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How do you find A & E

A &E make great soaps ~I find them great ~ I have 11 of them, but I find the company abit screwed up on a few key points and wonder if its just my experience

I recently tried 2 of their aftershaves yet I found the aftershaves not good and actually real face burners as well poorly designed bottles that have no proper spout system so just pour out too much.

I would not buy the aftershaves again, as felt were bad value and very average quality at best

My other gripe I have above A & E is that after-sales service is lousy and in fact in one case Peter himself replied to an email but was rudely aggressive and arrogant to a normal question. Seems such a weird way for an owner to behave with a good client and really put me off this brand

In past brought the Howling Fiord too and it had no scent at all..suspect wrongly poured or was old stock sent out..however kept it , as shaves well in lather sense...I complained but never got a reply back

Despite all, these soaps lather well and I get a good shave . However I probably will stop buying this brand again due to my issues mentioned above as well as fact my wife hates his artwork on the tubs.

FYI ~ I`m wet shaving for 10 plus years. I find Phoenix and Beau Spitfire, Paolo Barasso, Castle Forbes, Fitjar, Musgo Real Classic and Executive Shaving Fuar Ach Snog my top 6 favorite shave creams and shave soaps of about 40 odd I have and for pre shave it is simply the Executive Shaving Pre Shave which is outstanding . Razors are a feather AS-DS, Tatara Muramasa , Tatara Nodachi and Tatara Masamune. My favorite 3 of 15 brushes is my Simpson M2 Manchurian, Simpson Chubby 2 in 2 band Silver tip and a cheap, yet great old Boar hair Omega barbers brush . I only use Dorco platinum or feather DE blades. Aftershave favorites are Fitjar gels, Castle Forbes and Geo Trumpers

Interested what others think or have experienced in dealing with A & E
 
I have been using A&E soaps for a while. I have not tried other products.
Peter does have a rather unique personality.
Once I sent him an email because I inadvertently added two of the same soap to my cart. Rather than canceling one of them, I just requested two different scents. Peter was in Europe at the time, but contacted his wife and had my order adjusted. I got the two soaps I wanted. I would say that is pretty good customer service.
As for quality, the current formula Kaizen 2e is one of my top soaps only to be surpassed by Grooming Dept Kairos SE.
 
Most artesian soap makers should stick to just making soaps. Making and blending a good AS or cologne takes different skills and high quality ingredients. Too often they’re just looking to diversify their revenue streams without the experience or QC controls in place. One place in particular has their call service person blending and filling AS bottles as a side hustle; probably not the best business model.
 
Thanks for sharing RayClem. One point I do agree on is that their soap performance is excellent, yet splashes did not suit me at all.Maybe I will consider give them more slack as might be acting a bit too harsh on my comment, considering soap performance is always good
 
Most artesian soap makers should stick to just making soaps. Making and blending a good AS or cologne takes different skills and high quality ingredients. Too often they’re just looking to diversify their revenue streams without the experience or QC controls in place. One place in particular has their call service person blending and filling AS bottles as a side hustle; probably not the best business model.
Thanks for the reply.Agree with that.I stick to Novella Santa Maria, Musgo Real, Fitjar , Geo Trumper and Castle Forbes these days for after shaves or after shave lotions/ gels. Find these are the best ones for me.
 
I just hit the "guide" button on the cable remote and scroll until I find A&E.

Actually, I do have one A&E splash, St. Barts, and I enjoy the smell and I think I like the performance. It's a splash that acts more like a balm, and I think it heals more than it irritates, but I haven't used it enough to have a solid opinion.
 
I thought it meant "Arts & Entertainment" (I'm a fairly new DE shaver and I don't know the business referred to here)
A&E stands for Ariana & Evans a business enterprise founded by Peter Charkalis (aka Charky). The Shaving Shop and The Club are also part of the same group.

Peter is somewhat of a "character", but he does know how to make soap. I have not tried the aftershaves, so I cannot comment on them. Peter has released a lot of different scents over the years. I love some of them I have tried and barely tolerate others.

