I recently saw on another site a mention of a French artisan soap which interested me. My shave den does not need another soap and, frankly, the quality of soaps available at all price ranges is quite high. Nonetheless, I'm gratuitously attracted to the out of the way, eccentric, unique and little heard of items. Things that others don't have or have never heard of, but give me great pleasure. It's not a laudable quality and I don't recommend it, but that's what I like and it's too late to change.
Did the requisite googling on the interwebs and it looked like the best place to buy it was via their website here:
http://www.savonneriedubonberger.com/
The pitch is all natural ingredients as seen here:
Pas de colorant artificiel, pas de conservateur, pas de parfum de synthèse, trés riche en glycérine, trés doux et vitaminés
Des produits fait main made in Auvergne.
In addition, a key differentiating ingredient is Donkey's milk to which they attribute all sorts of virtues. In the absence of peer reviewed studies, I ignore those sorts of claims, but never having tried anything with Donkey's milk decided to tick this one off my list. I figure anyone who's willing to milk a donkey has earned at least a little of my business.
At the time, they listed their soap for 11 euros delivered which seemed reasonable and so I ordered some. After several weeks, I became concerned that my order was lost, but woke up to see an email from Karine telling me they'd just finished a fresh batch and would be shipping my order out soon. Judging from my packaging when it arrived about 3 weeks later, customs had their way with it before it reached me.
View attachment 318082
I never checked how large the volume of it was, but it's a rather small tin. It's 100 ml which equals just under 3.4 oz. The container is a lightweight plastic screw on container similar in size to the Klar Seifen, but better for travel because of the light weight.
Opening the container released an absolutely unique scent. I'm not a fragrance sophisticate, but smells first divide themselves to me into two very broad categories before being further subdivided. One category is an all natural category which describes something one might run into while cavorting with the natural world. The other is a manufactured fragrance. A scent which one would never find in nature, but has to be blended from nature into something new. For example, MdC fits into the former, but C&S O&C fits into the latter. I love them both, but they're different. The Volcans fits into the former category with MdC. The mint was clearly noticeable, but quite mild and laying under that was a strong "dairy" smell. Having milked my share of goats and the occasional cow, it was the same scent one gets from the milk right out of the udder. Perhaps not for everyone, but I love it.
I ran my finger across the soap and this was where it really differentiated itself. The Volcans is udderly (get it?) creamy. Amazingly so. Felt more like a moisturizing cream than like a soap. The other thing I noticed were the large bubbles on the top of it. They were only on the top layer, but were a clue as to what would come. The soap looked freshly made and I still wonder if letting it sit a few months might not be a good idea. You can get a sense of that from this pic:
View attachment 318089
The first shave with a new soap is always enjoyable because it presents the puzzle of figuring out what works. Because of the moist look of the Volcans, I used a relatively dry brush which turned out to be a mistake and loaded for about 20 seconds. I'd selected the BK4 because I wanted a smaller brush and was worried that something denser and stiffer would pick up too much soap. My first pass of lather was incredibly frothy with lots of big bubbles. My preference is for dense, yogurty lather and I just couldn't get that face lathering with this brush and that soap. Here's an example of what that looked like. In this pic, I loaded for about 15 seconds with a relatively stiff M&F and then bowl lathered for about 30 seconds in a little suribachi:
View attachment 318091
Instead of going back to the tin and loading more soap and adding more water, I just went with it. The lather went on a bit thicker by the time I was done with the painting strokes, but it was still frothier than I like. The scent, btw, was growing on me steadily and as I sit here now with a loaded brush next to my laptop am reminded of just how enjoyable it is.
The first pass with the straight was as comfortable as any of the other soaps I use. Keep in mind, however, that I am not an expert or nearly as fussy about my lather as others here and am satisfied with the performance of nearly everything I can get a decent lather and smell from. It seemed that what the Volcans might lack in cushion, it made up for in slickness. It's a really slick soap. Honestly, I couldn't detect any difference in how the cushioning was over my other soaps, but others might. It didn't "look" protective, but it seemed to do the job.
The second and third passes were better in terms of density, much better, but not on a par with C&S, for example. That didn't seem to matter, however, in terms of performance. I also noticed that I got a faint, very faint, menthol tingling on my face as the shave progressed. If you'd asked whether I would like that ahead of time, I'd have said no. I'm not a fan of menthol, though I've been recently converted to Floid Blue. I find most menthols too strong and overpowering, but this one wasn't and the feel on the skin was fantastic. Here's a pic of the lather as it looked for the later passes. You can compare that with what's left in the Suribachi:
View attachment 318095
I normally alum up after my rinsing off the lather from my last pass, but in this case I forgot to use the Alum. That's only happened once before and that was when I was on an MdC kick for about two weeks. Both the Volcans and the MdC leave my skin feeling so good after the shave, that I forget what is normally an automatic step for me.
The post shave feel of the Volcans is probably its most desirable quality. There's the faint tingling of the mint combined with a nice moisturizing feeling. Add in a scent to which I'm steadily becoming addicted and I think we've got a winner here. When summer comes, I can see this becoming a favorite, but it will be a year round member of my shave den.
The lather is quite stable. Here's a pic taken at least ten minutes after the one above:
View attachment 318098
So while it's "too frothy" according to my normal habits, it doesn't seem to fail in its task which is to give good protection to the skin. Nonetheless, I don't trust my judgment on this and so I sent off samples to three other members whose opinions I respect (hence the nearly empty jar) and they may choose to pop in on this thread and shed some real light on the product.
