For the D.R. Harris soap historians . Have they reformulated?

[JCinPA]

I'm sorry if that sounds like a dumb question, but I'm not to knowledgeable about English soaps. And I have read some grousing about the reformulation of some of the other English soaps--many think they used to be good but they mucked it up somehow. But the Harris fans are still rabid fans.

I bought a D.R. Harris Almond made in 1990 from someone on the B/S/T but now, of course, I cannot find the box for it which had the ingredients. Here are the ingredients on the new puck which just arrived.

Potassium palmate, Sodium tallowate, Sodium palmate, Sodium palm kermelate, Aqua, Potassium palm kernelate, Glycerin, Parfum, Sodium chloride, Petrolatum, Palm kernel acid, Orthotolyl biguanide, Alpha-isomethyl ionone, Tetrasodium etidronate, Pentasodium pentetate, Tetrasodium EDTA, CI 77891


Of course I would have been the ideal guy to provide the ingredients from 1990, too, but I'm a knucklehead. Anyway, I will find out of the soap shaves the same tomorrow. I am anxious to see how the Marlborough smells when lathered up, too.

 

[GreekGuy]

DRH has been reformulated since 1990. I can't recall if it was the late 90's or early 2000's, but it was reformulated before the other british makers IIRC. The difference is that it can still lather, unlike the others

 

[JCinPA]

Thanks, Nick!

Well, I'll see tomorrow. I love the 1990 Almond! Tomorrow will tell the tale.

 

[john parker]

Thanks, Nick!

Well, I'll see tomorrow. I love the 1990 Almond! Tomorrow will tell the tale.

Will look forward to hearing all about it!

 

[Phog Allen]

John, I managed to finish a cake of the Marlborough a couple of years ago. The scent becomes less complex as you use it up. I would hazard a guess that at around one quarter of the way through it the only scent note still standing was cedar. This happens with most products scented with cedar. It is simply a dominating scent component.

Now lather properties were another matter. Universally excellent until about ten percent of the cake was left. Then I noted a distinct drop in density and to a lesser extent stability. Harris is a very good soap. Easily the best of the current Brits. I am quite interested in your comparison lathers. The sad fact is for an Anglophile like me the rest of the English sops are mere pretenders anymore. I would really love to have a go at a vintage tallow Brit soap. Just to see if they were as grand as they are made out to be.

Cheers, Todd

 

[JCinPA]

Phog, Well, your comment about them being pretenders may be correct.

My shave with the new Marlborough was not bad at all this morning, I would call it a quality soap, for sure. But I do not think it is nearly as slick as my 1990 version of their Almond. Unfortunately I've shaved with Cella a couple days since my last vintage Harris. I will use the vintage tomorrow morning so I get a back to back.

I don't want to prejudice this, but while it is a good soap, I would not buy it again at $20 per puck. It's good, but not that good. The vintage is sublime!

 

[eth]

The current formulation of D.R. Harris soaps is from around 2005-2006, I've read numerous places and have seen no contradictory information. So I'm fairly confident that is right. I don't know when the formulation before the current one was introduced, I seem to recall reading that there was another reformulation either in the late 90s or early 2000. I'm not sure on that one, take it with as much salt as you please.

 

[Phog Allen]

John, I used the Arlington soap this morning and loaded it like I owned it...which I do. Ahem. Anyroad, it produced a very good lather and shave but like you I find it is not spectacular. Mystic, the Franks, and Tabac all edge it out. I am not trying to damn with faint praise but call it as I experienced it. It is a sad commentary that the old English perfume and apothecary houses that were once the Rolls Royce of shave goods have simply capitulated their position as such. Harris is holding the line but if they go the way of Trumper or Truefitt hard soaps then other than fragrances I will be buying very little of their products.

Cheers, Todd

 

[JCinPA]

Phog, I think you are spot-on. I am using the 1990 Harris Almond tomorrow. I know that impressed the heck out of me. A lot, I love it.

I also know you are right, current soaps like QCS, MW, and economical soaps like Cella and the new Proraso tub soaps just crush what I used this morning. I love the wood bowl, though! But I won't refill it with current Harris.

