Thread: Durance Reformulated?

Gentlemen,

I remember Obie's review of Durance l'Homme and words something like "wouldn't throw it at a stray dog", 'won't lather' or 'lather disappears' - IOW, the worst review you could imagine (sounds like modern 3T hard soaps).

I had a cart going at Maggard's and wanted the extra 4th of July bonus, so I bought a refill puck mostly just to see if it was as bad as Obie and many others have said.

The soap arrived, it's a palm oil soap, waxy looking like PdP, with a very nice light aquatic fragrance, which IIRC was the only thing previous reviewers liked about it. The ingredients surprised me for a soap that reportedly won't lather. The ingredients were on one of those nickel-sized stickers the French and Italians like and I could not read all of them, but I could read the most important and here they are:

Potassium palmate, sodium palmate, potassium stearate, potassium palm kernelate, sodium stearate(?), sodium palm kernelate, glycerin, aqua, palm kernel acid, pafum, oleo europaea (oilive oil), sea buckthorn, sweet almond oil, tetrasodium penetate, tetrasodium etidronate, BHT, limolene, ?, and no parabens. So far so good, lots of potassiums, stearates, glycerin, and some nice add-ons in sea buckthorn and sweet almond oil. Olive oil got my attention but it's far down the list.

So how's it do? Pretty well actually. I lathered it with a Tulip 2 after sitting with a little water on the bare puck while I showered. I gave it 30 swirls which is about 5-10 more than normal, and I think I overloaded a bit based on the water I added to the brush.

I'm only 1 shave in, but it's similar to IK, Cade, and PdP in it's characteristics and I like the fragrance better, The lather was thick and did no disappearing tricks whatsoever. It stayed put, and the shave was good. Slickness could be better but let's make sure it's properly hydrated next time. I use a straight razor so can't comment on cushion or glide, but based on the lather I'd guess the cushion to be excellent. I cannot say at this point how good it really is, but it certainly is not a bad soap by any means. Next shave I'll cut the loading a bit and get the water up. Post shave isn't L&L or ABC, but it isn't bad either. At $12 for a 100g refill (mine actually weighed 103g bare), the current version certainly seems competitive in it's price bracket.

Cheers, Steve

Steve, my friend,

Durance: oh, good heavens. This brings back memories. I tried Durance some years ago and found it to be the worst shave soap on earth. It didn't do anything. If I recall, several European shavers with blogs had found it useless. The only thing good about Durance was the little porcelain bowl in which it came. I still have the bowl. I was not aware Durance was even available now. Yes, it could have been reformulated, but I don't know that.

Well if it's reformulated it may be better than it was. I found it unappealing before, it dint even last my usual 2 week trial period, so I,m not sure I can justify trying it again, it's been about 3 years. Tc

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

Well if it's reformulated it may be better than it was. I found it unappealing before, it dint even last my usual 2 week trial period, so I,m not sure I can justify trying it again, it's been about 3 years. Tc

TC, my friend, that is good thinking. There is plenty of good stuff out there, so why waste time on Durance, reformulated or vintage dud?

I've been looking at old threads and the ingredients list may not have changed - still trying to track that down. Is it possible they made a bad batch? The new stuff is quite comparable to other mid-line French soaps.

Cheers, Steve