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!
Having a look at Soapworks website reveals a few things. Firstly, they only work with vegetable bases and are also heavily into palm oils for their soap bases.
Soap Bases
We source numerous opaque, translucent and speciality soap bases from around the world, including Sustainable Palm Oil base. All of the soap bases we use are 100% vegetable based
Then there is this:
acquisition of standard soap company’s soap bar assets
Posted on Tuesday 10th of January 2012
Soapworks Ltd is pleased to announce the acquisition of soap making equipment from Standard Soap Company, including specialised production and wrapping machinery as well as soap dies. This acquisition will allow us to increase our product range by introducing premium hand stamping and shaving soap manufacturing to our current portfolio, as well as significantly increasing the range of stock soap dies we are able to offer.
There is no doubt about it, Soapworks is responsible for producing the execrable Trumper and Truefitt shave soaps that we have come to hate. Standard Soap had previously produced Trumpers soaps until they were purchased by Soapworks in January 2012. Was Standard Soap the company that produced the short lived vegetable based Trumper soaps that were actually usable?
And then I clicked on one last link and made another discovery. Go to page 6 of this PDF company newsletter and look at the picture at the top of the page:
Standard Soap Co. were producing the good palm versions of both Trumper's and T&H's shaving soaps (and bath soaps too), they were a company with over a 100 years experience in soap making, so they knew what they were doing (but stopped manufacturing last year). Trumper's, T&H and Penhaligon's then switched over to Soapworks when that happened (along with a few other brands), it happened when Trumper's brought out the Eucris scented shaving soap that had the different soap base (which know their other soaps are using too), and when both Penhaligon's and T&H reformulated their shaving soaps.
As far as D.R. Harris is concerned, they've been the hardest one to nail down, the most I've ever got from them is that their shaving soaps are still made at one of their private facilities located in one of the London boroughs. Don't know know how accurate that is, but its the best I can offer at this time.
One last note. I found this article yesterday. It turns out that Broad Oak Toiletries, the firm that produces shave soaps for Floris, is actually the "sister company" of Floris:
Craig_From_Cincy wrote:Having a look at Soapworks website reveals a few things. Firstly, they only work with vegetable bases and are also heavily into palm oils for their soap bases.
I missed a few other names on the company's Our Clients section that DGB452 posted: Crabtree & Evelyn and Woods of Windsor.
We have the guilty party here gentlemen, the company that is almost single-handedly ruining British shaving soaps. Their name is Soapworks.
Well, if you read their newsletter you'll see what they're truly committed to ... achieving ISO accreditation and being "socially responsible." That doesn't leave much time for "listening to our customers" and "making a product they want."
I have been enjoying floris shave soap, I just tried a floris soap from there recent sale of old packaged product and got an inferior shave to the new puck. In reviewing ingredients, they are in somewhat different order. News to me perhaps not to the group?
Yep, this company produces Penhaligon's soaps as well.
I missed a few other names on the company's Our Clients section that DGB452 posted: Crabtree & Evelyn and Woods of Windsor.
We have the guilty party here gentlemen, the company that is almost single-handedly ruining British shaving soaps. Their name is Soapworks.
Am I mistaken, or are the soaps in the picture just soap soap, rather than *shaving* soap? My only unused Penhaligon soaps are half a dozen boxes of the old English Fern tallow sort, and they don't have that crinkly paper packaging; the soap is wrapped in cellophane and put in a cardboard carton. So I don't know how they are now packaged. But these ones do look like *soap* soap...
Michael
People say it's never too late. How wrong they are. --Felix Dennis
brothers wrote:Wow, socially responsible. I think I'm impressed. What does that mean?
Whatever it does mean, it's not being responsible to the society of one of our fellow primates. Orangs are about to become extinct from habitat loss to palm plantations.
Chris
"Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse." Pierre-Simon de Laplace
brothers wrote:Wow, socially responsible. I think I'm impressed. What does that mean?
Whatever it does mean, it's not being responsible to the society of one of our fellow primates. Orangs are about to become extinct from habitat loss to palm plantations.
Chris
Perhaps someone here ought to fire off an email to them in this regard...might be interesting to see what happens or what could be learned.
Yep, this company produces Penhaligon's soaps as well.
I missed a few other names on the company's Our Clients section that DGB452 posted: Crabtree & Evelyn and Woods of Windsor.
We have the guilty party here gentlemen, the company that is almost single-handedly ruining British shaving soaps. Their name is Soapworks.
Am I mistaken, or are the soaps in the picture just soap soap, rather than *shaving* soap? My only unused Penhaligon soaps are half a dozen boxes of the old English Fern tallow sort, and they don't have that crinkly paper packaging; the soap is wrapped in cellophane and put in a cardboard carton. So I don't know how they are now packaged. But these ones do look like *soap* soap...
Michael,
The picture on Soapworks website is clearly not Penhaligon's shave soaps. You are correct that Pen's shave soaps are still wrapped in cellophane. The information that I've come across over at several other shave forums is that Pen's soaps were being made by Standard Soap Company, who were also producing Truefitt's and Trumper's shave soaps (as well as other brands). When Standard sold out to Soapworks all of the those brands (and others) moved the production of their shave soaps over to Soapworks. Soapworks purchased all of the specialized equipment that Standard used to produce shave soaps, including the molds, wrapping machinery and soap dies. I think that Standard Soap Company might have been the Creighton's of the shaving soap industry, producing soaps for all of the major UK brands just as Creighton's produces shaving cream for those brands.
Last edited by Craig_From_Cincy on Sat Aug 03, 2013 12:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I doubt they will admit to knowing palm oil plantations are primarily responsible for the deforestation of Indonesia which had previously supported large species such as Orangutan, Tiger, Rhinoceros, Elephant and one of the World's highest levels of biodiversity.
I doubt they will admit to using palm oil because it's cheap and allows them to sell to Muslim Nations who won't buy animal oil based products.
I doubt they will admit to being shameless hucksters out for the quick buck.
On a somewhat related note I was told yesterday at Saks fifth ave in NYC, that penhaligons will launch a sartorial shave cream in the fall. Along with after shave splash.
DBG, Well, it is plausible, what you were told by D R Harris. As far as I've known, they and Floris were the last of these firms that still made their own soaps. Whether this is still true of DRH I don't know for certain but if they even told you that much, than it may be. Clearly their shave soaps are not made by that dreadful Soapworks outfit and apparently there are not that many other possible sources for them in Britain anymore. Unless we have evidence showing otherwise I think I'll choose to believe them for the present.
Craig, The Standard Soap Co. produced the old T&H soap for certain. I've known this for several years but could not post it as I'd promised my source of this information that I wouldn't. But plainly that is a moot point now. Yes, it now does seem likely that Standard did function as something of the Creighton's for the old English hard shave soaps from many of the St. James's firms. These companies need to wake up because the soaps they are offering now are so bad that I find it hard to conceive of them being successful in selling them....especially to any prerpective repeat buyers.
Squire, Nooo....I don't think it likely that they will admit to any of the negative effects that increased palm oil production is having on the eco-systems in Indonesia and elsewhere....no, probably not. The couple of times that I have tried to point this out to company reps. it was not welcome.
Regards,
Gordon
No, they will never admit their use of palm oil to be irresponsible. in fact they've posted a massive amount of BS on their website justifying their use of palm oil as being responsible. It's a corporate "green" scam.