Man, that vintage Harris is truly superb stuff, though, I'm not kidding. The new stuff would be great. If it was $10 or less for a refill.

 

[Craig_From_Cincy]

I've been using Harris soaps since about 2004, when I was first learned about the brand on the old Wet Shavers Forum. The soap still lathers just as it has since I've been buying it, which is to say excellent. The only difference that I've noticed are that the scents are more muted then they used to be. Other Harris users on a different shaving forum that I belong to have noticed this same phenomenon over the past couple of years.

 

[Phog Allen]

You bet Craig. Harris is still very good stuff but I use better soaps weekly. I really loved the Marlborough soap when I first used it but wound up thinking I wanted to get it finished because I had tired of the scent. It dawned on me that after about quarter to one third of the cake was used that the only scent remaining was cedar. I like it but anymore in small doses. Cedar usually dominates any scent combine and this is no exception. Again, I do not want to mislead anyone. D.R. Harris is a VERY good soap. Easily the best of the Anglos.

Cheers, Todd

 

[eth]

Man, that vintage Harris is truly superb stuff, though, I'm not kidding. The new stuff would be great. If it was $10 or less for a refill.

TESC has free worldwide shipping promotions a few times a year. While these are on you get DRH refill pucks for UK retail price excluding VAT, which is 7.46 GBP. Exchanges to 11.38 USD as of right now. You probably have other favourites available for acceptable prices all year, but if you'd like some for the scents you can stock up at TESC every now and then.

 

[Tim_McD]

I have only used the current formulation of DR Harris, which is a good thing - since I have no desire to become hooked on unicorn soaps. That being said, I find that DRH is an outstanding soap; in line with Czech & Speake, Cella, La Toja and just slightly behind MdC.

The other English soaps I have all are usable, but definately not worth the effort to use. I still have Geo F Trumpers and Truefitt & Hill pucks, but they are in the back of a closet and probably will remain there. Damn shame, because the GFT Rose and T&H 1805 scents are fantastic.

If DRH was to undergo another reformulation (and here is knocking wood that it never happens); I would do a small stockpile, wait on the reviews and continue usings/move on based on the outcome. After all, it is just soap

 

[JCinPA]

Hmmmm. Well, I was back to the circa 1990 Almond today. Frankly, I'm now inclined to agree with Craig_From_Cincy's assessment, not much difference at all. I will alternate between the older Almond and the new Marlborough for a while and confirm that, but I could not detect much difference. The reformulation certainly was not an improvement, but they may not have hurt it at all, either. Contrast that with the recent Proraso Green reformulation, which is almost universally heralded as an improvement. And instantly detectable.

I like this, it is definitely a quality soap. Like Phog Allen, however, I think it is perhaps the equal, certainly no better, performance-wise, than others in my rotation like Cella or Tabac. I don't really collect soaps any more, and I keep things to a reasonable 6-8 products and my first impression is that this may not make it into the permanent lineup.

wrong math


Very good stuff, highly recommended, Try it because of the YMMV thing. I think I'll use it and not replace it, but we shall see. Not because I don't like it, but because it is not so much more superlative than what is in my currently lineup, that's all.

 

[inspiringK]

A 125 gram Tabac refill is $25 on Amazon (Prime, free shipping) and a 100 gram Harris refill is $20 (same), which works out to about a third less per unit weight for the D.R. Harris.

My math is broken?

I think most soaps are surprisingly similar in price if the price is worked out to a per shave cost. Italian soft soaps tend to be cheaper per gram but they are easier to go through quickly, hard soaps are more expensive at first but last a long time. Obviously there are exceptions like dearer Czech and Speake compared to the cheaper Arko, but for the most part soap prices seem to be largely on par with each other.

