UK made "traditional" shaving soap comparison - incoming

[cvac]

Pics:

1) Loaded Tulip 3 Super 2-band

2) Brush after 1 face-lather

Not much to say about this one other than it delivers the same great shave as the DRH Lavender, except you get the Arlington scent instead. Very nice glide. Does anyone think that Arlington smells a bit like some kind of lemon drop candy?

 

[Songwind]

Not much to say about this one other than it delivers the same great shave as the DRH Lavender, except you get the Arlington scent instead. Very nice glide. Does anyone think that Arlington smells a bit like some kind of lemon drop candy?

Sold!

 

[kingfisher]

All your palm lathers look to me like they need 5 or 6 more drops of water. Your lathers look very THICK, for lack of a better word.

Nevertheless, thanks for all your work. This thread is very interesting. I shaved with Arlington this morning. In my hands, it almost immediately began to froth up into an overly bubbly lather, and it took a long time to rectify the problem. For the second pass I had to add some KMF to smooth it out a little. This was my second try with Arlington; I had the same problem the first time, too. Love the scent, though.

 

[cvac]

To be clear, the palm lathers are not what I shave with. That is just a simple test to show what the soap is capable of doing. If it can't hold a thick lather for that simple test, then it is not capable of making shave-worthy lather, period. T&H, Trumpers, and Vintage Blades all failed, obviously.

When I face lather, I wet my face a lot, then work the soap in (heavily loaded brush - see pics), fine-tuning the mix by carefully dipping the tips of my brush in warm water, then working it a little bit more. The lather is still quite thick, not airy foam, but also does not dry out during my shave or prevent me from getting decent glide when I move my razor across my face.

 

[cvac]

Another thing: the DRH soaps lather very easily...you can shake out most of the water with your brush, then load, then keep loading, just adding a tiny bit of water on the puck until you are making a nice creamy proto lather right on the puck that gets sucked up into your brush. This is the way I like to make lather with hard soaps...not with a sloppy wet dripping brush or a bone dry brush.

 

[cvac]

Pics:

1) Loaded Rooney 2XL

2) Brush after 1 face lather


This is not my first shave with this soap, I've been using it for a few weeks and it is now one of my favorites. Very good lather that reminds me a lot of the La Toja stick. Remember guys, this is the old, discontinued Stearate based formula - NOT the current Palmate based refill stock. Performance is very good and I get really nice shaves from it. Perhaps a touch less protection than DR Harris, but slickness and overall shave quality, as well as post-shave feel are about even between the two. The scent is top notch...a nice deep Lavender with real EO and some other elements...not the muted Lavender cologne of DRH or the cologne-y Lavender that you get with the T&H/Vintage Blades/Cyril Salter. This is a truly excellent soap, IMHO

 

[cvac]

Pics:

1) Loaded Omega boar

2) Palm lather

3) Palm Lather after 1 minute to check lather stability


This soap is pretty much identical to the T&H and Vintage Blades in terms of scent and functionality. I detect no appreciable difference in the scent...it's the same lavender cologne scent you get with those soaps. The lather is also awfu, just like those other two pucks and the recent puck of Trumpers I tested out. Disappearing lather syndrome all the way, despite loading heavily for over three minutes with a boar brush. If the ingredients are different than T&H and Vintage Blades, it doesn't matter because you get the same end result.

One interesting thing is that this soap may be a different formula than what some members may have bought awhile ago. In the pics on some webshops, they are showing a light blue puck...the puck I got from WCS is white. No idea if a formula change happened with the color change but this is what I got in my recent order and it's garbage.

 

[cvac]

So I thought I'd try the Salter soap with my 2XL. Here you go...

Pics:

1) Loaded 2XL

2) Palm Lather

3) Palm lather after 1 minute to check stability


Nope, didn't do the trick. The palm lather actually doesn't look too bad...used a little more water and more aggressively lathering on the palm...still no dice. No stability at all. Folks, I'm sorry to say that there is a significant contingent of English soaps that simply don't perform the function they are supposedly designed for. T&H, Vintage Blades, Trumper's, and Cyril Salter are all disgraceful.

Again, if you doubt my ability to make lather go look at the pics of the two DRH test lathers, the two TOBS lathers, and the Plisson pics I posted. I also posted other threads with test lathers of a 70-80 year old vintage shave soap and AOS Sandalwood shave soaps.

For those that are following this thread, this comparison is not over yet since I still have to shave with the functional shave soaps a few more times before posting my final impressions.

I will be going on a business trip soon and will be using shave sticks for a few days. I will resume shaving with these soaps (except the duds) in rotation and updating this thread once I get back.

