Tallow and Steel Review

If anyone's interested, I posted my first impressions of Dark and Rainforest today. I really look forward to giving them both a proper workout over the next couple of days! The scents are awesome.

USPS operates at a loss for years. It's subjective whether we're paying for it out of the other taxes we pay.

The US is for the most part much more densely populated than Canada. The numbers are substantial. The infrastructure for the mail is a little different. I know that you can see sparsely populated areas in parts of the US, but not to the wide extent that many parts of Canada are.

The prices are ghastly to ship into Canada. I didn't realize that they were also very high inside Canada as well.



http://rossmannellcomments.edublogs.org/...and-u-s-a/

All this talk about Canadian postal costs being so high because we're spread out all over a vast area is a bit of a red herring. Something like 90% of Canadians live within 200 miles of the Canada / US border so if you were to calculate based on that reality we're a lot more densely clustered than you think. No disrespect to any Canadians living in more northerly areas but most of the vast area of Canada is not only uninhabited but actually uninhabitable! You can't live in/on muskeg - you can't live there, you can't grow crops or graze livestock on it so what use is it really?

The postal costs are high because Canada Post is a woefully inefficient crown/former crown corporation overstaffed at senior levels with political cronies being paid outrageously high salaries. DB pensions you say?! The private sector phased those out decades ago, not so in the public sector. Greed and corruption go hand in hand and the customer/taxpayer pays the freight.

...and part two of three, my review of Dark by Tallow + Steel

...Finally, part three of three, my review of Rainforest by Tallow + Steel

Picked up some Tallow & Steel Rainforest soap, and Classic aftershave. I couldn't resist any longer. For the soap: the scent is very nice, citrus, woodsy EO scent. Lather was very nice, holds a nice amount of water. Got a great shave and am happy with their products so far. The Aftershave Classic has some nice ingredients, feels great on the face, moisturizing. The scent is a nice EO mix and has decent longevity. Look forward to using both many more times in the future. Defenately staying in the den.

I would like to address the pricing concerns.

The companies you speak of no doubt make great products, and of course others can be purchased at a cheaper price point. Aside from the pasture-raised tallow, most of our ingredients are organic, which sometimes costs 2x the price of non-organic. I don't know of any other companies using as many organic ingredients as we do.

When it comes to scent, our scents are very complex, and so far we use 100% essential oils and resins, where most others use fragrance oils in place of the expensive natural oils. Take a look at Rainforest - there are 9 different Essential Oils, some of them quite exotic. Google the price of Oakmoss Absolute, and you will see why most companies decide to use Fragrance Oils in place of the EO. We don't. While I'm sure it's a great product, you can't compare the price point of a Mystic Waters soap which is scented with moslty fragrance oils to a soap like Rainforest.

These are premium products, and the price point won't be for everyone. Our costs per soap are much higher than probably any other artisan. All of the reviews so far have been extremely positive, and many have claimed that T+S are the best preforming soaps they have ever used. Our products have been selling well and we are now in 3 online stores. As volume continues to increase and we can buy in bigger volumes, we hope to be able to cut prices.

Edit:
We also offer the collections which allows customers to save when buying the matching AS - these have proved very popular. Lastly, we donate $1 from every sale to Wounded Warriors which is a cause that we are very passionate about.

Thanks.

Ryan

The other thing that Ryan didn't mention is that these are one of the harder artisan soaps. As a result of this I suspect a tub might last a bit longer than many others (that are on the softer side), bringing the cost per shave down a bit.

Just arrived Rainforest,   scent is oustanding ,  can't wait to try soon

I wish I hadn't read these reviews. Now I need to order some. Nice job.

T+S is in my top 5. Favorite scents - Rainforest and Grog.