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Tabac Shaving cream: Tallow, or new ingredients?

One of my very first experiences with traditional wet-shaving (many years ago, as a young man in my early twenties) was with a tube of Tabac shaving cream ... I gradually discovered that when worked diligently with a shaving brush, it made a phenomenal lather. And so I got more and more fond of (wet) shaving. For this reason I have always thought with nostalgic affection of this particular cream.
Now, in fact, I have not used this cream for a long time. These days I am more of a harder soap person. Indeed, I am also a lot older, and a lot more experienced in the art of shaving. But, one of my favourite soaps remain Tabac (as far as Tabac goes I like using a stick for face lathering).

However a few weeks ago, I decided to stock my den with some Tabac shaving cream. I was excited to see, given the experience I now have, if this cream in fact would live up to my fond memories of it. Also, not least, there was the "joker" issue of Tabac's apparently recent decision to discontinue tallow as an ingredient -- at least in their soap.

Alas -- I have tried out the cream now, and verdict is ...: I was disappointed ...!!

The lather I was able to produce, was simply not as rich, thick or slick, as that which I am able to get out of the Tabac hard soap. I should emphasize that I have stocked up generously on the Tabac soap WITH tallow, so the tallow version is the only one I am familiar with.

Hence my question to this forum:
-- Indeed, I do not find Tallow among the ingredients listed for my Tabac shaving cream. Was the Tabac shaving cream always without tallow, in contrast to the soap ...? Or, is Tabac Shaving cream without Tallow a recent invention?

For comparison, I have also used Speick on and off, both stick and cream. I find both to be really excellent, and interestingly the stick contains tallow, while the cream does not. So on the one hand there is reason to wonder whether this has also always been the case with Tabac stick and cream respectively..... and on the other hand, judging from Speick, a cream without tallow does not necessarily perform noticably worse than a hard soap with Tallow.

In fact, I get to wonder whether ANY cream contains tallow (as said, I am not really a cream person, so my experience is limited with shaving creams ... ) Maybe it is simply in the nature of tallow to more or less harden up (whether as a hard puck, or a croap like Cella, another of my favourites WITH tallow) ...??

Thank you to everyone who care to reply.
 
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Ratso

Mr. Obvious
I have two ceramic containers of Tabac with tallow. I’ve read the latest version is without tallow. I just got the tallow version on Amazon back in February.
 

nemo

Lunatic Fringe
Staff member
I've got a fifteen year old tube. There's no tallow. It's actually good cream, keep trying!

I have two ceramic containers of Tabac with tallow. I’ve read the latest version is without tallow.
Obviously, you're looking at your soap @Ratso ... we're talking creams here in the Shaving Cream forum. Tubes not dishes. :whistling:
 
I love Tabac soap but was very disappointed with the cream. I haven’t used the cream in a few years now. I should give it another chance. I’ve only used the soap with tallow, and I just opened a new puck. Should last me awhile. It’s a fall and winter scent for me.
 
Why did they feel the need to mess with the ingredients of their perfect soap?
They got it absolutely right, the best shaving soap on the market by miles.
Then they go and over think it and ultimately ruin it.
I hate them.
 

Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
For the tallow Tabac folks, try D. R. Harris current tallow hard soap, it seems close in performance to the old tallow Tabac to me. The scents are not the same of course but a little Tabac AS splash will overpower mustard gas …
 
I stopped by the Razor Emporium in Phoenix today and they just received a batch of the Tabac original in the milk glass tubs that are of the old Potassium Tallowate formulation. I am not sure if any more exist in the distribution pipeline as the refills dried up quite a while ago. FYI


Tabac 1.jpg
Tabac 2.jpg
 
For the tallow Tabac folks, try D. R. Harris current tallow hard soap, it seems close in performance to the old tallow Tabac to me. The scents are not the same of course but a little Tabac AS splash will overpower mustard gas …
DR Harris stuff is DRAMATICALLY more expensive (i.e., on a per-ounce or per-gram basis) than Tabac.
 
Just a quick couple of minutes look would seem that they’re comparable in price.


Good point. Your example only had DR Harris as 24% more expensive on a per-gram basis. I was thinking about the much larger difference in the per-gram price of DR Harris shave sticks vs. Tabac shave sticks.
 

Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
If you want to compare economics, you need to look at price per shave, not price per gram.
 
I agree. I can get hundreds of shaves from Tabac or the Classic Fine Accoutrements pucks than I can out of the uber expensive artisan soaps that are poured into a plastic container. I once read that triple milled soaps last much longer than poured soaps and thought at the time that these claims were exaggerated, but low and behold, they are true.
You should consider the number of shaves you will receive from a hard puck when looking at the price to compare value.
 
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