 

[LU02]

I've been using the Harris Almond for the last 10 years or so, here's the ingredients list from one bought around 2002:

Soap Base, Fragrance, Glycerin, Petrolatum, Cetostearyl Alcohol, Sodium Lauryl Sulphate, Colourant

Another ingredients list from around 2004:

Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Cocoate, Aqua, Sodium Tallowate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Glycerin, Parfum, Prunus dulcis, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Silicate, Titanium Dioxide, Lanolin, Tetrasodium EDTA, Magnesium Sulfate, Sodium Ceatearyl Sulfate, Hordeum distichon, Disodium Phosphate, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Petrolatum

And from my current puck of Almond bought about a year ago:

Potassium Palmate, Sodium Tallowate, Sodium Palmate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Aqua, Potassium Palm Kernelate, Glycerin, Parfum, Prunus Dulcis, Sodium Chloride, Petrolatum, Palm Kernel Acid, Limonene, Amyl Cinnamal, Orthotolyl Biguanide, Geraniol, Linalool, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium EDTA, CI 77891


As you can see from this, there have been quite a few reformulations of Harris Almond over the past 10-12 years, haven't noticed any change in performance or lack of scent over the years. There was another reformulation between the second and third one mentioned above, but don't have that one written down anywhere!

 

[JCinPA]

I'm a knucklehead, the math was reversed, they are the same price.

$20 for 100 g of Harris
$25 for 125 g of Tabac

20 cents per gram for both. Ooops.

Thanks for the ingredients! Not that I know what it all means.

 

[Phog Allen]

I think the ingredients may not be as telling as we may believe. Note the 'soap base' in the first list. Many times this was entirely sufficient for soaps. They were and in many cases still are not subject to the same labeling requirements as other cosmetics. Because they were essentially treated as non-cosmetics. They are soap. This line is being blurred now. I think many of the alleged best quality shave soaps have had vegetable ingredients for a long time. And with modern manufacturing and chemistry being what it is, tallow and vegetable may mean very little in the long run. These companies can now strip exactly the particular fatty acid components they want from each type of fat. I think when you see the old Trumper and Harris soaps listed with soap base(Trumper was listed as soap base and shave soap base) fragrance and colourants you were seeing simply what they were required to disclose. Sorry to get a bit off the track but as mentioned, Harris has eveidently(remember, it may not be what I/we think it is) been tinkered with a few times and the soap is still universally good. So why can't Trumper and Truefitt do the same? They can. They simply choose not to in my opinion. D.R. Harris is still old school class in their presentation and I have no issue with them. Trumper now...

Cheers Todd

PS. Sorry to John for derailing this a bit.

 

[mblakele]

Good point about soap base. I seem to remember an old Williams that package listed just one ingredient: "soap".

The other moving target is fragrance. Over time the list of "potential irritants" gets longer and longer, and each one has to be called out separately. The older one may have had Geraniol and Linalool too, but they were simply part of the Parfum component.

That aside, it looks like they dropped Stearate in favor of Palmate. On the other hand Tallowate crept up a few places on the list. Maybe that was an improvement overall - at least for some folks.

 

[JCinPA]

Well, back to the new D.R. Harris Marlborough this morning, with a boar brush. Outstanding!

I learned two things.

1. I should not post impressions after one use of a product, I usually change my mind by the 3rd or 4th time out with it.

2. There isn't a bit of difference I can detect in feel, latherability, or performance between the 1990 version and the current. This goes against what I expected, but corroborates what some of you decades-long users have indicated, so I suspect we are right. While they didn't muck up the reformulations, neither did they screw it up. New as good as the old here.

Sometimes I think our impressions are highly affected by what we've read or what our initial expectations are. It is hard to back off of those impressions without a few uses, which is not unique to this activity. It is human nature.

Anyway, now that I corrected my math and realize replacements, per unit weight, are identical between Tabac and D.R. Harris, I might buy it again. It is not inexpensive, but it is not super-premium priced, either. My sense is this is in the same ballpark as Tabac quality for me, but unfortunately my Tabac is in my Philly shave den and I am in Chicago. But they are certainly close in quality/performance. I would suspect I'd be indifferent or perhaps give a very slight edge to Tabac. Not different enough to matter.

The Marlborough scent is very nice, but I somewhat prefer the Almond so far. I may have to try other scents but it will be a loooooong time. I'm determined not to let my lather collection get as crazy as it once was.