point is that the chemicals listed in the taylor of old bond street avocado that I mentioned sound like they are industrial. Yes lots of things are "chemicals" but I can't understand what all of these ingredients are. Methylchloroisothiazolinone and similar things sounds like they are industrial applications.

Again, if you say that something is a fragrance, back up the assertion by listing some sort of essential oil documenting such.

 

[mblakele]

With respect, "natural shaving" is an oxymoron. Neither blades nor soap can be found in nature. Beards are found in nature. If you want to be natural, grow a beard.

Moving right along, those unpronounceable ingredient lists are not nearly so scary as you might think. What does "saponified tallow" see when it looks in the mirror? Sodium tallowate, potassium tallowate, stearic acid, myristic acid, glycerin, potassium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide, etc. This is simply the difference between everyday language and INCI. But if you want to sell a product internationally, you have to follow the rules and use the words that INCI specifies. That is why you see "Water (Aqua)" instead of just "water", or Tocopherol instead of Vitamin E. As long as I see some hydroxides in a soap or cream, I am happy: that means it was made using some sort of saponification process.

Scents and ingredient lists are tricky too. The regulatory agencies in the developed world require cosmetics to call out any scent components that are classified as potential irritants, but anything else can go incognito as "parfum". So you may not see "rose" EO or FO in the list of ingredients for a rose-scented product, even when they are present.