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Declining sales at the, "Three T's?"

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I think the Three T's have been experiencing market fragmentation. There are just so many other choices out there, artisan and otherwise.

Personally, I already have enough soap to last several years. I've reached the point where I'd like to have maybe a half-dozen or so soaps -- no giant "rotation", just a little variety.
 
I have never used any of the "Three Ts". I have used Cella and wasn't impressed. I used Proraso cream (in the tube) when I first started wet shaving but eventually switched to soaps and never looked back. The artisan soaps seem to offer better value, equal (or better) performance, and usually don't have a lot of chemicals in them.
 
I would be lying if I said I didn't love T&H 1805, GFT Spanish Leather and TOBS Avocado, but I use artisans much more as their formulas are much more on the cutting edge.

Zingari Man, Ariana & Evans, Declaration Grooming and Barrister and Mann are my favorites.
 

Ron R

I survived a lathey foreman
I use both old brand names and newer artisan brands. The newer brand names are scent driven and it is a good strategy to muscle in on a very competitive market. Strange to say this but the times have changed in the last 6 months and monies are not as free flowing because of covid 19 problems & economy. I think & pray we had better get a vaccine ASP.
 
I have been using artisan products exclusively for years. Captain’s Choice, Chiseled Face and Wet Shaving Products for after shaves. M&M, Declaration Grooming, and CRSW for soap and splash. It’s what I have found to work best for me.
 

nemo

Lunatic Fringe
Staff member
I continue along with English, German, French, and the occasional Spanish and Austrian soap. Classics!

One bad puck from Trumper's so I haven't gotten any more from them but I will still buy from the Two T's :cuppa:

Non-artisan 100%.
 

garyg

B&B membership has its percs
I use both, to an excess since joining here a decade back .. which makes we wonder if Forumites account for the bulk of traditional wetshaving product sales. We tend to be always chasing the latest & greatest, somewhat childishly I'll admit, I wonder if that explains some of the shifting preferences. Non-forum readers won't know that Tabac is no longer the Bee's Knees, when that happens in Forumland, and just keep buying what has always worked for them.

Upon reflection, I think I've abandoned far more artisan product than traditional.
 
I have seen artisans soaps soar in popularity on the forums the last few years. They are always raising the bar with new scents, bases and limited releases. Some artisans make terrific soaps. I do not chase LEs as there is always another one.

Recently (last 6 months) I have seens a rising number of threads where members are going back to the classics. Mostly the ones that perform well like MWF, Cella, etc. The 3 Ts rarely get any love as they simply do not perform.

I have found myself wandering back to the classics, particularly triple milled soaps.
 
I generally use heritage brands of soaps. My two favorites are Cella’s and MWF. The only non heritage soap I use is soap that I make for my own personal use
 
My top preference is for triple milled soaps.

I have around 30 in my rotation but that's pretty much everything on the market so the remainder of my 80 soap rotation is made up of artisan soaps.

Regarding 3T's...and English soaps:

GFT soap is rubbish now and they deserve losing all their customers! Their pre-2013 veggie soap was a beast! But post reformulation soap just plain sucks!

T&H is just OK, at least it lathers up unlike GFT but it's just average.

TOBS soaps are great! Nice creamy lather with nice scents. Unfortunately I reacted to all the scent variants.

DR Harris is just wonderful! I need to add lavender and almond to have the full set. I actually have a second Windsor puck in my travel kit.

MWF is still my #1 soap after 12 years of wet shaving! I don't think I need to say much more about it.

Bath House is way underrated! It's an excellent soap that gives a rich lather and both the scent variants are so amazingly well executed!!

Arran soaps are a notch below Bath House. I prefer them with a synthetic brush to bring out their best. Both scents are refined and elegant.

Cyril R Salter I will be trying later this year. I've heard good things about the soap.
 

Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
The problem with the 3T hard soaps is that they’re just not very good, scents notwithstanding. Artisans haven’t reduced their traffic, artisans generally don’t make hard soaps and artisans can’t compete with the 3Ts on scent. Floris is a prime example, scents to die for, no lather. This sad state os affairs has existed since the last reformulation most of them went through, and it really tells me that they aren’t using their own products. There’s just no good reason to buy a 3T or Floris hard soap other than the scent, and the creams are always a better choice. Most of the 3Ts offer most scents in a cream which is a much better product. If you like a 3T or Floris scent, you’d have to be bonkers to buy the hard soap over the cream.

If they want to compete with hard soaps, and I’m not sure that they do, they’re going to have to make a Valobra-class hard soap. The new Cyril Salter hard soap is a definite improvement and is a very usable product, but only available in lavender I believe.
 
My first "real" cream was TOBS Sandalwood, and I've bought it a couple of times since then. And I love my Trumper's Almond Cream. I've moved on to try PAA's Atmotic, TFS Sera, Erasmic, and Tabac. The artisan I've bought more than once from is Stirling -- they have a smart little trick of including a free sample of something totally different from what you've bought. I order Sharp Dressed Man aftershave for example, and the package includes a sample bar of their shower soap Naked and Smooth. Good marketing.

Once I've finished the Atmotic, Sera, and Erasmic, I may well settle down to a TOBS or Trumper's cream and Tabac as my soap, and leave it at that for a while -- with an occasional impulse buy of a soap from Stirling. So no, I'm not "off" the Three Ts, and I'm not "on" artisan soaps either.
 
My top preference is for triple milled soaps.

I have around 30 in my rotation but that's pretty much everything on the market so the remainder of my 80 soap rotation is made up of artisan soaps.

