Bufflehead

I'm done with artisan that only communicate via social media, constantly due to financial reasons make too small batches and almost randomly and sporadically replies to emails.

Over and out.

Too many other GREAT soap, brush and razor makers out there, that knows what good customers service is, for me to waste my time pulling the non existent hairs out from my shaved dome to bother with amateurs and borderline troll artisans.

That is unfortunate.

I am extremely fortunate that my favourite soap artisan never seems to run out of products in the past five years that I have been ordering from her.

ROFL  I have seen her display at a fair.

celestino  no worries, I believe she will NEVER run out of soap

Thanks for all of your feedback.

Bufflehead is a hobby of mine and a labor of love. It started as my own quest to make a soap to my specific preferences and branched out from there. Money has never been the reason for it all.

I still continue to be completely humbled by the demand for Bufflehead. The community pressure to make it widely available is immense (from members and vendors alike). It's probably more than I'll ever be able to satisfy - which is something that almost drove me from making soap all together. This isn't a full time operation. Hell, it isn't even a part time operation. It's just me and on rare occasion, my wife. I work a full time job that requires me to travel roughly 2 weeks a month. We have a 5 month old daughter (our first). It's been a difficult journey to say the least.

While the amount of soap produced at one time has increased, Bufflehead remains truly small batch. Currently they're roughly 50 soaps each (the most recent batch of Fletcher was actually more than that as some went to MenEssentials in Canada). That is far less than current demand which has put me in quite the predicament. The law of S&D would dictate that I raise prices, but that's never been what this is about. Instead, I'm literally trying to minimize demand. I do zero marketing. I turn down offers for reviews regularly. I limit batch release announcements to 24 hours before hand. I don't sell samples (and eliminated the sample containers with each order). It's completely counter to anything and everything you'd do to build a business.

And contrary to popular belief, I actually do want you to try Bufflehead. I put a lot of myself into it. And when the experience isn't a positive one, I take it personally. But, I'm not asking you to sit at your computer in hopes that you get a tin. I'm flattered and slightly embarrassed that it's even come to that. There are many great soaps out there with more coming every day.

Around March, 2016 I heard good things about bufflehead soap. Couldn't find it anywhere but read the artisan was having a child, wait until the summer. OK. That works.

I checked semi-regularly on the website only to find nothing not the website. It turns out announcements are made on "social media". So I missed out in July for the first scent. OK, fine. My bad. I don't do social media but since July I checked Every day.

On 9/20 I do my daily checking and see some will be released 9/21 at 8PM CST. Finally.

I patiently wait until 8 PM CST but only had my phone with me. Exactly at 8 PM I see soap is available. And i started typing in my info. Made one typo (hard to use a phone for anything) and hit submit.

Sold out. What? I look at the clock at its 8:09 PM and sold out.

The next day I check my email and lo and behold, I have an email from Bufflehead telling me my cart is waiting to check out - go finish. Now I know companies routinely do this. If you leave something in  your cart, they want you to buy so they "remind" you to go back and and finish your order. So I go back and, of course, it says ... sold out.

Here's a suggestion

1. Do not just announce stuff only on "social media", put it on your website.

2. Tell the consumers how much product you will be selling. If its like a batch of 60, I will know not to waste my time checking everyday nor trying to order when it sells out in 8 minutes.

Yes, Im not happy but such is life. It would just be nice to know if it was worth the effort to try and without an inventory count, its not.

I migrated to a new web host that will allow you to join an e-mail list. You can sign up by hitting the 'Follow' button in the top right hand corner. It will be used going forward for restocks.

I apologize for the abandoned cart e-mail. That was auto-generated via the storefront host and it is not something I am able to turn off.

Unfortunately, I can't display the stock counts via the web template (nor am I proficient enough at coding to know if it's even possible). It's something I'd like to incorporate in the future. Batch sizes are usually around 50 tins of soap.

I'm done with artisan that only communicate via social media, constantly due to financial reasons make too small batches and almost randomly and sporadically replies to emails.

Over and out.

Too many other GREAT soap, brush and razor makers out there, that knows what good customers service is, for me to waste my time pulling the non existent hairs out from my shaved dome to bother with amateurs and borderline troll artisans.

This may not be directed at me, but I respond to every message personally and generally within 48 hours or less.

That is unfortunate.

I am extremely fortunate that my favourite soap artisan never seems to run out of products in the past five years that I have been ordering from her.

