Thread: The German Soaps

Originally Posted by bjorn

There's a couple of web shops here, which has a decent selection of the higher end soaps, more interesting is IMHO our own soapmaker Fitjar soap , I havn't tried her soaps and creams yet, but as soon as I "need/want" another soap/cream, I'll get a couple of hers just to see what they're like, reports I've heard says they are good.

I have East Indies, Fjellheim, Vanilla Absolut and Woods. The East Indies and Woods are my favourites. All of their soaps are 100% EO based and the East Indies contains Frankincense, Jasmine, Rose and Sandalwood EO's whereas Woods is Cedarwoood, Clary Sage and Vetiver. The East Indies is a great soap to use under Hammam Bouquet, particularly since the asshats at Penhaligons discontinued the Hammam shaving soap.
Including the cost of shipping, the price of each soap worked out to a little more than 15 GBP when I ordered them at the end of last year. Probably the most expensive artisanal soap I have bought but they are worth it.
The lather produced is the best I've had from artisanal soaps and offers the richness and protection you would expect from a quality triple milled soap with the skincare benefits you'd expect from a good artisan soap.
The base recipe includes Avocado Oil and is very moisturising. However, I suspect that it contains a lot of Bentonite Clay as I experienced some tightness which I've had from other clay heavy soaps.
It has taken me some time to figure out how to get the best from this soap. I found it to be very inconsistent to begin with, similiar to the problems many report with MWF (although I've never had any problems with the Mitchell's.) It produced excellent lather on some days, but other days, using the same techniques it wasn't very good at all. Still, even when the lather wasn't at it's best it was very slick.
I finally settled on the following methodology.
! tsp of warm water on the soap, shake most of the water out of the brush, start lathering on soap until the brush begins to drag (normally at this point I would add another tsp of water to the breech of the brush and face lather but this wasn't consistent with the Fitjar soaps,) add 1tsp. of water to the tips of the brush, lather on puck until the brush starts to drag again, add another tsp. of water to the tips of the brush and lather until the brush starts to drag once more, finally squeeze the base of the knot to bring the lather to the top of the brush and face lather. In essence I'm starting to build the lather on the soap itself before face lathering. A seemingly small change to the way I normally do things but it seemed to make all the difference with these particular soaps..
Now that I've settled on this particular way of doing things I find that these are really good soaps and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them, just be prepared to experiment a little.

Originally Posted by crackstar

I think it may be the other way around. By the way, Bjorn, which soaps are available in Norway?

Jeff

Thanks Jeff, I had heard that but wasn't sure.

Originally Posted by Bronco

Thanks Jeff, I had heard that but wasn't sure.

That's right, Steve, the Muehle soaps came first.

Jeff

Thanks guys, for making me rediscovering Muhle Aloe Vera soap, which I had completely forgot I had, it has been a real plessant surprise using it for the last few days.

Originally Posted by bjorn

Thanks guys, for making me rediscovering Muhle Aloe Vera soap, which I had completely forgot I had, it has been a real plessant surprise using it for the last few days.

The other Muehle soaps, like the Ocean, Sandalwood, and Marigold are also excellent. They lather great, and have very good skincare, and they all smell nice.

Jeff

While I rarely use shave sticks, the one that has stuck with me is the Speick stick. I face-lather, and applying the shave stick seems like an extra step.

Of the shave sticks, I've tried Valobra, Speick, and La Toja. Speick won, by a lot.

La Toja was a total disappointment for me, other than having the best shave stick packaging there is. The solid, travel-friendly constuction, solid base, solid top with vent holes is just perfect. The La Toja soap itself, not so much. Hard to lather, questionable scent, and near-zero glide. Valobra was much better - better lather, bigger, slicker. So, I got the best of both worlds by putting my Valobra stick in the outstanding La Toja stick packaging. That solved the lame Valobra packaging.

But Speick trumped them both. Lathers very well, incredibly thick/slick lather typical of a tallow-based triple-milled soap. Unlike the bigger Valobra, it's unfortunately too small to pop into the excellent La Toja packaging. I use Speick for head-shaving frequently, because of the glide, easy lathering, and great scent. And to top it off, for some reason the Speick stick scent reminds me of really good doob. It just does, sorry.

Originally Posted by FatboySlim

for some reason the Speick stick scent reminds me of really good doob. It just does, sorry.

ohhhhhhh, is THAT what a "speick" plant is? I was always like, yeah right, a speick plant. Now I get it. Now I know why people like "specik" aftershave - nice lingering vibe all day long.