For you PannaCrema Nuàvia fans looking for refills ...

[AlphaFrank75]

it looks like it will never happen. I have been following the NUÀVIA NERA thread and several people commented that they wished PannaCrema would offer refills for their Nuàvia line to reduce the cost. After all the crocks are pretty nice and must contribute to a big portion of the cost along with the added weight which adds to the shipping cost. So I figured why not get in touch with the PannaCrema folks and ask why they don't have refills. Here's their response:

Hello and thank you for your request.

What I think is that people want refills to save money, thinking that the cost is due to the ceramic crock, which is not. Actually the refill would cost almost as much as the normal product, maybe 3 euros less, not much of a deal. Also many people don't use up all the soap, because they have plenty of other soaps around to try and enjoy, so once more the refill makes little sense. Think about it, do people ask to perfume makers to provide them just the liquid refill because they already have the glass bottle? A container of some sort is needed anyway, worth it to be nice as Nuàvia's.

All the best,

Marina Lei - Assistenza Clienti

So my take away from this is that the packaging is part of the whole Nuàvia experience.

 

[-EdG]

I think that's a perfectly fair and reasonable response. It is a luxury product after all. I agree with your take away and personally quite enjoy the crocks as part of the experience both in use and display in my den.

 

[dfoulk]

Yeah I tried my best to get them to offer refills when I was doing the Nuavia passaround and speaking with them on a regular basis.

A lot of the soaps cost comes from the ingredients which are all higher end include some very expensive fragrances. So the cost of the crocks themselves aren't that much of a factor. They do however contribute to the luxury experience.

I had thought that by skipping the crocks that some shipping costs could be avoided as well as the cost of the crocks themselves, however once the math was done it wasn't as big of a change as we had hoped it would be.

The soap to me feels very high end with of without the crocks. There is quite a bit of soap in the crocks as well. The scents are in my opinion the very best shaving soap scents ever made. Like a very high end cologne. Performance is also outstanding to me, so in my opinion they're worth the cost.

 

[dangerousdon]

This is really what I thought. I will agree with @dfoulk, these are the very best scents out there in my opinion.

 

[Rhody]

I guess the answer is no if you dont ask. so no harm in asking. and I dont fault the response. $60 + is over my subjective and probably irrational spending amount for a soap. I recently ordered the pure line / version so anticipating that one coming in.

 

[DEdestroyer77]

Common sense dictates the email is a load of bs and kind of ticks me off. 3 euro cheaper? Yeah ok....yet for black friday they had 25% off Nuavia - theres movement room on price if they offered refills. And there are perfumers, very high end ones I will add, that have refills, see Kilian....

I'll keep using the Pure 2 O which I like better anyway with my after shave of choice. My new mantra is soap scent doesnt linger!

BTW, WSP Black Amber Vanille is the poor mans Nuavia Blu

 

[Rhody]

I'll keep using the Pure 2 O which I like better anyway with my after shave of choice. My new mantra is soap scent doesnt linger!

BTW, WSP Black Amber Vanille is the poor mans Nuavia Blu[/QUOTE]

love the mantra .... so true ... it washes away.

and ive got the wsp bav ha ha

 

[DEdestroyer77]

I'll keep using the Pure 2 O which I like better anyway with my after shave of choice. My new mantra is soap scent doesnt linger!

BTW, WSP Black Amber Vanille is the poor mans Nuavia Blu

love the mantra .... so true ... it washes away.

and ive got the wsp bav ha ha[/QUOTE]
Nuavia Blu is vanilla dominant as is BAV. Granted Blu is more complex but BAV is pretty darn close.

 

[Rhody]

love the mantra .... so true ... it washes away.

and ive got the wsp bav ha ha

Nuavia Blu is vanilla dominant as is BAV. Granted Blu is more complex but BAV is pretty darn close.[/QUOTE]
Stirling barbershop hits me as major vanilla. have you tried that?

 

[DEdestroyer77]

Nuavia Blu is vanilla dominant as is BAV. Granted Blu is more complex but BAV is pretty darn close.

Stirling barbershop hits me as major vanilla. have you tried that?[/QUOTE]

Yes, I stick to 1 soap of a scent theme to avoid redundancy and Man from Mayfair beat out all other barbershops on performance alone, and I really like the scent

 

[OtterLunacy]

Yeah, I don't buy the 3 euro claim either. Maybe for a plastic tub but not ceramic like that. As they point out, it's a pretty nice container. No way the consumer charge is less than $5, and I'm betting it's $10-15. And, as was pointed out, not using the crock would save a little in shipping. Not much, but some.

Actually, I don't really care for anything they responded with. Comparing a liquid refill to a solid refill doesn't make sense. One of these is a whole lot easier to transport. And their assumptions about what their customers want is irritating too. Personally, I don't really care for the aesthetic of the crocks and, more importantly, I try to limit the number of easily breakable objects in my bathroom.

At this point, even if I could justify the expense of the Nuavia line I think I'd still avoid it. I'll probably give Pure20 a try at some point, but I'm not in any hurry.

 

[Rhody]

Stirling barbershop hits me as major vanilla. have you tried that?

