What's new

What are your favorite classic soaps?

Dear gents in this forum,
To be honest, I am tired of using artisan soaps some of which are not shaving soaps but fatty soaps essentially.
In my limited experiences, classic soaps are much stable.
I am content with some classic soaps now.
Hard: Tabac, Arko, SV, MdC, PdP, Valobra, DR Harris
Stick: La Toja, Arko, Palmolive
Soft: Cella, Vitos, Proraso, Lea

Do I miss any ones which are legendary?
I appreciate your opinions very much.
 

EclipseRedRing

I smell like a Christmas pudding
I would consider Mitchell's Wool Fat which I find superb but I understand that some find it difficult to lather. It is also fairly easy to obtain NOS Shulton Old Spice on auction sites and sometimes Yardley both of which work well for me.
 
I prefer classic triple milled soaps over artisan soaps.

In my rotation of roughly 60 soaps, around half are triple milled.

I understand "classic" doesn't necessarily mean triple milled but to me, I consider hard soaps like MWF, DRHarris, Speick, SV , valobra etc to be the classics.
 
Considering your choices, I'm surprised you did not include Williams, which is as classic as they come.

Pinaud has two: Clubman shaving soap and Clubman shave butter (cream).

Classic staples from the British Isles include Erasmic (soap/cream/stick) and Ingram (menthol-cream).
British barbershop mainstays (with extensive lines of soaps and creams): Taylor of Bond Street, Trufitt & Hill, and Geo. F. Trumper.
Brush-maker Simpsons has a fine line of jarred creams, and Kent has a renowned soap.
Traditional fragrance houses such as Floris, Czech & Speake, Castle Forbes, and Penhaligon all offer superb soaps and/or creams. Although they tend to be rather dear, it doesn't seem prohibitive, considering some of your choices.

Portugal has some great offerings such as Musgo Real (soaps/creams), Lavanda (cream), Confiança: O Melhor and Top Secret Lanolizado (creams), and Antiga Barbearia de Bairro: Principe Real and Ribeira Porto (creams).

Germany: Klar Seifen (soaps), Speick and Mühle (brush-maker) soaps/creams/sticks.

Austria: Haslingers and Gold Dachs (soaps).

These are all traditional barbering requisites, from soap-makers or fragrance houses, some going back generations (though most with modern scent offerings), but none of which I should consider "artisanal" or "boutique."
Most are legendary, and all are household names, at least in their home countries
 
Undoubtedly.

In my den true classics are: La Toja, Musgo Real and D.R. Harris.

New soaps that I like to consider as classics as well are: Captain Fawcett's and Mogno.

Hi @Marco,
I misunderstood Marco's Method before and always wondered why so many gents praised it a lot.
Now, Marco's Method creates fantastic lather for me.
Never fails..
I cannot appreciate you enough.
 
For me the Valobra in the round blue containers tick all the boxes. I even like the clay like tallow scent they have. Also, ADP and SMN croaps. The Italians sure know how to make fantastic shave products 👏🏻 that goes for software AND hardware.

I thought I was the only one that enjoyed that clay smell in valobra and tallow AOS soaps.

I still have an unscented tallow AOS soap so the entire scent is the clay smell. I love it!!
 
Probably but he’s been around for a while and doesn’t turn out the usual fatty artisan mush. It’s a decently hard soap and he must be getting close to achieving classic status now.

Almost 10 years of making great soaps. He's at least a modern classic.
 
Top Bottom