 

[Toddy]

I always get good results with the Cyril Salter lavender shaving soap, though the scent is quite sharp and herby for some peoples tastes.

Our water is quite good for soap and the only soaps I have tried and canot get a decent lather from under any circumstances are Penhaligons BB (new type) and the Erasmic bowl (glycerine). Tabac lathers up like meringue in no time at all! Some others take a little more work.

 

[Cuttingboard]

I had the some result with Trumpers Rose...threw it in the trash after several attempts. I've been curious about Plisson since I bought the Joris/Plisson Thuja wood bowl that contains a puck of Plisson soap.

Very good reviews...thanks!!

 

[Toddy]

Maybe a bad batch - I recently got a Trumpers Rose and it whips up no problem at all.

 

[cvac]

Sounds like we have two different salter soaps between us. I would not call my puck sharp in terms of scent.

I always get good results with the Cyril Salter lavender shaving soap, though the scent is quite sharp and herby for some peoples tastes.

Our water is quite good for soap and the only soaps I have tried and canot get a decent lather from under any circumstances are Penhaligons BB (new type) and the Erasmic bowl (glycerine). Tabac lathers up like meringue in no time at all! Some others take a little more work.

 

[Toddy]

Not used Salter soap for a while but mine was very pungent, slightly bitter herbal scent with lavender and I reckon sage and rosemary. Lathered up a treat but I'm not sure about the scent as it reminds me a bit of commercial floor cleaner. I have a new, unused puck I will put in the trade section soon.

 

[cvac]

There is definitely something fishy going on with Trumper's and some of the other UK-made triple milled soaps, because there are some dud pucks/lots out there. This bowl with the puck came direct from GFT as a replacement for the dud puck I purchased from a U.S. Vendor. As you can see, this puck works fine, just like puck with bowl I had about 3-4 years ago. The lot number on this is different from my dud puck, but I have no idea when it was manufactured. If anyone can shed light on this I'd appreciate. Both the vendor and the manufacturer are going to get an email about this. I really hope GFT fixes up the quality control of their shave soap and the vendor manages to get some replacement stock.

Pics:

1) loaded brush

2) palm lather

3) palm lather after 1 minute to check lather stability

4) Box with ingredients and lot number (092383 & 17508)

 

[tkto13]

There is definitely something fishy going on with Trumper's and some of the other UK-made triple milled soaps, because there are some dud pucks/lots out there. This bowl with the puck came direct from GFT as a replacement for the dud puck I purchased from a U.S. Vendor. As you can see, this puck works fine, just like puck with bowl I had about 3-4 years ago. The lot number on this is different from my dud puck, but I have no idea when it was manufactured. If anyone can shed light on this I'd appreciate. Both the vendor and the manufacturer are going to get an email about this. I really hope GFT fixes up the quality control of their shave soap and the vendor manages to get some replacement stock.

Interesting - my first soap (GFT Sandalwood) was purchases from a Toronto bricks and mortar retailer. The performance was horrible. I never purchased a GFT product afterwards.

 

[cvac]

Interesting - my first soap (GFT Sandalwood) was purchases from a Toronto bricks and mortar retailer. The performance was horrible. I never purchased a GFT product afterwards.

When was this and do you still have the packaging that shows the lot number?

 

[Cuttingboard]

Agree, something going on with Trumper's, mine was a dud and I gave it to my wife to shave her legs.

 

[djh]

Thanks for all of your work here. This is a great thread!

 

[oversaturn]

And I got pretty much the same results I had this morning. Disappearing lather, nothing shaveworthy. Whatever has been done to the current formula of T&H shaving soap has rendered it absolutely useless for shaving. It is frankly mind boggling that a company with such high standards would allow such a poor product to come to the market with their name. Sorry guys, but this is garbage, and I simply cannot recommend it in good conscience. Due to the poor performance of this soap in the testing phase, I will not be shaving with it again.

Pics below.The first is the loaded brush. The second is after palm-lathering the loaded brush. The third is after letting the soap sit lathered in my palm for 60 seconds.

Couldn't agree more. My experience with the T&H soap is also a bad one. I bought a puck at the T&H shop in St. James St., when I went to London.
Horrid stuff. Couldn't get a good lather out of it. Only a mess of tiny, unstable bubbles.

 

[tkto13]

When was this and do you still have the packaging that shows the lot number?

Lot numbers are 095384 and 30010. The soap was purchased on December 29th, 2010.

I tried lathering it with a boar and badger just now to make sure I wasn't mistaken. I was NOT! Horrible stuff. In the words of Garry Vaynerchuk: "Hello Casper the not so friendly ghost!"