Yes, I stick to 1 soap of a scent theme to avoid redundancy and Man from Mayfair beat out all other barbershops on performance alone, and I really like the scent[/QUOTE]
have that also
I seek out redundancy.

 

[shavefan]

In all honesty, as 'nice' as the Nuavia crocks are, to me they are a bit of a letdown. They are just plain generic ceramic pots with no logo or lettering at all. I found them a bit bland compared to the lovely soap they hold. Something a bit more involved like the Boellis crock, heck even the far lower cost MWF crock is more engaging.

Speaking of Beoellis, they offer refills for the 1924 coffrett for less than 1/2 the original price. Just sayin'...

 

[PhilC]

The ingredients are vegetal stearic acid, coconut oil, shea butter, calendula extract, and glycerine

There's nothing in that list hard to find or expensive. I have enough of those ingredients in my closet to make 5 pounds of soap and I didn't spend more than $50 for the lot of it from various soap making sites. If there's anything in this soap that will justify the price, it would have to be the fragrance and/or the cool crock. I love pannacrema and they make awesome soap, but if we break this down to just what goes into the product, the cost would have to be the fragrance and or the crock. Everything else is commonplace soap making stuff available quite readily and cheaply. Now am I saying I can take the same ingredients and make a soap of the same quality, no. There's value in the R&D of the recipe as well. But simply talking raw material, if it's not the ingredients, and PC says it's not the crock, then we're down to the scent.

 

[dfoulk]

You guys should send Martin de Candre an email asking them to sell you their soap in a refill form without the jar. I suspect that you know what they'lll tell you.

What it comes down to is the vendor call sell their products however they want. I'd like to see a lower cost refill offered myself but it is what it is.

 

[Mullen88]

I may be misinterpreting the email but it comes across as quite arrogant. I’ve never tried PannaCrema and probably never will as $75 for a shave soap just isn’t happening unless it’s a limited edition or will tell me the numbers to the lotto. Cheers.

 

[AlphaFrank75]

I may be misinterpreting the email but it comes across as quite arrogant.

I kind of thought that too. I just chalked it up to those passionate Italians. When I first read the response I thought, "That dog don't hunt."

 

[stook2001]

What it comes down to is the vendor call sell their products however they want. I'd like to see a lower cost refill offered myself but it is what it is.

I think this is really what it comes down to. My guess is that they figure that someone who is apt to spend whatever... $50 lets say... on a refill puck is about as likely to spend the $65 on the bowl. They likely assume that they cannibalize their own business by offering the refill. By the way, they are probably right!

From purely a customer service perspective, I am not sure I agree with their attempted rationalization since it encourages people to do what we're doing, which is question the logic and economics. As a counterpoint, there is a business cost to offering packaging choice in terms of inventory, sku count, packaging, etc.

 

[dfoulk]

I think this is really what it comes down to. My guess is that they figure that someone who is apt to spend whatever... $50 lets say... on a refill puck is about as likely to spend the $65 on the bowl. They likely assume that they cannibalize their own business by offering the refill. By the way, they are probably right!

From purely a customer service perspective, I am not sure I agree with their attempted rationalization since it encourages people to do what we're doing, which is question the logic and economics. As a counterpoint, there is a business cost to offering packaging choice in terms of inventory, sku count, packaging, etc.

I've had conversations with Marco about how he keeps track of business expenses and he's one of the much more organized vendors, using a self designed computer program that tracks raw materials through the product creation. So he can tell you exactly what each tub of soap cost him to make to the penny. I have no reason to doubt what he says when he's saying that it would only be a couple dollars less without the crock.

For example, say he's getting a deal on the crocks and pays four dollars each for them. Why should he sell the soap for half price because he didn't include the crock and instead put it into a plastic jar that cost him a dollar and fifty cents?
Saving three dollars in the packaging then selling it for half price would be great for customers but his business would suffer. That would be a poor business decision as the soap is still the same, the amount of work to make it is still the same, the only thing different is the container. Had the container been something more costly, where he was paying twenty dollars or more for it, then maybe we'd be having a different conversation.

Where I was hoping to see some savings was in the shipping of the different containers. If they could be shipped without having to worry about breakage then maybe some savings could be attained there. Still apparently not much there either.

Then there's the thing about taking a premium product and packaging it in a non premium way. What is the perception of the soap if you receive it in a much cheaper plastic jar?

I can see where they're coming from and don't take the email to be arrogant. They just shared some information with you as to why they aren't doing it this way. More of a factual response that I'd personally prefer over something vague. We never want to get a response telling us "no", but sometimes that's what it is. Imagine if they just responded with "Thank you for your suggestion but we have our reasons for not offering the soap as a refill at this time." They were kind enough to share their reasoning with you as to why they're not doing it, which shows me that they've given it some thought and taken the time to give me a well thought out answer. As to how I feel about the answer goes, hey nobody likes hearing "no" regardless of the wording, so wording wise, any "No" answer doesn't usually come off making me feel warm and fuzzy.

 

[shoelessjoe]

But, but, but we’re entitled to half-priced soap! ;-)

Thank you for the excellent, well thought out explanation, dfoulk!
Now, I think I’ll order myself a crock of that Nera...