I would project running out of soaps, blades, and aftershave in about three years. I am 73 and look forward to reentering the marketplace before supplies give out.
Some purchasing restraint at last - but how old will you be when your supplies run out?
- Thread starter EclipseRedRing
- Start date
rbscebu
Girls call me Makaluod
For soaps, I have seven different ones and enough in total to last me about 18 years. As for blades, that's another matter. My current stock on hand should last about 730,500 daily shaves. That's about 2,000 years. For aftershaves I normally only keep a years supply in stock.
I have no desire for any more soaps/creams but blades are another matter. I find that one blade might be the perfect one for me but never really know so need to try another SR.
I only expect to live for another 15 to 18 years.
I have no desire for any more soaps/creams but blades are another matter. I find that one blade might be the perfect one for me but never really know so need to try another SR.
I only expect to live for another 15 to 18 years.
I am going to guess I have about a decades worth of soap and cream and about 3 years worth of blades (although that includes a recent splurge of sample tuck purchases, some of which may end up being ghastly). That said, I don't intend to suddenly switch and use nothing but what comes out of my stash.
I will continue to buy new creams and soaps as long as there are products on the market that I want - it's just a bit of insurance against the disappearance of the last hard tallow soaps. If they finally go, I will be able to continue enjoying them for years to come.
I will continue to buy new creams and soaps as long as there are products on the market that I want - it's just a bit of insurance against the disappearance of the last hard tallow soaps. If they finally go, I will be able to continue enjoying them for years to come.
Many of us are in similar situations in part because the software we use for this hobby (soaps, creams and blades) is relatively inexpensive and often at significant risk of being discontinued. It was not a big investment to load up on over two dozen pucks of Williams when they sold for 99 cents each at my local supermarket for example. Similar for many of our favorite blades ($5-10 per hundred for my three brands) and other soaps like Arko. Other items get snapped up when on sale such as when MWF was briefly available landed in the U.S. from Connaught for under $6 (4.80 GBP) in quantities of 6 last fall due to the drop in exchange rates. Didn't realize at the time it was at high risk of a formula change.I have been reading of the reformulation of Mitchell's Wool Fat shaving soap and read the advice to stock up, and so found myself with a few pucks of tallow MWF in my online shopping basket. Before I finished my purchase I decided to do a stock take of my soaps and estimate how long my current supply would last. I allowed a conservative nine months for a bowl or puck, and six months for a stick in my calculations.
I was astonished to find I have in excess of 40 pucks or bowls of Yardley Black Label, Yardley Lavender, Shulton Old Spice, Cussons Imperial Leather, Goya Cedarwood, Goya Corvette, Roger & Gallet L'Homme, Faberge Brut, and Tabac. Similarly I have almost 50 sticks of Yardley Black Label, Yardley Lavender, Cussons Imperial Leather, Shulton Old Spice, Williams, Tabac, Dubarry Silkashave, Palmolive, and Erasmic; plus a few tubes of Yardley, Shulton Old Spice and Old Spice Burley creams. I am now 56 years of age and have sufficient soap to last me well into my 80s if not my 90s. It suddenly dawned on me that the purchase I was about to make was madness, and to make matters worse I don't even like Mitchell's Wool Fat which is why I do not currently use itAnd don't get me started on vintage aftershave, I have so much I could wash the car with it and I am still buying it
So, I emptied my online basket and congratulated myself on my frugal restraintBut, I am a realist and I am confident that the next time I see a Yardley Black Label shave soap I will not be able to resist. Nevertheless, I succeeded in not buying some items that I neither like, need, nor want, which is a small victory for common sense. I explained that to my lovely wife expecting to be praised for my good behaviour, but she did not seem to appreciate the magnitude of my achievement
So, with your current stock, how old will you be before you run out of soap, blades, or aftershave?
Net result is that, similar to your experience, I've now cut way back on ordering any new shaving products. After over three years I'm relatively settled and have plenty of product related my preferences.
The risk of beloved products ceasing to be produced or undergoing formulation changes is very real. Especially in the areas of soaps and aftershaves I have seen things I used vanish except for the occasional exorbitantly priced offering on eBay. I generally move on to find something new to me. If I had stocked up on Eau Sauvage, original Polo, YSL, Crabtree and Evelyn Sienna, Yardley lavender and Black label, I would have missed out on new favorites. When hardware brands die, it is a little different. If I lost my ATT mixed metal Windsor, finding a new razor could be unnerving. It is too late for a backup, and had I gone there, it would be sitting in a drawer calling, "Sell me."
