What is your opinion on fine shaving creams and hard soaps? Do you like Trumpers, Coates, Taylors, Truefitt & Hill? Post your reviews and opinions here!
This soap came with my Feather AC DX from Classic (they are the only ones that seem to carry it). I've wanted to try it for a while as I enjoy the other Taylor soaps. The scent is a dead ringer for T&H Luxury, which is interesting. It seems these whole line of "luxury scuttle soaps" all smell the same. Gordon mentioned the Officer's and Gentlemen's soap from Trumpers also has a similar scent.
I also present to you the ingredients to peruse:
Interesting. Identical.
The only thing is, the Taylor Luxury soap burned my skin like 1000 suns, while the T&H has never given me any trouble at all. The Taylor Sandalwood soap I shaved with yesterday was also trouble free. I've been known to have "bad days" when it comes to certain soaps, so I'll have to try it again, just not right away.
Richard, Good show! So this stuff does indeed smell like the T&H shave soap, as I suspected ( and, therefore, pretty much like the Trumpers O&G soap as well ). Very strange that it should bother your skin when neither the T&H nor the other Taylors soaps do. Well, let's await another useage or two and see what happens. I just checked the ingrediants of the O&G soap ( saved the box because I thought this might come up ), and it is a bit different; a more complex formula. None the less, it most definately does smell very like the T&H. Then there's that Vulfix soap that that chap reported on recently, which sounded as if it had a similiar scent also, although it didn't sound like it lathered quite as well as the Truefitt's or the O&G. Interesting little buggers, these English scuttle soaps.
Regards,
Gordon
Last edited by bernards66 on Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Gordon, I've seen those Vulfix soaps and they look like they come out of the exact same mold as this Taylors. They all have that little dimple on the flat side. I don't know if that is there for a reason (some arcane scuttle-thing), or they are all just the same. I do find it interesting that the ingredients and the scent of the two listed above are identical.
I think Yukio asked if Creighton's makes all the creams, who makes the soaps? It certainly looks (and smells) like they come from the same batch.
Wow, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.
These must be the same soaps made by one company and packaged differently.
This is all I need, to buy another soap to compare to the T&H.
If the scents are identical and one isn't more powerful than the other, then I wonder why it would burn.
I think I'm going to have to start giving out shaving supplies as birthday and Christmas gifts to my male relatives to reduce my inventory.
Bruno
"Shhhhhaving cream, be nice and clean
shave every day and you'll always look keen."
Bruno and Gordon, if this soap(s) have lavender EO in them it would explain my difficulty. I have been having an on-again off-again relationship with lavender EO lately. Some days I am fine with lavender EO soaps/creams, other days they tingle or burn (Harris Lavender soap, Taylor Lavender). Although I've never had a problem with T&H, but I don't use it all that often.
Richard, Well, that's certainly one possibility, as lavender is clearly one of the main scent notes in all these that we're discussing. I'll be interested to hear if you have the same problem the next couple of times that you use the Taylors Traditional. As I mentioned, although the Trumpers O&G soap shares this classic scent with the other two, the ingrediants list is different. It is true that Creightons does the actually compounding and packaging of most of the premium English creams, but not all of them. And the soaps? Ah!.....that one is most mysterious. The very few who know won't tell...I and a couple of others HAVE tried, believe me. There is an area of England that contains more then one smallish quality soap making firms. I forget which area, but I can find out. In any case, everyone who might actually know seems very close mouthed about the subject. FWIW, I, personally do not think that all the high end English shave soaps are made by the same company. They may be, but I doubt it. It's interesting that even the spiffy old French firm of Joris, when they wanted a shave soap, they went to an English maker to get it. Chris Fisher and I have speculated that maybe the Trumper soaps are made by Bronnley, but this is just a guess, mind you. It's a good mystery to poke into, as I know you too enjoy such shavegeek 'who done its'.
Regards,
Gordon
Very interesting Gordon. I do enjoy a good mystery, but this one seems like a tough nut to crack.
I threw out my other Taylor soap boxes so I cannot compare the ingredients, I will try to poke around the 'net though and find the ingredients. I suspect they are different.
No doubt about it, the T&H and Taylor Luxury are the same. Right down to the last ingredient.
bernards66 wrote:Then there's that Vulfix soap that that chap reported on recently, which sounded as if it had a similiar scent also, although it didn't sound like it lathered quite as well as the Truefitt's or the O&G. Interesting little buggers, these English scuttle soaps.