Meanwhile, I have more on the way.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I shaved with this for 4 days in a row before writing this. On subsequent shaves, I made sure to load more product and that did improve substantially the characteristics of the lather, but it was still pretty frothy on the first pass even on all the subsequent shaves.
Did the requisite googling on the interwebs and it looked like the best place to buy it was via their website here:
http://www.savonneriedubonberger.com/
The pitch is all natural ingredients as seen here:
Pas de colorant artificiel, pas de conservateur, pas de parfum de synthèse, trés riche en glycérine, trés doux et vitaminés
Des produits fait main made in Auvergne.
In addition, a key differentiating ingredient is Donkey's milk to which they attribute all sorts of virtues. In the absence of peer reviewed studies, I ignore those sorts of claims, but never having tried anything with Donkey's milk decided to tick this one off my list. I figure anyone who's willing to milk a donkey has earned at least a little of my business.
At the time, they listed their soap for 11 euros delivered which seemed reasonable and so I ordered some. After several weeks, I became concerned that my order was lost, but woke up to see an email from Karine telling me they'd just finished a fresh batch and would be shipping my order out soon. Judging from my packaging when it arrived about 3 weeks later, customs had their way with it before it reached me.
View attachment 318082
I never checked how large the volume of it was, but it's a rather small tin. It's 100 ml which equals just under 3.4 oz. The container is a lightweight plastic screw on container similar in size to the Klar Seifen, but better for travel because of the light weight.
Opening the container released an absolutely unique scent. I'm not a fragrance sophisticate, but smells first divide themselves to me into two very broad categories before being further subdivided. One category is an all natural category which describes something one might run into while cavorting with the natural world. The other is a manufactured fragrance. A scent which one would never find in nature, but has to be blended from nature into something new. For example, MdC fits into the former, but C&S O&C fits into the latter. I love them both, but they're different. The Volcans fits into the former category with MdC. The mint was clearly noticeable, but quite mild and laying under that was a strong "dairy" smell. Having milked my share of goats and the occasional cow, it was the same scent one gets from the milk right out of the udder. Perhaps not for everyone, but I love it.
I ran my finger across the soap and this was where it really differentiated itself. The Volcans is udderly (get it?) creamy. Amazingly so. Felt more like a moisturizing cream than like a soap. The other thing I noticed were the large bubbles on the top of it. They were only on the top layer, but were a clue as to what would come. The soap looked freshly made and I still wonder if letting it sit a few months might not be a good idea. You can get a sense of that from this pic:
View attachment 318089
The first shave with a new soap is always enjoyable because it presents the puzzle of figuring out what works. Because of the moist look of the Volcans, I used a relatively dry brush which turned out to be a mistake and loaded for about 20 seconds. I'd selected the BK4 because I wanted a smaller brush and was worried that something denser and stiffer would pick up too much soap. My first pass of lather was incredibly frothy with lots of big bubbles. My preference is for dense, yogurty lather and I just couldn't get that face lathering with this brush and that soap. Here's an example of what that looked like. In this pic, I loaded for about 15 seconds with a relatively stiff M&F and then bowl lathered for about 30 seconds in a little suribachi:
View attachment 318091
Instead of going back to the tin and loading more soap and adding more water, I just went with it. The lather went on a bit thicker by the time I was done with the painting strokes, but it was still frothier than I like. The scent, btw, was growing on me steadily and as I sit here now with a loaded brush next to my laptop am reminded of just how enjoyable it is.
The first pass with the straight was as comfortable as any of the other soaps I use. Keep in mind, however, that I am not an expert or nearly as fussy about my lather as others here and am satisfied with the performance of nearly everything I can get a decent lather and smell from. It seemed that what the Volcans might lack in cushion, it made up for in slickness. It's a really slick soap. Honestly, I couldn't detect any difference in how the cushioning was over my other soaps, but others might. It didn't "look" protective, but it seemed to do the job.
The second and third passes were better in terms of density, much better, but not on a par with C&S, for example. That didn't seem to matter, however, in terms of performance. I also noticed that I got a faint, very faint, menthol tingling on my face as the shave progressed. If you'd asked whether I would like that ahead of time, I'd have said no. I'm not a fan of menthol, though I've been recently converted to Floid Blue. I find most menthols too strong and overpowering, but this one wasn't and the feel on the skin was fantastic. Here's a pic of the lather as it looked for the later passes. You can compare that with what's left in the Suribachi:
View attachment 318095
I normally alum up after my rinsing off the lather from my last pass, but in this case I forgot to use the Alum. That's only happened once before and that was when I was on an MdC kick for about two weeks. Both the Volcans and the MdC leave my skin feeling so good after the shave, that I forget what is normally an automatic step for me.
The post shave feel of the Volcans is probably its most desirable quality. There's the faint tingling of the mint combined with a nice moisturizing feeling. Add in a scent to which I'm steadily becoming addicted and I think we've got a winner here. When summer comes, I can see this becoming a favorite, but it will be a year round member of my shave den.
The lather is quite stable. Here's a pic taken at least ten minutes after the one above:
View attachment 318098
So while it's "too frothy" according to my normal habits, it doesn't seem to fail in its task which is to give good protection to the skin. Nonetheless, I don't trust my judgment on this and so I sent off samples to three other members whose opinions I respect (hence the nearly empty jar) and they may choose to pop in on this thread and shed some real light on the product.
Meanwhile, I have more on the way.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I shaved with this for 4 days in a row before writing this. On subsequent shaves, I made sure to load more product and that did improve substantially the characteristics of the lather, but it was still pretty frothy on the first pass even on all the subsequent shaves.
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