Thread: Martin de Candre

Little late to the party, but finally got around to trying MdC. All thanks to a gracious gesture from Jerry(Gasman). Cannot thank him enough for going out of his way to help me out.

Members of this site have been just ridiculously helpful to me over the last few years, and I just couldn't be more thankful. From razors, stones, strops, mirco-fasteners, and brush handles. All coming at more than reasonable pricing. My suggestion to any new members starting out looking to add to their collection, is to always make a quick post in the Want to Trade/Want to Buy section. You would be surprised by what other members have in the back closet. I have always been able to find what I was looking for by posting there.

Anyways getting back to the soap at hand, Jerry gave me a ridiculous amount of two scents, Original and Fougere. He said I should get about 7 shaves out of each sample, but I think I will get a lot more than that but we shall see.

The smaller ball is going to my dad so he can try it, and I'll do the same for the other scent. The Original is a pretty standard Lavender soap scent, akin to the likes of say Castle Forbes Lavender (TO MY NOSE). The Fougere is much more to my liking, fresh, masculine, and the scent is light enough it shouldn't interfere with your cologne. I pressed the larger ball into a bowl and am going to just ride that sucker out for the next week or so, and then switch to the Fougere. Everything that I could say about this soap has already been said a million times, so I'll spare you the regurgitated review of its performance. Freaking amazing about sums it up, and I will definitely follow through with ordering a few jars.

Now with all that said, does this mean I'm going to be throwing away my other soaps? Absolutely not, however I could easily see this soap becoming a regular in my daily rotation. Everyone already knows about MdC, I was just too scared to spend that kinda money on something that I might not like, and that was just the reality. Shaving soap is very subjective. What works great for you, might make me break out in hives. Or the scent could make me throw up in my mouth a little. So I always tread lightly when trying new soaps and aftershaves. Thank you so much Jerry, and SRP and other members for just being straight up amazing.

Best Regards,
-Laramie-

We do rock, huh?

Yeah, Jerry's generosity may even go a bit above and beyond what's typical around here, but your story really shows off what is really special about SRP as a forum. All of us generously helping each out through this wonderful sport so that we may each enjoy wet shaving to the fullest extent possible.

As for MdC, I bought my first container (Original) very recently thanks to a sample another mentor sent me. In turn, I mailed mine onward to another member, who like yourself, suffers more than most to skin sensitivity with softwares. Sure enough, he bought a container for himself and went on to the TX meet-up and proceeded to sample up another member or two.

Too bad word got out about this UK online shave store and their 15% sale, or I would have a reserve container of Fougere to boot.

That's OK, I have plenty of suds to play around with until such time as MdC goes on sale again down the road.

Bunch of enablers....

I do my best to enable, errr, help when i can. Glad the samples made it to you quickly. I knew you would like it.

If you consider the amount of soap you get in a jar of MDC compared to the amount you get with most soaps its almost twice as much. Then consider how little MDC is needed for a full shave and how long it lasts. I know its a big price in the beginning, but for what you get I feel its as good if not better buying MDC when comparing penneys per shave.

Thanks for posting your findings. We do have a great buch of guys/enablers here!

I'm sure that those samples would last me 2 months! This stuff goes a long way.

I’ve been doing a MdC ‘longevity test’ for a friend on another forum. I know from past experience that I used 1.4g/shave with a Chubby 1 Super which is a bit of a soap hog - I got 9 months using it 5-6 times per week. I also know that in general, it takes about 0.5g/shave for triple milled soaps like Valobra, and about 1.5g for most croaps and creams. However, MdC is quite concentrated because of the 6-month cure that they use. When I used 1.4g MdC/shave, I wasn’t trying to conserve soap and was just curious.

My current test is to use a 20mm Simpsons Persian Jar 1 in Best Badger, and only load it enough for my normal 2 passes, 12 ‘swirls’ on the soap. I am not scrimping, but I do have to work the brush a bit to get a full lather for the second pass.

I’m averaging 0.5g/shave, so that means about 400 shaves/200g jar, or about 13 months. I think that most lf us would like to load a little heavier just for the experience of ‘unctious’ lather (as the French call it), and of you’re a DE person you may also want a thicker lather for cushion. But a straight doesn’t know ‘cushion’, so extra soap is not needed for that. In terms of money, that’s about 12 cents/shave, as compared to about 7 cents/shave for Proraso and about 8 cents/shave for Castle Forbes.

Next up, I’ll switch to a larger brush and see how that affects soap consumption in a few days.

Now I know that I’m preaching to the MdC choir, but that ~$55/jar delivered looks pretty good from an economics standpoint, I don’t think that you can find a North American artisan soap that you can get 400 shaves for $55. And you’d have to put up with Yankee candle scents, lol. Here’s a shot of the setup, the razor varies of course.

Cheers, Steve

Yeah, Jerry and the other Mentors really are generous with their help, soap samples, razors and so much more! I've still got the remnants of an MDC Original sample TC sent me almost a year ago now. Now granted, I have numerous other soaps and creams I rotate around, but I just can't seem to finish off that sample-amazing!

Even though I just ordered and am trying about $50 worth of soap samples from Maggard's recent sale, I am probably about to pull the trigger on my 1st full jar of MDC. I'm debating between Fougere and Vetiver-I think either would be right up my alley.

My wife will be gone to Germany here soon for a couple of weeks with a plane-load of exchange students, which her being gone usually bodes poorly for our bank accounts when I start surfing Ebay, here and elsewhere for soaps, vintage strops, whatever obsession I'm on at the time.

MDC-It's the everlasting gob-stopper of soaps!

That little ball of MDC. Would last longer than a week. I know our water here is better than most so I get even more shaves with my jar. Only 8 swirls and enough for my shaves and probably don’t need more than 6. It just keeps building.

I have gotten a year+ when I used it everyday.

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

That little ball of MDC. Would last longer than a week. I know our water here is better than most so I get even more shaves with my jar. Only 8 swirls and enough for my shaves and probably don’t need more than 6. It just keeps building.

I have gotten a year+ when I used it everyday.

TC, sorry I didn't get to Charlie's meet in Feb. I'm wandering how are you doing with your knees. Thanks for influencing me to buy MDC.

Tom you were missed my friend. i am doing better with the knees since losing 50 + pounds, but i still have another 40-50 to go, then it will be time for the knee replacement, ive finally made a decision on retirement so its possible to do soon, just want to lose more and get more flexibility in my knees so that i,m ready. your one of my main heroes for the knee surgery,, you and Mike Blue, truly inspirational stories