It is my understanding that many customers want to purchase a soap with an accompanying aftershave. Thus, many artisans release aftershaves sooner or later. Some of the aftershaves focus on the fragrance while other focus on skin conditioning. If an aftershave contains alcohol, it is most likely to be focused on fragrance as the alcohol helps carry the fragrance components. If it does not contain alcohol, it is more likely to be aimed at skin conditioning. Personally, my face does not like alcohol based splashes, but I know many folks love them.
 
I happen to like what I’ve gotten from A&E, which admittedly isn’t much. I have the Vanille de Tabac soap and aftershave, and kaizen soap. I find the soap real easy to work with and quite slick. The aftershave makes a nice addition and adds a little more to the experience. I did have an issue with their shipping in which the aftershave arrived broken. After contacting them Peter made it right by sending me a new one so definitely no real complaint there.

If my wife hadn’t gotten upset at me for buying so many soaps recently (5 soaps, ~20 samples, and 3 aftershaves in the last 4 months) I would order more A&E products.
 
I don't buy from A&E. I can't stand the membership business model among other reasons the business irks me- so I avoid it. The soap is good so long as the potent fragrances they use don't bother your skin.
 
I don't buy from A&E. I can't stand the membership business model among other reasons the business irks me- so I avoid it. The soap is good so long as the potent fragrances they use don't bother your skin.

The Club portion is membership based, but Ariana & Evans is not. There are some scents only available to Club members. If you purchase at least two products during the 6 month membership period, you will recuperate the membership cost. If you do not want to be a Club member, there is no pressure to join or to continue your membership.

There are some things about the marketing that I do not particularly like, but it is hard to argue with the performance of the soaps. There is enough variety in the scents that you should be able to find something that works for you.

I have sensitive skin, but I have not had any issue with irritation from the scents I have chosen. In particular, I look for some of the more complex scents where none of the individual components is concentrated enough to be an issue. That way, I have been able to use scents that contain scent notes that have the potential of causing irritation.
 
Last I heard there were soaps available to be purchased by the public at both sites. I see Peter direct people to "the other site" if they can't find something. This makes no sense at all. Why is it so difficult to have a single site for your business? It's his business and if it's working for them that's great. There are others I'd rather purchase from.
 
I only have one experience with A&E and it's very mixed. I shaved with The Serpent & Peony soap in K2e. The base was truly exceptional; a 10 second load from a damp synthetic brush exploded into a lather that just would not lighten up in volume after a certain point no matter how much water. The slickness was as good as Omnibus and Lothur v2 and the post shave feel was as good as Lothur too. Whatever fragrances were used in the soap did cause a lot of irritation on my face however. I had red irritation spots on my face for several days despite using the soap only once and not shaving again until the spots were gone.

My final verdict is that if your face is strong enough to not get irritated by the fragrances in the A&E soaps, the base itself is so exceptional that it could very easily become your favorite soap base. If the fragrances burn your face like they did to mine, it's best to pass on the soap.
 
Thanks for replying. It seems the frangrances of A & E give many people mixed results. My conclusion is that its likely I`ll just avoid buying more off them, due to that face burning issue created by lack of compliance or oversight on production and the other big one is the stupid artwork on some of labels that are just too sexist or weird for my wife and kids to bear.

Kaizen original with the naked , spaced out looking Asian woman on the Red Dragon with a cigarette in the mouth is one big one my kids and wife hate to such a degree that my daughter actually painted the logo over with her nail polish!

This owner is not very smart as logos like that are losing him a lot of buyers. Few woman out there approve of that look these days.

The pinups of TFS soaps from Italy are considered fine and abit classy ~ but pics of a guy in a car looking up a rear of girls skirt on A&E London soap and Kaizen one etc., really do not get a good reception and I know even one owner of 1 of 3 biggest UK based shaving online shops that point blank told me they will not consider stock the A&E soaps due to these logos and this guy has so much business that he employs 12 people full-time in London for his on line business.
 
