Is it just me?

Remember when one can of cream was enough?  Hahaha. I like to see the marketing efforts of makers. I like simple amd complex both.  I like crowd pleasers and the essoteric.  But if push comes to shove, a lavender, a grapefruit, and a Vetiver/pepper and I’d be just fine.

Anyone just want some simple scents? Seems like there are so many overly complicated scents, that you can't get a feel for what they'll be like by reading the scent notes.

Exactly why I still love Haslinger (tallow) these days. Top performance and straightforward, simple scents. Perfect shave soap.

Expensive doesn't mean quality but I usually compare my shaving products with the food I eat.
Buy less but buy the best
We only have one face and if nearly 50y I find one or more products that make my skin happy and don't force me to use ten creams to soften my face after shaving … I buy them with great pleasure !

I'm a wet shaving hobbyist which doesn't mean using the same traditional products of many years ago .
Principally Because they are not the same good products of years ago … many are reformulated and chemical .
I’m a “modern” wet shavers .

fortunately they are not medicines, there are soaps for €3 and €30, as well as wine in plastic for €4 and €200…
everyone chooses based on their own tastes and possibilities.


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Been suggesting soap makers stop pretending to be perfumers for years. Usually they aren't very good at it and, even when they are, really, it's just soap.

Much as with a home, auto or even clothes: simple yet high quality constituents executed properly with timeless style is best.

Your are absolutely correct that many soap makers lack perfumery skills. That is why we see so many dupe scents. They can purchase a preblended dupe scent of something like Aventus made from cheap fragrance chemicals and add it to their soap. Others make a feeble attempt at creating a fragrance without really knowing what they are doing. They can create simple scents, but blending a complex scent  is beyond their capability.

Then there are the soapmakers who enlist the assistance of skilled perfumers in developing scents. For example, the DFS Horizons soap was a collaboration between Murphy & McNeil and Black Mountain Shaving. The 1st produced the soap; the second produced the scent. The result was a wonderful soap with a wonderful scent that I quite enjoy using and sniffing.

There are a few soapmakers who have developed the skills to produce complex, well blended, perfume quality scents, but there are rare. 

Dan, while you are correct that shaving soap is "just soap",  the reason I have 80 soaps in my current rotation is that a wonderful, perfume quality scent provides much of the enjoyment I get from the shave. I have purchased soaps that can deliver a good shave, but they are no longer in my rotation because the scents were not good enough.

I'm voting in favor of scented soaps—including complex, engaging ones—by buying them in ridiculous numbers.  For me, it's part of the experience, even outside of the act of shaving.  At this moment, there are 11 tubs and 12 sample jars within reach: I'm frequently opening and inhaling these scents, something that may be kind of aromatherapy, maybe just a mini-uplift.  If nothing else, as I'm drinking in the lovely aroma of Mammoth Tobacconist, I'm inhaling deeply, and that is also a good thing.

You know, y'all can order vanilla at Baskin-Robbins without cancelling the other 1399 flavors.

I'm voting in favor of scented soaps—including complex, engaging ones—by buying them in ridiculous numbers.  For me, it's part of the experience, even outside of the act of shaving.  At this moment, there are 11 tubs and 12 sample jars within reach: I'm frequently opening and inhaling these scents, something that may be kind of aromatherapy, maybe just a mini-uplift.  If nothing else, as I'm drinking in the lovely aroma of Mammoth Tobacconist, I'm inhaling deeply, and that is also a good thing.

You know, y'all can order vanilla at Baskin-Robbins without cancelling the other 1399 flavors.

Anyone just want some simple scents? Seems like there are so many overly complicated scents, that you can't get a feel for what they'll be like by reading the scent notes.

Exactly why I still love Haslinger (tallow) these days. Top performance and straightforward, simple scents. Perfect shave soap.

Man i miss their tallow soaps. Daaang daaaaaang. .

Some smart fella needs to pick up where they left off and do their recipe as an artisan release. Would you boys jump in?

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Expensive doesn't mean quality but I usually compare my shaving products with the food I eat.
Buy less but buy the best
We only have one face and if nearly 50y I find one or more products that make my skin happy and don't force me to use ten creams to soften my face after shaving … I buy them with great pleasure !

I'm a wet shaving hobbyist which doesn't mean using the same traditional products of many years ago .
Principally Because they are not the same good products of years ago … many are reformulated and chemical .
I’m a “modern” wet shavers .

fortunately they are not medicines, there are soaps for €3 and €30, as well as wine in plastic for €4 and €200…
everyone chooses based on their own tastes and possibilities.


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk

I don't think that Cella has been reformulated.

I agree with swellcat.  Bring them on, the more the better. Some you like and some you don’t but that’s generally ok. What I don’t like? You knew there had to be something right? Given that we’re buying online without smelling, we put a fair amount of trust in the scent notes and I have no problem, well maybe not no problem but not as much, when you buy a soap and it’s strong and in your face but you just don’t like it. It can happen with any soap maker, but the thing I dislike the most is when the scent notes sound incredible and you just have to have it and it arrives and you open the tub stick your nose in and inhale deeply and…. nothing   a soap so lightly scented it has barely any discernible fragrance. Is it a mistake? Did they forget to blend in the fragrance?? Who knows. Why would I use it? If I want unscented soap I would buy it. I get not being able to identify individual scent notes as things get muddy in a mash up but nothing? Inexcusable as far as I’m concerned. I have a recent release sitting on the counter right now that I was really looking forward to  disappointing.

Remember when one can of cream was enough?  Hahaha. I like to see the marketing efforts of makers. I like simple amd complex both.  I like crowd pleasers and the essoteric.  But if push comes to shove, a lavender, a grapefruit, and a Vetiver/pepper and I’d be just fine.

Never, ever liked shave cream out of a can. Started shaving in the 70's with an Eveready C40 brush, a mug of Old Spice shave soap and one of my dad's TTO double edge razor. No one taught me anything so I cut up my face a lot. Moved to a Schick injector, Noxema face cream and things were better. Very bad decision-moved to a Gillette Twin Trac in the 80's (lots of ingrown hair issues), then on to an electric for decades (miserable shaves, razor burn). Finally, disposable single edge razors, Williams and Surrey shave soap and things got a lot better for maybe a decade, then SR took the place of the disposables.

Back to soap. Once Williams and Surrey (now VDH) became hard to find in drug stores, explored a lot and discovered Cella. Never looked back other than a few ill fated affairs with "artisan" soaps. Surrey/VDH was probably the last soap I could buy in a drug store.