Regarding 3T's...and English soaps:

GFT soap is rubbish now and they deserve losing all their customers! Their pre-2013 veggie soap was a beast! But post reformulation soap just plain sucks!

T&H is just OK, at least it lathers up unlike GFT but it's just average.

TOBS soaps are great! Nice creamy lather with nice scents. Unfortunately I reacted to all the scent variants.

DR Harris is just wonderful! I need to add lavender and almond to have the full set. I actually have a second Windsor puck in my travel kit.

MWF is still my #1 soap after 12 years of wet shaving! I don't think I need to say much more about it.

Bath House is way underrated! It's an excellent soap that gives a rich lather and both the scent variants are so amazingly well executed!!

Arran soaps are a notch below Bath House. I prefer them with a synthetic brush to bring out their best. Both scents are refined and elegant.

Cyril R Salter I will be trying later this year. I've heard good things about the soap.

I was looking for reviews on Bath House earlier today after spotting it on the English Shaving Company website, reviews seem to be very positive but it isn't often talked about compared to the 3Ts, MWF, DR Harris, Floris etc. It seems to be the same with Cyril R Salter, good reviews but not often mentioned.

Planning on order Bath House in the near future, which of the two scents would you recommend?
 
15 years ago there was One? Artisan making passable shave soap (not counting the glycerin soap brands). 10 years ago maybe 3-4?

I could not even guess at how many people have started doing it now. I saw a review thread for Artisan brands with 30+ listed... and I think One guy had compiled that list with just the ones he'd tried.

Those three T's weren't even considered top tier by most people when they only had the fourth T to compete with (Tabac)... with a thousand new makers... many of whom are MDC or other high performance soft-soap knock-offs... AND they are far more talked about (people love hyping up a new "artisan" they discover) AND people feel good for supporting a little guy AND most of these shops we interact with are probably getting most of their business from these forums where these Artisans friends and fans are promoting them... not surprised at all the sales of traditional soaps brands (especially higher priced and non-exceptionally performing ones) have dipped.

OTOH:

I doubt Speick sticks sales have dipped... probably gone up in fact. It's a great performing soap that was less known to most people ten years ago, and is regularly talked about because it's performance is great. MdC Probably hasn't dipped much. As people pay premiums for artisan soaps that don't last long, the cost/use of MdC becomes reasonable, and it has the lustre of straddling the gap of "traditional" and "Artisan" I doubt soaps like Arko and Cella have suffered much. They have loyal customer bases who just plain like them and consider them "their" soap.

When I was starting out I could start a thread "what soap should I try", and get less than a dozen brands recommended... and probably almost half of those have been reformulated into worse soaps since... removing them from that list.

Do that now and you'll probably get near triple-digits of brands and artisans named.

Now is it good?

I don't know. Personally I'd trade every Artisan available today to get pre2003 Williams back. Probably a number of guys would do the same for Pre2010 AoS or any other number of quality soaps that were ruined by reformulations. The big makers gutting the quality of their recipes to improve margin (one assumes) when they had little competition is probably what opened the door for these artisans to come in. There was a good minute there where I could not find a soap that performed as good, much less better than Tabac (I had not yet discovered speick stick or vintage soaps). I started making soap because I wanted something better than what was available (and wasn't willing to pay for MdC). Now Tabac sets the floor for soaps I'm willing to use. It's a great soap, but there's enough great soap now, I don't know that I'd ever buy it again. I have got 3 pucks and several Moo's sticks stocked up, but still. I'd certainly never buy any of the 3 T's.

There's definitely more variety of good soaps out there... but would I trade all the good soaps for one truly great soap (such as Vintage Williams)? In a New York Minute.
 
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I was looking for reviews on Bath House earlier today after spotting it on the English Shaving Company website, reviews seem to be very positive but it isn't often talked about compared to the 3Ts, MWF, DR Harris, Floris etc. It seems to be the same with Cyril R Salter, good reviews but not often mentioned.

Planning on order Bath House in the near future, which of the two scents would you recommend?

Did you come across my review? If not, here's the link:

A Never Talked About Soap: Bath House Cuban Cedar & Lime - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/a-never-talked-about-soap-bath-house-cuban-cedar-lime.530546/

Honestly, both the scents are awesome! I'm sure you can get either cos you'll end up getting the other anyway!

The Cuban lime/cedar is zingy citrus and grapefruit/musky/slightly woodsy.

Spanish fig/Nutmeg has a hint of sweetness/powdery/slight spiciness.

The scents are very well blended.
 
I’ve never used the 3T soaps—but did use a TOBS sandalwood cream. I don’t like the scent (too floral) nor the performance. After going through a phase of trying so many artisans, I gravitated back to Proraso, PdP, and Cade. I have some Tabac—I won’t have to decide on if I want to replace it for a long time. The only artisans I have in my den right now are Stirling and Captains Choice (and if you’re reading this, please don’t ever get rid of Nor’easter scent—it’s a keeper).
 
Did you come across my review? If not, here's the link:

A Never Talked About Soap: Bath House Cuban Cedar & Lime - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/a-never-talked-about-soap-bath-house-cuban-cedar-lime.530546/

Honestly, both the scents are awesome! I'm sure you can get either cos you'll end up getting the other anyway!

The Cuban lime/cedar is zingy citrus and grapefruit/musky/slightly woodsy.

Spanish fig/Nutmeg has a hint of sweetness/powdery/slight spiciness.

The scents are very well blended.

Yes! I came across your review (didn't put two and two together until just now), I'll make sure I revive it once I get around to buying and using the cuban lime and cedar! I suppose I will have to just buy the Spanish fig/nutmeg as well then...:D
 
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