Last I heard there were soaps available to be purchased by the public at both sites. I see Peter direct people to "the other site" if they can't find something. This makes no sense at all. Why is it so difficult to have a single site for your business? It's his business and if it's working for them that's great. There are others I'd rather purchase from.
Totally agree !
 
I have several A&E soaps and aftershaves but haven’t bought anything new from the company in about 2 years. Two of my all time favorite scents were created by A&E - L’Orange Vert and Vanille de Tabac. Yeah I know they’re dupes but I still like them.

Two things have stopped me from purchasing more soaps from them though. First, the nonstop release of new bases. Soap making isn’t a new thing. There’s no reason for a soap maker today to keep coming up with new ingredients over and over. That smacks of marketing bs to me. MdC doesn’t change their base every 8-12 months because they already have a great performing soap. If you can’t figure out how to make your soap base how bout you just copy MdC, SV, or someone else who has already figured out a great recipe.

My second problem is with the scents. It seems like everything I bought or sampled from them post Kaizen was sickeningly sweet. I couldn’t stand any of it. Not to mention that some pre Kaizen scents had descriptions that didn’t match what the soap smelled like AT ALL. They claimed to have several cannabis scented soaps. Nope. Not that that’s what I’m looking for but they didn’t match the scent description at all.

Between these two issues, continuous new bases and unreliable scent descriptions, I simply moved on and have been using other products. I’ve been enjoying my purchases more too.
 
The soap is good I only tried the first kaizen I think. Their scents are just ok kind of nice, but with so many other amazing scents by others I prefer them over A&E. Maybe I need to try some more samples, but so cal hipster looks like the only other one I might like. They did do a good dupe of sauvage it was the best out of three imo.
 
I happen to like what I’ve gotten from A&E, which admittedly isn’t much. I have the Vanille de Tabac soap and aftershave, and kaizen soap. I find the soap real easy to work with and quite slick. The aftershave makes a nice addition and adds a little more to the experience. I did have an issue with their shipping in which the aftershave arrived broken. After contacting them Peter made it right by sending me a new one so definitely no real complaint there.

If my wife hadn’t gotten upset at me for buying so many soaps recently (5 soaps, ~20 samples, and 3 aftershaves in the last 4 months) I would order more A&E products.
I have several A&E soaps and aftershaves but haven’t bought anything new from the company in about 2 years. Two of my all time favorite scents were created by A&E - L’Orange Vert and Vanille de Tabac. Yeah I know they’re dupes but I still like them.

Two things have stopped me from purchasing more soaps from them though. First, the nonstop release of new bases. Soap making isn’t a new thing. There’s no reason for a soap maker today to keep coming up with new ingredients over and over. That smacks of marketing bs to me. MdC doesn’t change their base every 8-12 months because they already have a great performing soap. If you can’t figure out how to make your soap base how bout you just copy MdC, SV, or someone else who has already figured out a great recipe.

My second problem is with the scents. It seems like everything I bought or sampled from them post Kaizen was sickeningly sweet. I couldn’t stand any of it. Not to mention that some pre Kaizen scents had descriptions that didn’t match what the soap smelled like AT ALL. They claimed to have several cannabis scented soaps. Nope. Not that that’s what I’m looking for but they didn’t match the scent description at all.

Between these two issues, continuous new bases and unreliable scent descriptions, I simply moved on and have been using other products. I’ve been enjoying my purchases more too.
Thanks for the reply. Hear you on those points you raised...

Some of the scents are not what they say and the pump up of the BS on New Kaizen releases does`nt make sense.

Emu oil is one case ~ its been around for ages and not a good excuse to pump it up on the BS by saying its super special or expensive, when it is not!

So many good soaps and creams out there such as Fitjar Islands, MdC, Master Soaps, Stirling , Executive shave, Geo Trumper, TOBS, Truefitt & Hall, Declaration, Paolo Barasso, TFS + old classics like Musgo or Novella Santa Maria etc...

None of which change formulas or hype...and none which get off on rude, obnoxious packaging..
 
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