T&H Luxury Shaving Soap Revisted

[EL Alamein]

Inspired by the thread on Cyril Salter's solid shaving soap I decided to revisit T&H's Luxury shaving soap. I was also inspired by this thread: https://forum.shavemyface.com/viewtopic ... an#p618459
to check out some of other the soaps that were all considered the same soap sold under different labels.

Some of them don't exist anymore like the Vintage Blades brand (when Vintage was scooped up by the same guy that scooped up Classic Shaving essentially making them the same website with different branding), and John Lewis.

I ordered a brand new T&H cake in the wooden bowl right off it's website as well as the older stock of it in the wooden bowl off of another fine purveyor's website. That purveyor also send me a refill cake.

I also ordered the Taylor's Luxury shaving soap and the large Vulfix Shaving soap tablet.

Trying them all they each lathered wonderfully except the older stock T&H in the wooden bowl. That older stock displayed all the characteristics once warned about here years ago when the firms started diddling with their shaving soap formulae: light, disappearing lather with little to no cushion that seems to dry out prematurely. I was able to shave with it because it did produce a slick lather before it started to dry out. Brushing more lather over the areas that seemed to disappear and dry made them slick and shaveable again. It did have that classic old lavender scent though.

A few notes about the individual cakes:

The Vulfix and Taylors soaps are still clearly the exact identical soaps. The two had literally no scent I could discern and each came in the same wax paper wrapping with an identical sticker displaying an identical part number. Excellent performers though. The Vulfix is cheap so that's what I'd recommend. The Taylors is cheap but only in England. They slap a prohibitive shipping fee to the US (it's only sold in England apparently). Oddly, I could only get the Vulfix from England as well and the shipping was very reasonable.

The old stock T&H Luxury refill had that old wonderful lavender scent and it performed magnificently. The formula on the box reflected a more potassium stearate base which is a newer formula than the old stock wooden bowl. Seems close to the same formula sold today except the scent is classic lavender scent not the more modern citrus like scent they sell now.

The brand new T&H in the wooden bowl is the star performer here. I was not expecting this to work well given my experience in recent years with what Trumpers did their once great shaving soaps.

The scent is still listed as lavender but it definitely smells more citrus like to me and more modern. I didn't think I'd like it but wow did it grow on me. It lathered wonderfully and the scent really was fresh and eye-opening in the morning. I looked forward to using this every morning. T&H really knocked it out of the park with this one. The lather was slick, cushioning, and mild. No irritation whatsoever. The formula on the website and box reflect a more potassium stearate based soap as well.

I think if anyone wanted to get started with the old school hard shaving soaps I would still highly recommend these.

Happy Shaves,
Chris

[drmoss_ca]

I think my T&H soap is from before they started the Great Cheapening. The scent is nice, but I never regarded it as the best performing soap, and in those days it was not the same as Taylor's soaps (which at the time were excellent).

Chris

[TRBeck]

Great info and great news, Chris!

Looking at the ingredient list on the T&H website, it appears that the soapmaker is taking a purely sodium-salted bath soap and grafting (Grafton?) in a potassium-based (e.g. better for shaving) soap:

Sodium Palmate; Potassium Palmate; Potassium Stearate; Potassium Palm Kernelate; Sodium Cocoate; Glycerol; Sodium Stearate; Sodium Palm Kernelate; Parfum (Fragrance); Palm Kernel Acid; Titanium dioxide; Sodium Chloride; Tetrasodium Etidronate; Pentasodium Pentetate; Sodium Gluconate; Tetrasodium EDTA; Linalool; Coumarin; Limonene; Geraniol; Citronellol

There's Sodium Cocoate but no Potassium Cocoate. After the sodium palmate, the next three ingredients are potassium soap, which will be more water-soluble. The potassium palmate-stearate duo should thicken things up well. I'm intrigued, for sure. I always enjoyed the T&H cakes, which had a great scent and a slightly larger diameter than Harris soaps, thus more surface area when loading/lathering. Perhaps Trumper will follow suit, and we will get back to English soaps that perform across the board. Harris never was bad, but they've even improved their formula, and Salter soap - same base as Harris these days - is terrific. Now Vulfix and T&H. Just need TOBS and GFT on board.

[cvac]

I tested the Vintage Blades soap way back in 2012. It was unlatherable garbage and basically okay only as bath soap. T&H at the time did the same thing.

If T&H has improved more recently, that's good but they should toss any old stock that's the unlatherable stuff.

It appears GFT has not improved at all since 2011 or 2012. How such a "respectable" company continues to sell junk shaving soap is beyond me.

No experience with recent formula Vulfix or Cyril Salter.

Re: TOBS I've never heard of anything from them that did not lather very well, even though they did change formulas at one point.

Where does the current iteration of Culmak sit in all this? I've never tried any version but it usually had positive reviews. There is one big UK vendor that sells it (and ships internationally) but I don't think it's generally available anywhere in the U.S.

[EL Alamein]

Cvac, I can't speak for the current iteration of Culmak but the vintage stuff I have lathers like a dream. It's formula is like the old formula for the No 89 soap. They are very similar in that regard.

The new ingredients I've seen are suspect but I've haven't tried it so can't say really one way or the other.

Chris