What's the deal on "artisan" Shaving Creams?

kwsher Yes.  People are greatly influenced by what they read and see people using on forums.

Understand they are influenced. I am too as I discover new things or gain awareness of different things via the community.

My question is: do people think soap is cool and cream is not? Never heard or seen anything that leads me to believe the case in the Great Cream Conspiracy of '16.

Wasn't aware that creams were bashed for performance either- mine all seem to work just fine. Almost enough to make me go on a cream binge to see if sales go up!

I'm not sure I'm getting how the definition of cream is being used here then. To me, the canned "cream" is a shaving foam so maybe I'm not using the terms the same. My understanding is that a cream IS a soap just a very soft soap but so is soft soap or liquid soap, it's not the form that matters but the ingredients and processing (i.e. saponification) . A cream is normally defined as a viscous liquid or very soft solid. Not trying to argue here but I don't know if we always use the words the same so there might be some confusion.

Yeah, there are two or three different terms being used when people talk about "creams."

The first is a soft soap (very soft in many cases.) Chemically, this is no different than regular soaps save for the water content and maybe superfatting levels of particular ingredients. QCS "cream" is an example of this.

The second is true "creams." Chemically, these start in similar ways to soaps, but undergo a rot process that makes it ultimately a very different product. These true "creams" are very uncommon in our artisan world. Baume.be, Al's, Ginger's Garden, Stone Cottage and a very few others have these products.

The third one is really a canned foam. It doesn't resemble the above two very much, and relies on chelating agents, propellants and surfectants to work. This is where Barbasol and such products fit.

I'm going to guess there's a couple of reasons for the emphasis on soaps in puck form rather than cream soaps.  The most common entry level for soapmaking is cold or hot process soapmaking.  People learn from online sources, or from a book, or through classes offered by an experienced soapmaker in their community.  But liquid soaps, cream soaps and glycerin soaps (the kind made from scratch, not pre-made mp bases) follow different procedures; in my mind they are specialty products that you branch into, not start out with. It doesn't mean that they are harder to make, but my impression is that it's more common to start with bar soap.

Cream soap is a particular type of hot process soap that uses both sodium and potassium hydroxide, extra glycerin and stearic acid, but it needs a very long resting phase that can last months before it's ready to use, and that's a long time to wait to see if you've got a winner or not.  It also needs a preservative, which not everyone wants in their soap.  As for special equipment, you need a crockpot to cook it in, and phenolphthalein to test to see it it's done, and the usual oils and lyes needed to make the soap.  

One advantage I can think of in offering a cream soap option (for the soapmaker) is that once you have a good recipe you can make a lot of it and custom scent small amounts as needed.  But time spent experimenting on a product that you don't know if it will sell, is time taken away from running your business or making products that are in demand immediately.

Thanks Mystic Water for the reply. This makes a lot of sense and appreciate your perspective as an artisan.

I use both nuavia and xpec. I believe nuavia is listed as a soap and xpec is listed as a cream. Both are hard enough to load from the tub and xpec is surely not soft like a traditional " soft cream". So, what is the difference between them?

Yeah, there are two or three different terms being used when people talk about "creams."

The first is a soft soap (very soft in many cases.) Chemically, this is no different than regular soaps save for the water content and maybe superfatting levels of particular ingredients. QCS "cream" is an example of this.

The second is true "creams." Chemically, these start in similar ways to soaps, but undergo a rot process that makes it ultimately a very different product. These true "creams" are very uncommon in our artisan world. Baume.be, Al's, Ginger's Garden, Stone Cottage and a very few others have these products.

The third one is really a canned foam. It doesn't resemble the above two very much, and relies on chelating agents, propellants and surfectants to work. This is where Barbasol and such products fit.

Thanks, I get your meaning now and they make sense. I don't like putting the canned foam into the same category as traditional soaps and creams since, outside of steric acid, they contain compounds that aren't found in soaps and are engineered with lubricants such as strong bases for slickness, Ph balancers to neutralize those, propellants to foam and eject the product, and moisturizers to counter the drying properties of the other chemicals. I'm not against engineered products in general but I found that the foams and gels really did a number on my face over the years and soaps and creams leave my face feeling much better.

Is it possible this is a thing? People really make personal buying decisions for soaps based on a cool factor? And creams are uncool?

Absolutely it can be a thing. We humans are influenced a great deal by perceptions of "authority". Edward Bernays, the father of public relations started the idea. This is from 1928. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Propag...rnays.html  "... man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences. ... when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences"

Follow the herd. Everyone else is buying Haslinger? I have to try it. After all, its only $4.50 in bulk. That's the idea.

It's very difficult to manufacture both soaps and creams in the same facility, especially an artisan facility, where space is considerably more limited.

The storage time required for a cream to rot can range from anywhere from 6 months to a year

Cream soap is a particular type of hot process soap that uses both sodium and potassium hydroxide, extra glycerin and stearic acid, but it needs a very long resting phase that can last months before it's ready to use, and that's a long time to wait to see if you've got a winner or not.  

Thank you both. These are technical reasons from  your perspective that makes sense.

6 months for a cream to rot? The EU requires labeling on the packaging of when they will start to go bad. Most of the tubs I've seen say one year. Some creams in tubes say 18 months?

One of the things I love so much about this site, is that we are allowed to hear from the actual people who make and craft the stuff. How unique and awesome is that?


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It's very difficult to manufacture both soaps and creams in the same facility, especially an artisan facility, where space is considerably more limited. The storage time required for a cream to rot can range from anywhere from 6 months to a year, depending on the ingredients and storage conditions, so storing it for that long can become problematic. If you have something especially popular and run out, it's not just a matter of making some more and letting it age for a week or two. It takes months and many people are simply not that patient.

Additionally, the methods for manufacturing shaving creams are far less well known than those for making soap (consider the fact that before LASSSCo. published their tutorial on B&B, there were far, FAR fewer artisan shaving soap manufacturers), so access to information is a heavily limiting factor.

Finally, there's also a lot of truth to the idea that a perception that soaps are better, whether true or not, significantly influences the market. People want soap. They prefer soap. There's an overwhelming idea that soaps uniformly last longer than creams and that their performance is almost always superior, neither of which is true in my experience. It's likely that, as some of the larger soap companies continue to expand, creams will start to become more common, but, for people making it in their kitchens in crockpots, it's probably not worth the time or the effort.

So to put this in beer terms
Cream = Lager
Soap = Ale
?

6 months for a cream to rot? The EU requires labeling on the packaging of when they will start to go bad. Most of the tubs I've seen say one year. Some creams in tubes say 18 months?

I think that's supposed to be a guaranteed time that it will remain "fresh" after opening and anything under 36 months needs to have that label from my understanding although I'm no expert by any stretch on those rules. I've had creams for well over 3 years and haven't had an issue. Storage conditions will make a difference not doubt.