As a recent convert to 'Mysticism', I am glad too!!

@j-mt I'm glad you responded. A couple of things.

First, I did "follow me" back in July. Obviously that didn't work. That was Tictail or something like that.

Second, now that you say you do 50 tins, well thats a pittance of stock. Sure you could bump up price at the risk of irritating fans but at $5.71/oz, you're already up near Castle Forbes range pushing into Klar range. Go any higher and you'll be moving up to C&S range and that expensive company. Of course, that's up to you.

Third, what's the point of wholesaling to a CA vendor? Many of their soaps are constantly out of stock.

In any case, good luck with your hobby. Obviously you could sell a lot more if you wanted too. I wish you well with your new baby.

@j-mt I'm glad you responded. A couple of things.

First, I did "follow me" back in July. Obviously that didn't work. That was Tictail or something like that.

Second, now that you say you do 50 tins, well thats a pittance of stock. Sure you could bump up price at the risk of irritating fans but at $5.71/oz, you're already up near Castle Forbes range pushing into Klar range. Go any higher and you'll be moving up to C&S range and that expensive company. Of course, that's up to you.

Third, what's the point of wholesaling to a CA vendor? Many of their soaps are constantly out of stock.

In any case, good luck with your hobby. Obviously you could sell a lot more if you wanted too. I wish you well with your new baby.

I haven't used the e-mail function with the sign up because when I looked into it initially, it seemed to be more pointed towards sale/discount spam e-mailing (reoccurring promotions, etc). I looked back into it based on your feedback and I think I've found away to make it work with re-stock announcements. You'll have to give me some feedback when the next batch is available as to how it comes across (if you don't mind).

The original batch size was about 12! Increasing the size of the batches isn't off the table, but it's not something I can do at the moment.

I am not equipped currently to ship individual orders outside of the US. So, I wholesale soaps to MenEssentials when I can in order to give our Canadian brothers an opportunity to have some. I have no doubt I could sell those soaps through my own store and without the wholesale cut, but that's not the point. I make the soap for the community.

Thanks for the well wishes.

I've been interested in trying your soaps as well, but I won't mess with it until your stock is more abundant.

good luck!

Guys, I hope I'm not the only lurker troubled by this thread.

Bufflehead is a passion project, not a full time business. Hell, it's not even a part time business - it's a hobby, as stated by j-mt. With this type of feedback, it's a wonder that he continues to make his soap publicly available at all.

Take a step back and ask yourself - what is it you feel that j-mt owes you? That's the implicit subtext of this rancor is that you are OWED something. Sorry to burst that bubble, but j-mt owes you nothing. You are entitled to nothing. Frankly, with a full-time job, a wife, and a newborn, the community is lucky that he takes the time to make soap available to the general public. He could easily collect 50-100 email addresses from people that don't give him grief and distribute his soap privately and his hobby business would not suffer in the slightest.

To all of the folks that feel the need to publicly complain about j-mt's inability to meet demand, I ask you - what have you contributed to the wetshaving community? Where is your soap? Your razor? Your brush? Do you have any idea what it takes to create something excellent? Great products that people want to buy don’t just happen, they are the result of a lot of work, time, and headache. If you think that adding to that headache makes anyone more likely to produce more of their work/art then you are mistaken.

Do you think that the world would have been better if Van Gogh had never set brush to canvas solely because his work never comes to a museum near you? Or because tickets to the exhibition sold out before you could get one? Would you rather that any of your favorite artists had never created anything solely because YOU did not get to experience it?

Seriously. The hard work of artisans like j-mt is what makes wet shaving great. Just because YOU miss out doesn’t mean that the community is poorer. Frankly, the community is poorer because threads like this exist.

Ever see that show Bridezillas? We can all laugh or cringe at how ridiculous it is and the fits that the brides pitch, but how is that different than what is happening here? The difference is in severity, not kind.

To sum up: You are owed nothing by any artisan. You have earned nothing. If you haven’t created something meaningful to contribute to the community then you do not understand the back-end headaches/frustrations that go along with having a successful product. J-mt doesn’t need the money from Bufflehead, he makes it because he loves producing excellent soap. Why would you (either intentionally or not) try to dissuade him from continuing to do it solely because YOU can’t get your hands on it? Would you trade an irreplaceable moment with your child for one more $20 soap sale? Would you put your job at risk to make a few extra bucks? Would you put your life on hold to try to appease childishly selfish internet strangers?

No? Then don’t ask the same of others.