Regards,
Gordon
As "that chap" that recently reported on the Vulfix soap, I would like to reiterate that I don't believe the Vulfix and T&H soaps are the same. Upon further investigation (i.e., surfing the Web and seeing some shave products such as large and small pewter soap dishes offered by TOBS as well as pictures of the Traditional TOBS soaps in 57g and 100g sizes that look identical to the comparable Vulfix products), I really believe the Vulfix soaps are rebranded TOBS soaps, just as the gentleman in that prior thread suspected, but at a more favorable price.
Basil, Very likely, although I think, more accurately, they are probably the same soap, sourced from whoever actually makes them. I'm quite certain that Taylors don't manufacture their own hard soaps. If you buy it with the 'Taylor' name on it, you pay a bit more, just like a Vulfix made brush, with the 'Taylor' name costs more then if it has a less prestigious logo on the handle. If it is not the same soap as the T&H, as you believe, then that would explain why Richard had a reaction to one, but not the other.
Regards,
Gordon
I shaved earlier this evening with the very similar to the point of being identical T&H Luxury and had the normal fantastic-level shave I usually get from this soap. I just lathered up just now with the Taylor Luxury Soap, let it sit for a minute (started to feel the tingle), and rinsed off. As soon as I started to rinse the lather off, the burn! Ohhhh the burn! The things I do for research. The pain and agony I subject my face to. Ow! OW! OW! The last time I got burned this bad was back with Classic's Vanilla soap.
Long story short, this is not the same soap despite the identical ingredients and scent.
If anyone has the ingredients list for the lavender and sandalwood soap, I would appreciate you listing them. I don't seem to have any troubles with those soaps, interestingly enough.
Richard, This stuff IS interesting, and damn weird at times. Like this one, for example. One would not think that there could be that much difference between those two soaps, given the ingrediants lists, the scents, even the purveyors....and yet, for you, there is a hugh difference, when the deal goes down. I had/have a few like that also ( not the 'burning' sensation you got, but annoying enough visually ), wereby it would seem that there would be no problemo and yet there was. In truth, the main reason that I haven't tried Taylors soaps in years, is because when I did, both their Lavender and their Sandalwood caused considerable visual irritation. But, I kept thinking, "..c'mon! How different can these be from Trumpers?!...", and yet, for my skin, they clearly were. And then there are those lucky guys who seem to be able to use almost any product with no kind of reaction or problem. Strange business.
Regards,
Gordon
Richard, There's a further possible twist too. As far as I can recall, no one has chimed in about the T&H scuttle soap. We're just kind of assuming that it is the same as their larger one, but that plainly isn't the case with the Taylor versions. The small T&H soap might irritate your skin also, for all we know, and actually be the same as the Taylors.
Regards,
Gordon
bernards66 wrote:Basil, Very likely, although I think, more accurately, they are probably the same soap, sourced from whoever actually makes them. I'm quite certain that Taylors don't manufacture their own hard soaps. If you buy it with the 'Taylor' name on it, you pay a bit more, just like a Vulfix made brush, with the 'Taylor' name costs more then if it has a less prestigious logo on the handle. If it is not the same soap as the T&H, as you believe, then that would explain why Richard had a reaction to one, but not the other.
Regards,
Gordon
Gordon,
I agree that TOBS almost certainly doesn't manufacture its own soaps, but I would think that they formulate them, much as they formulate their creams and have Creightons manufacture them. If so, then they would probably just allow Vulfix (via a license) to sell that formulation soap under Vulfix's name. Yeah, I know, splitting hairs, but that is what geeks do.
BTW, I picked up a few of the Vulfix 100 g soaps and will gladly send you a review sample, though given your prior problems with TOBS soaps, I would understand your hesitancy. Send a PM if interested.
Basil, That is very kind of you, let me mull it over, and get back with you via PM. Well, I hear you, but it's hard to say about the soaps. You're probably right about most of them, but I wonder about these little fellas. Something tells me that there might be a generic more up market small white shave soap made by somebody, that some of these firms just buy as is. As we've discussed though, the hard soap business, and who actually makes them, is much murkier then the cream situation, and much harder to find out anything about. Either way though, it does seem pretty clear that the Taylors one is different then the 100g T&H soap, but we've yet to hear anyone on the subject of the 57g Truefitt scuttle soaps. Wait a minute! Dominic has one, I just remembered. But I don't think he's used any of the others, so he couldn't compare. Drat! Well, I'll talk to him about it, as he is a fellow denizen here in the Swamp.
Regards,
Gordon