If anyone had asked me at the beginning of the year, "what soap is likely to be reformulated this year," MWF would not have been on my list at all, though in hindsight, it should have been obvious. I fully expect the other English triple-milled tallow soaps to be reformulated by this time next year.
The death of triple-milled tallow shaving soap was not something I ever expected to live through or see happen in my lifetime.
At least there is an ample selection of shaving creams to pick from, and a huge variety of 2x and 3x concentrated shaving creams out there. They can call it 'Artisan Shaving Soap' if they want, but anyone with half a brain knows better. Calling a pig a donkey doesn't make it any less of a pig, and anything with that much water in it is a shave cream, tallow or no.
And in a decade or 15 year's time, someone will start manufacturing a small batch, hard tallow-shaving soap. It will be marketed as "the real thing" like grandad used to use, triple-milled like the high quality soaps of days gone by so a week of shaves will barely make a dent in it, and scented only with natural essential oils - nothing like these squidgy, over-fragranced "artisan" products that have come to dominate the market.
Yours for a mere $50 a puck.
From other B&Ber posts regarding $25+ artisan products that only provide 25-30 shaves it makes sense that some of these soaps are really creams or at the very least croaps. There are also plenty of good non-tallow soaps out there. I have new formula Tabac and What-The-Puck in my rotation.
I made a small foray into creams last fall with a couple each of Cyril R. Salter and LEA products and they work well. Creams (at least these four anyway) dial in differently. While many of my soaps work best with a wetter lather for the creams I've found it's key to load enough product to generate a thicker lather. Dialed in right my creams deliver as good a shave as all but my top two soaps and the difference between these is relatively minor.
That is a large part of the underlying dynamic around our hobby. Manufacturers and retailers are realizing that as DE shaving has become driven more by hobbyists versus legacy decades long shavers that can make more profit selling higher end products versus the more basic items that have been discontinued.
That would only make sense if products are being replaced. Sometimes they are, other times they are just gone.
It's not the small soap makers, or the businesses. It's the OEM manufacturers. The company that made Valobra shut down, and took the tallow soaps of Fine, Speick, and Tabac (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) down with it.
On the flip side, you do have companies like Ach. Brito who certainly have noticed that customers are looking for higher end products, which is why we have basic soaps like Ach. Brito Musco and Mogno, and better soaps like Musco Real, which is from their Claus Porto line of higher end soaps.
I haven't noticed very many companies taking this approach, though, and very few companies rely solely on soap sales. For most, soap is only one of the grooming products on offer.
Now, having said all that, I do think you are right. The current market conditions favor the flashy and new. The traditional stuff relies on word of mouth and repeat sales. They need to wake up and start making an advertising budget. These old companies used to advertise, and they need to do it again.
...and I finally found the proper way to lather Williams.
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Would likely need a full puck per shampoo & shave based on that advertisement - Combe missed its chance to drive increased demand and preserve the brandThat would only make sense if products are being replaced. Sometimes they are, other times they are just gone.
It's not the small soap makers, or the businesses. It's the OEM manufacturers. The company that made Valobra shut down, and took the tallow soaps of Fine, Speick, and Tabac (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) down with it.
On the flip side, you do have companies like Ach. Brito who certainly have noticed that customers are looking for higher end products, which is why we have basic soaps like Ach. Brito Musco and Mogno, and better soaps like Musco Real, which is from their Claus Porto line of higher end soaps.
I haven't noticed very many companies taking this approach, though, and very few companies rely solely on soap sales. For most, soap is only one of the grooming products on offer.
Now, having said all that, I do think you are right. The current market conditions favor the flashy and new. The traditional stuff relies on word of mouth and repeat sales. They need to wake up and start making an advertising budget. These old companies used to advertise, and they need to do it again.
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...and I finally found the proper way to lather Williams.
To your point you are generally right regarding the manufacturers - my observation applies more to the retailers. Unless a retailer wanted a 99 cent puck of Williams as a low price item for its "halo" effect on the shaving department they would much prefer to use that shelf facing for a more premium $5 to $10+ item. Have seen actions ranging from basic substitution of higher price point items in the assortment to some like Target stores (U.S. discount department store chain) who launched a full premium shaving department right before the pandemic.
Note one manufacturer who comes to mind who has shifted its price points toward hobbyists is Van Der Hagen who has moved from $2 pucks of soap to what are now $5+ pucks of Luxury Shaving Soap in mass market retailers and grocers.
I've got 10 soaps so that should last me 3 years. My aftershaves should see me through the next half decade and I have enough blades for the next 6 years...
I really need to stop buying stuff!
I really need to stop buying stuff!
