Okay so many of you will not agree with me and many will hate me but I just have to share a few of my thoughts about artisan soap makers with the world. Please note that everything written here are MY PERSONAL observations, thoughts, issiues, etc, I wish no one no harm and plese feel free to agree od dissagree.



So in the past few years I noticed a big shift in the soap talk here on the forum. When I started out, and it is about 6-7 years ago, maybe bit more, most soap talk was centered mostly around tripple milled pucks from old English makers (T&H, D.R. Harris, TOBS,...) and a few other wet shaving staples as Williams, Cella, Arko, Palmolive, Proraso, Tabac and so on. Croaps were pretty unpopular here, general consensus (as far as I was able to detect from posts, I could be wrong) was to either make a puck or cream, not some crossover. And in past 5 years...



CROAPS...there is croaps everywhere. And we all know what it means to have soapy product saturated with water, specially tallow based. Leave it out too long ant it goes RANCID! Now take someone like me. I shave 2-3 times a week, mostly 2. I don't like to 3017 soaps, because I get bored and always have 3-4 in rotation. I will use some and throw the rest away which adds up cost pretty f**** fast. (you will understand degree of my frustration later)



Another thing are scents. We have gazilion artisans, with multiple bases that come in array of scents that range from unscented sensitive skin friendly formula to insane scent formulations where only thing missing is unicorn farts. Scents are becoming so bizarre that no one can image what will it smell like when you open the tub. I read a lot of people here that had problems with this. Either scent was too offensive to them or they got nasty reaction. (Out of everything this irritates me the least)



After shave feel of soap has also become greatly popular. And I am sorry but I just can't wrap my head around the idea that soap should (according to some people):

- have pleasant scent

- be easy to load (3 swirls on soap tops, I guess 95% of forum has arthritis or carpal tunnel)

- be easy to lather (again arthritis/carpal tunnel)

- have cushion of a goose feather pillow

- be slick as snail snot

- protective to a degree you can get shot in the face with 12gauge shotgun point blank range

- condition your face in the same way as if you put on phoenix tears AS balm



And finally the thing that irritates me more than Derby blade on shave 25 in old vesion of R41...PRICE!!! Cheapest artisan soaps are hard pucks from RR for 5-6$, I can get behind that (but not anymore when you add shipping. Other croaps are like 15$ up to 50$ per tub that last for like 60 shaves and I can get much more shaves out of cheaper soap locally (and we are talking the business here like Tabac and other old makers with superb performance). I cannot justify to myself that kind of expense for a soap that might not be slick enough or burn my face of with fragrance. And when you take into account that Americans just LOVE shipping costs and those rates are 25$!!!!!! I can get products from all round the world for shipping that is less than 10$! Why this irritates me? To lower shipping cost to be normal per unit (like 5$/soap) I need to buy at least 5 soaps and I just can't have that kind of volume of soaps laying around.



And when you put all of this together what also pulls my nerve is when some snobby Simpson chubby wielding A**** says one soap is not good enough for not moisturizing as AS balm? Say "not good enough for me" and please do not generalize. Also keep in mind we are talking about SOAPS not BALMS here. Soap should not dry your face to the point when you think your skin shrunk 3 sizes but also no need for a soap to be hydrating. As said, we have balms an moisturizers for that.



Anywys this is my rant about artisans/US shipping rates/forum snobs. Note again those are my PERSONAL views and this is my outlet to vent not to attack anybody specifically.