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Stirling soap strange smell

Hey all,

I’ve probably tried about 20 Stirling soaps between full jars and samples. I love the slickness and variety of scents.

That said I find that a lot of the scents have a strange scent (part of the base I’d guess). It almost smells bleachy or like wet dog. It’s hard to explain, but I find it dominates some otherwise great scents.

Is this just me or does anyone else notice this (or something similar) as well?
 
I've tried about 15 different Stirling soaps. Some being samples, refills, and jars and I can't say I've ever smelled anything close to resembling bleach or wet dog from any of them. However, there was one I just couldn't stand using more than once because of the smell, most likely due to the clove. Looking at you Ben Franklin.

Overall the rest are good if not amazing, when it comes smell, and all of them perform extremely well.
 

Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
I have about a dozen stirling soaps and haven’t experienced that type of odor.
 

lasta

Blade Biter
I could be wrong, but I'm attributing it to the generous use of tallow and less than perfect saponification. Though, I only smell it on the brush after drying.
 
Stirling has become a mass production vendor I reckon the quality control might have some hickups every now and then
 
I like the performance of Stirling, but I've tried several scents and I can always smell the soap base come through and it's (unfortunately) quite off-putting to me, as well. I guess some of us are just unlucky to have nasal receptors that are picking up on certain underlying scents.
 
Hey all,

I’ve probably tried about 20 Stirling soaps between full jars and samples. I love the slickness and variety of scents.

That said I find that a lot of the scents have a strange scent (part of the base I’d guess). It almost smells bleachy or like wet dog. It’s hard to explain, but I find it dominates some otherwise great scents.

Is this just me or does anyone else notice this (or something similar) as well?

I've probably had 10 Stirling soap tubs and never smelled anything except the fragrance. Is this how they all smelled off the puck to you when you bought them or did you notice it over time?

I could detect strong tallow scents in the soap from a different vendor that others could not and I avoid that vendor. Sadly, they are from a much liked soap shop.
 
Haven’t experienced that. I’ve tried 13 of their scents so far (and admittedly dipped my nose into a few tubs at the pharmacy hehe).

The only perceivable base note I get is within their mutton tallow variety. It’s a very earthy scent that seems to fit well within those scents.

Maybe you got a super nose haha. I was a 10 year smoker so I’m sure my sense of smell has diminished somewhat.
 
I find I don’t like any of the scents I’ve tried due to their strength or just being off putting. That’s purely subjective.

their unscented mutton tallow doesn’t bother me, and I don’t recall smelling any of their previous tallows back when, but ”wet dog” I would attribute to tallow.

last time I looked, I think they had mutton or beef tallows in their base.
 

Esox

I didnt know
Staff member
I've smelled something funky in a few Stirling soaps. Its almost like a faint whiff of rotten fruit and, saying that, I've only smelled it with Margarita's In The Arctic, Iced Pineapple and Pharaoh's Dreamsicle. Stirlings Island Man smells to me just like that blue bubble gum that use to be in baseball and hockey cards. Not offensive, really, but not what I had in mind.

Stirling Frozen Tundra however, I really enjoy.
 
I'm guessing it's the tallow base. It's faintly noticeable to me in all their soaps, probably because I've attempted to make tallow soap before. I wouldn't call it wet dog but I can see someone getting that impression.
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
Some folks are more sensitive to some particular smells than others.
I swear that when the wife cooks lamb it smells like someone is boiling a sweater to me.
I don't detect anything off-putting in the Stirling soaps I have, but it doesn't mean someone else doesn't.
Every product isn't for every person. Maybe some are more sensitive to the base odors from a mutton tallow.
 
I can smell it a little bit on Sheep which has has the mutton tallow in the ingredients. A little animalic scent but I don't mind it. I have 15+ tubs of Stirling and haven't smelled anything strange so far.
 
I can smell it a little bit on Sheep which has has the mutton tallow in the ingredients. A little animalic scent but I don't mind it. I have 15+ tubs of Stirling and haven't smelled anything strange so far.
I also noticed a mild funky smell in the Sheep soap. It’s enough so that l’ be ordered the Varen scent (also mutton tallow). Performance of the mutton tallow soap is great for me.
 
I find that several of the artisan American soap brands have overpowering, odd smells, and Stirling is one of these. Declaration Grooming is another. It must be something to do with their soap bases or how the base reacts with the fragrance components. The effect to my nose is that every one of their soaps smells predominantly of artificial lime, and the advertised scents are so overpowered by this that all their soaps end up smelling roughly the same to me, whether they are meant to be citrus or sandalwood or oud or lavender. It can’t be like this for everyone, as I see plenty of comments from people admiring the nuances of each fragrance.

Other artisan soap brands like Barrister & Mann, Ethos, or Noble Otter do not give me this problem at all. Their soap bases are (to my nose) a very clean vessel for the scents and I can pick out every nuance of each fragrance without anything coming through from the soap base.

I guess all our noses react differently. It really is crazy that every Stirling and DG soap smells to me like synthetic lime with some other things added, yet I can use something like B&M 42 and experience in detail how damp the potting soil is that the petunia is planted in as just one part of the scent profile.

I’m glad somebody brought this topic up because I’ve been thinking I must be mad.
 
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I find that Stirling scents can be simplistic enough almost to a fault where you might be able to detect other scents and odors that are just part of the fragrance oils he uses. I certainly don't like the majority of Striling scents, especially anything glacial. His lemon glacial for instance smells like lemon, but there is also something else weird there and i'm not sure if its due to the glacial/menthol or something else in the oil. The good news is you can sample everything pretty easily and not have to buy what you don't like, many of which i can attest to simply suck, but there are a few that i really enjoy.

B&M for instance is very different, none of the scents are simplistic and they'll almost send you on a journey of sorts to a different dimension. B&M scents don't smell like any one thing in particular so its harder to pick out anything "odorous"- of course, the journeys aren't for everyone.
 
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