I'm so fortunate I didn't go down the rabbithole with software. But I have over 100 razors....90 of them vintage. Can't stop. I'm just now figuring out what I like. My dr says there's medicine for this, but that it is habit forming as wellI have been reading of the reformulation of Mitchell's Wool Fat shaving soap and read the advice to stock up, and so found myself with a few pucks of tallow MWF in my online shopping basket. Before I finished my purchase I decided to do a stock take of my soaps and estimate how long my current supply would last. I allowed a conservative nine months for a bowl or puck, and six months for a stick in my calculations.
I was astonished to find I have in excess of 40 pucks or bowls of Yardley Black Label, Yardley Lavender, Shulton Old Spice, Cussons Imperial Leather, Goya Cedarwood, Goya Corvette, Roger & Gallet L'Homme, Faberge Brut, and Tabac. Similarly I have almost 50 sticks of Yardley Black Label, Yardley Lavender, Cussons Imperial Leather, Shulton Old Spice, Williams, Tabac, Dubarry Silkashave, Palmolive, and Erasmic; plus a few tubes of Yardley, Shulton Old Spice and Old Spice Burley creams. I am now 56 years of age and have sufficient soap to last me well into my 80s if not my 90s. It suddenly dawned on me that the purchase I was about to make was madness, and to make matters worse I don't even like Mitchell's Wool Fat which is why I do not currently use it
So, I emptied my online basket and congratulated myself on my frugal restraint
So, with your current stock, how old will you be before you run out of soap, blades, or aftershave?
I have a fairly new jar of MdC and about half of the Canada Soap left. They should last me close to 3 years, which will make me 75. If I don't outlive my blade supply nobody will be surprised.
Turning 41 in about 2 months. If I used everything I have right now. Around 44 or 45ish.
I'm 52 and am sure I'll be quite dead by that point. 
I am on this bandwagon too. No need to list it all here, but I have enough of all shaving supplies to outlast me.
So I am wondering what this is "really" about. Can someone here tell me ...?
I don't really regret my endless purchases of all things shaving, after all it is quite harmless, and it does cause much enjoyment I must say, but it does seem a bit irrational. Why this continuous desire to indulge in being completely irrational? Or maybe that is not the best way to frame it. But that is my real challenge ... what to make of this mystery of ... a giant and continuously growing stock of all kinds of ... shaving supplies.
So I am wondering what this is "really" about. Can someone here tell me ...?
I don't really regret my endless purchases of all things shaving, after all it is quite harmless, and it does cause much enjoyment I must say, but it does seem a bit irrational. Why this continuous desire to indulge in being completely irrational? Or maybe that is not the best way to frame it. But that is my real challenge ... what to make of this mystery of ... a giant and continuously growing stock of all kinds of ... shaving supplies.
We sail a very similar ship. I'm wondering when I'll actually stop buying soaps and creams. I'm good for razors once my new Karve set up shows up in a few weeks, so perhaps at some point this year I'll be able to finally slow down the frequency of purchases of the aforementioned.I am on this bandwagon too. No need to list it all here, but I have enough of all shaving supplies to outlast me.
So I am wondering what this is "really" about. Can someone here tell me ...?
I don't really regret my endless purchases of all things shaving, after all it is quite harmless, and it does cause much enjoyment I must say, but it does seem a bit irrational. Why this continuous desire to indulge in being completely irrational? Or maybe that is not the best way to frame it. But that is my real challenge ... what to make of this mystery of ... a giant and continuously growing stock of all kinds of ... shaving supplies.
Like you I don't regret them, and it only started getting worse after I discovered how many different and wonderful soaps/cremes there are out there.
I'm safe in the brush department for now; just a half dozen various badgers and boars that I like very much and use on a rotation.
At 52 years old I'm sure I'll be in my late 60's by the time I need to ACTUALLY order anything else, and in the meantime some of those will have expired or been given away...
I tell my wife it's a hobby, and it really is, but unlike my seasonal farming/fieldwork I do each spring and fall this hobby costs money
I have a brand new, unused tallow puck of the Fat still in the wrapper. I've got several other pucks and bowls unused. I'm really trying to make a dent in the soap collection. Blades don't concern me as they really haven't skyrocketed in price yet. Beyond that I have no "need" for anything in the way of brushes, razors, aftershaves, or fragrances.
But I've been there many times, and yet I end up buying more .... When I really got into straight razors some four years ago, I thought I would retire my DE collection entirely. Yet I got back to DE shaving. I thought I had all the razors I needed, yet just this summer I got four new razors, and having a fifth on it's way. This is way beyond "needs" ...!! This is beyond any conception of "rational". I can't explain what's going on, it just happens. Yes, I am slightly worried, but it's also a very enjoyable ride.
