Thread: Meibner Soap

Originally Posted by Steve56

Obie! You mean all those reviews of artisan soaps aren't... aren't right?

Cheers, Steve

Steve, my friend,

The point is: that it is hard to say — for me to say — which is the "best" soap or cream, because my point is subjective. I can only offer my opinion. I can only speak of the quality of various products to various degrees from a personal view.

For instance, I cannot say Castle Forbes is the best cream, especially since I have not tried everything out on the market, and that what is best for me may not be so for someone else. Rather, Castle Forbes is the highest quality — overall — of the creams I have tried.

Not only that, but for me, the cream sets the bench mark for all the creams I have tried. Still, that does not mean I can say "Castle Forbes is the best cream on the market." Yes, the highest overall quality cream I have used, to repeat myself.

As an aside, another cream that I have tried in recent months and liked enormously is the OneBlade lavender. I find it exceptional in overall performance, and the lavender fragrance is earthy — true lavender, a friend called it — and close to that of the Castle Forbes lavender.

I know we throw the term "best" or "worst" around in casual conversation. When it comes to offering concrete conclusion — opinion, actually — in soaps and creams, we can only be reasonably specific about the degree of quality. At least that's how I review a product — through how it performs in my shave.

I suspect all reviews — of books, movies, foods, razors, shave products, every thing. I am also suspicious of reviewers, in general, including myself, because we're dealing with human beings, and we are far from perfect.

The great opera composer Rossini said, in so many words, that being a critic was the world's most useless profession.

I agree with that. I can only direct our members here to the products I have tried and give my opinion on them in determining the degree of quality in each product.

Geese, all this fancy talk and I still have not had my breakfast. OY!

Spot on, my friend. However...

Originally Posted by Obie

I know we throw the term "best" or "worst" around in casual conversation. When it comes to offering concrete conclusion — opinion, actually — in soaps and creams, we can only be reasonably specific about the degree of quality. At least that's how I review a product — through how it performs in my shave.

It is a little more than that, especially when it comes to a certain type of "artisan" product.

1. There are objectively measurable performance factors. One prime example is glide. There may be subtle nuances in personal preference (and, of course, some weirdos who inject glycerin into their shaving prodcuts), but glide is either there, or it is not. This is an objectively, quantitatively measurable factor which sets certain products apart from others. Case in point: Mitchell's Wool Fat vs the late Scottish Fine Soaps shaving soap. Basically everything else being equal, the latter provided more glide.
2. There is controlled quality of ingredients (or lack thereof). I have said this before, and I will say it again: Certain products are simply inferior. If one is fine with putting whatever is available at Taobao onto one's skin, so be it. Personally, I prefer my products to have undergone vigorous testing, preferably with an EU organic certification.
3. There is value for money. And by this, I do not (only) mean efficiency (cf 1 above). I also mean how much I have to pay for dubious ingredients. With products like Castle Forbes, Esbjerg, or Meißner Tremonia, you know that you are paying a premium because the base products are very expensive. With, to pick an arbitrary example, certain products from Texas, you can be confident to get the cheapest stuff available at Taobao. I asked a friend of mine who works a perfumier, and he told me in no uncertain terms that the "scents" are "the cheapest of the cheap bouquets from China". Their website claims, of course, that a artisan scentmeister spent years in a monastery to come up with the inspiration for these unique scents.

The problem is the "artisan" hype. In reality, few artisan products deserve the name (and the price). Just because you are an amateur mixing together Chinese stuff online in your bathtub in Texas does not make you an artisan...

But otherwise, yes, I could not agree more

Time for bed, I think...

Interesting post RobinK!

1. Is 'glide' applicable to straight razor shaving? I think not, I usually see it in reference to DE shaving, but if I am wrong folks will correct me.

2. Absolutely agree

3. Not sure about scents, not enough info, but I understand the comment. However, if a Chinese or wherever person is making a cosmetic fragrance, it seems maybe a better choice (at least as far as smelling good) for a shaving soap than an artisan throwing a candle scent or a product made for a diffusion air freshener into a product that you put on your face. I don't think that candle and air freshener scents are intended to be for cosmetic use.

Cheers, Steve

This is why I have always said judging soaps and creams has both objective and subjective parts. We all know the mechanical factors that make a soap top tier. Either it does everything it should with accolades or it doesn't. On the other hand you can be mixing the best ingredients in the world and come up with Eau de Skunk and likewise use cheap ingredients have have some nice smelling stuff. It's more the skill of the guy concocting the mix. Of course if the result is good and the ingredients high end that's just icing on the cake.

Originally Posted by Steve56

3. Not sure about scents, not enough info, but I understand the comment. However, if a Chinese or wherever person is making a cosmetic fragrance, it seems maybe a better choice (at least as far as smelling good) for a shaving soap than an artisan throwing a candle scent or a product made for a diffusion air freshener into a product that you put on your face. I don't think that candle and air freshener scents are intended to be for cosmetic use.

Just to avoid any misunderstandings, I did not mean to imply that everything out of China is bad. It is not. Quite the contrary. I was referencing Taobao because it is full of so called "bouquets", ie ready made scented mixtures, most of which are really, really horrible (both in terms of their Eau de Skunk properties - nice one, Nelson... - and also with regards to their overall quality). To use an analogy, there are €1.5 kebabs to be had in Berlin. It is not technically feasible to produce food at that price unless you take the cheapest meats (which are sometimes not even meant for consumption, Berlin has seen its fair share of food scandals). Can you eat those kebabs? Yes. Will they kill you? Probably not. Are they quality kebabs? Nope.

Now, if you analyse the cost of base materials used for making soap, you will find that (high quality) oils will rank very high. If you use cheap oils instead, you can dramatically optimise your profit margin, but you will also, effectively, rip off your customers. That, along with the lack of legal oversight over US made soaps, makes me wary of them. There are clear exceptions like Green Mountain Soap, just to be clear.