What's new

Where is the Tallow?!

Thanks for the heads up. I can confirm that the sticks I received last week, and the stick refills received today, are the tallow version. I don't know about the pucks and the bowl - I thought the sticks were a safer bet. I can always cut/grate them into a bowl if I don't use them as a stick.

They claim to have tallow pucks in stock but nothing wrong with playing it safe.

FragranceX and BeautyWays both have tallow pucks in ceramic bowls.
 
I just grated three sticks of La Toja into my empty Tabac ceramic bowl; now I have a quality mug soap that performs really well in my hard water. It makes a very slick lather with little product used.
Amazing soap!
I bought twenty of them... only cost me £1.50 per stick.
 
I mostly think is that Tabacs beard softening properties in this vegan formula... Less thirsty is not the best signs
I shave after a shower, so the softening properties aren’t as important to me. It has plenty of glide like the other. The other isn’t as yoghurt-like as the tallow one, but I still like it.
 

Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
I shave after a shower, so the softening properties aren’t as important to me. It has plenty of glide like the other. The other isn’t as yoghurt-like as the tallow one, but I still like it.

That’s a good summary Sam, and consistent with my experience with both. The lather feels different with the new one, but it’s still a good soap.
 
I still have two unopened tabac refills (non vegan version, never thought that vegan people would eat soap), should last for a long time. After that will look for another tallow soap (probably Arko).
 
I still have two unopened tabac refills (non vegan version, never thought that vegan people would eat soap), should last for a long time. After that will look for another tallow soap (probably Arko).
I think this will happen for ARKO too, sooner or later: Turkish soap-maker Evyap breaks with tradition in Malaysia - https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Turkish-soap-maker-Evyap-breaks-with-tradition-in-Malaysia

Animal fats have been used for centuries in the production of oleochemicals for food and energy. Since the 1980s, though, palm oil emerged as an alternative.

"It is much cheaper," Vice President Martin Rudolph said on March 23 during a media tour of the 225,000-sq.-meter factory in Tanjung Langsat, Johor, bordering Singapore.
 

Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
There are plenty of tallow alternatives if tallow is a requirement, D. R. Harris for example in a variety of scents, and the refill pucks are priced about rhe same as Tabac refills. MWF. If you want something more economical, Cyril Salter hard soap is tallow, lavender scent, and sells for about $7 US and cheaper across the pond.
 

FarmerTan

"Self appointed king of Arkoland"
Outstanding stuff IMO. I have a tin of the Tobacco (Formula T) and it performs as well as original Tabac. I'll be buying more.

Would really like to try Stirling one of these days.
How is the scent of Formula T friend? I'm so shtoopid I had no idea it was like Tabac!
 
How is the scent of Formula T friend? I'm so shtoopid I had no idea it was like Tabac!
Sorry. I should clarify. WSP's Formula T is their tallow based series of soap. There's a variety of scents.

Performance wise, their Formula T tallow soaps are on par with Tabac and many other expensive soaps.

Their Tobacco scent is nothing like Tabac however.
 
I don’t think cost is the issue here. Vegan Tabac is not cheaper the real thing. Many soap makers have both vegan and non vegan version. Unsure why tabac can’t have both.
It's very simple: Mäurer & Wirtz, the producer of Tabac Original, received their supply of tallowate soap base from a company called Dreiringwerk in Krefeld (in the Lower Rhine area). That company went insolvent two years ago and, after an abortive attempt to save it, was finally shut down in June last year. Since alternative suppliers of tallowate soap base were not available, M & W had to reformulate their soap. Practically all users in German wet shaving fora agree that hardly any differences between the old tallowate and the new tallowate-free version could be made out.

I'm not a vegan, not even a vegetarian, it's just that my skin doesn't agree with tallowate soaps. Those soaps dry out my skin and leave it feeling parched and dehydrated. I'm therefore quite happy with the reformulated Tabac Original shaving soap and prefer not only its significantly better skin compatibility, but also its less obtrusive, less powdry and somewhat fresher fragrance. The lather smells a lot less like the inside of an old handbag, as the old version did. In terms of performance, I can't say that the old and the new version are much apart. The new version is a little less thirsty, but the lather is still rich and slick and provides a very good glide.
 
It occurs to me that variance in water hardness will have a significant impact on soap performance. I live in London and the water here is quite hard which means some soaps are tricky to lather and some lather well but don't perform well.

In the case of Tabac I never had any issues with the old formulation. Whipping up a glorious lather was dead easy and performance was great. However, I tended to get a bit of heat/tingle on my skin with this soap. In the case of the new version, I no longer get the heat/tingle and it lathers great but performance is only average.

It would be interesting to evaluate the performance of the new version in a soft water area.
 
Top Bottom