Thread: The Return of The Bomb

After my initial posting found in: http://straightrazorpalace.com/shavi...-homemade.html

The Bomb has undergone 3 rounds of testing/optimization. Instead of sending samples to a bunch of people asking for feedback, I focused on a few people with experience with a variety of soaps. This process was slow due to time constraints on the part of the testers. I have not received written comments from some of them... ;-). However, the comments from those that did send me comments have gone from being encouraging to excellent. I am very happy about this. Thank you guys for giving The Bomb a try and giving me your most appreciated feedback. I must point out that my initial motivation to make soap was to find a formula that would not dry my face like most commercial soaps/creams did during the winter. I have managed that so the next goal is to make the best soap/cream in the world. I am still working on this, and would be for a long time. There is no plan to make The Bomb commercially available so this is not an issue. The Bomb is no longer a tallow based soap.

Ok, back to the story: People found the first versions of The Bomb to lack conditioning, they worked of on the whiskers but not on the skin. I worked hard on this and came up with with a super conditioning formula that I now call the Winter Bomb. Obviously, this version does not lather as well as other versions but it is the gentlest on your skin. After the reviews for these samples came back, I decided to change a few things:

Consistency of the soap, after one of my testers indicated that the consistency of The Bomb was in between a cream and a soap. My initial thought was to make The Bomb in a way that it could be used as either but after his comments, I have switched towards a cream, a very dense cream.

Another issue that popped up, likely because the testers used the Winter Bomb, was the economy. You can see in the pictures from the previous thread and this one that not only the quantities have changed but also the equipment. I now use a larger brush and a much bigger bowl to lather...

Finally, people did not care for the scent much and I must admit that I used only a little bit of essential oil in my original version (due to a sad mistake). This has totally changed, I now use larger quantities of 100% essential oil. I have used several EOs for this but the one I focused on is Lavender. Because I am the only customer of this brand, I only use the scents that I like in the amounts that my face can take... ;-)

I have tested the performance of The Bomb against several of the best soaps/creams available with very good results. I think these pictures speak for themselves about the quality of the lather that The Bomb delivers. One of my testers (not sure if I should protect his identity) liked The Bomb and asked me if he could bring it to the SE gathering next week. I thought that was a great opportunity to receive feedback from people so I sent a sample of the new batch to each of the gatherings. Keep your eyes open for The Bomb coming to the gatherings near you. I have received many requests for samples and I will start sending some out soon, I have not forgotten about you. You can continue to request samples by PM. As long as I have the money, I will be happy to keep sending samples out.

This is how I do it:

I use a bowl, a silvertip brush, and of course, The Bomb (I use my fingertip to scrape The Bomb from the dish)




I use a small amount of The Bomb. DISCLAIMER: I normally use less to shave but these pictures are for show.




I squeeze The Bomb on the side of my 5.5" bowl.



After about 30 seconds of swirling, I get something like this. This is not the good lather, it is too dry and would dry in my face. The lather is not ready until big air bubbles start popping in the bowl.



After about 2 minutes of hard work, you form this much lather, but how good is it?



Let's see:

It does not all come off the bowl when I take the brush out and both the brush and the bowl show "texture"



It is like a fluff, similar to whipped cream



I mean, the lather has to stand on its own, this is why it was originally named "The Bomb"



And the lather does not become opaque (signs of drying) for awhile



The Bomb delivers an outstanding lather. I have pretty soft water so results may vary.



I hope that you like it. Keep your eyes open for The Bomb coming to the gatherings near you.


Al raz.

Wow Al that is a huge mushroom cloud of lather

Al was kind enough to let me try a bit of The Bomb and I will be taking some to Asheville with me to pass around. I would say I was not prepared to spend two minutes lathering and the first lather I worked up looked a lot more like that fourth photo than the final photos.

It is surprising how such a small amount creates so much lather I have not seen so much volume out of any other cream I've tried

Thanks for this write up, Al. I've got one more trial to put the Bomb through and then if you are ok with it I will post a review to the reviews forum.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Wow Al that is a huge mushroom cloud of lather

And hence the name... ;-)

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Al was kind enough to let me try a bit of The Bomb and I will be taking some to Asheville with me to pass around. I would say I was not prepared to spend two minutes lathering and the first lather I worked up looked a lot more like that fourth photo than the final photos.

I appreciate the plug but I should mention that Doc give me the idea (no more protecting the innocent ;-)). Man, if you want great lather, you MUST work for it ;-). The issue is to get the correct soapater ratio, which may be a little hard at first with The Bomb. Too little water and the lather is dry and your razor skips; too much water and your lather vanishes into thin air. I find this to be true with most high end soaps I have tried.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

It is surprising how such a small amount creates so much lather I have not seen so much volume out of any other cream I've tried.

I have very soft water with works to my advantage. If you have hard water, the results may not be as good. However, if you compare various soaps with your water, you should get internally consistent results. Even if you have to use twice as much of what I use and get half of what I get, The Bomb is still a great cream. Following the advice of one of my testers, I acquired some of the best soaps/creams in the market and tested The Bomb against them. The Bomb compares very well, I must say. I have not gone through the complete list yet but almost... $$$$$ has been the issue.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Thanks for this write up, Al. I've got one more trial to put the Bomb through and then if you are ok with it I will post a review to the reviews forum.

You are the best Lee, thank you.

Al raz.

So when can we expect to see "The Bomb" for sale to the public?

Originally Posted by Dirt4dinner

So when can we expect to see "The Bomb" for sale to the public?

Wow, this is one I was not expecting... To tell you the truth, I had not considered selling this stuff, at least not seriously ;-). I joke around about selling The Bomb when the money is tight but there are no plans for selling it in the immediate future. Before I decide to sell The Bomb (if I decide to sell it), I want to make sure that people like it, I mean, really like it. I do not want to risk my reputation for selling a product that people would not be satisfied with, there is already a lot of that around. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with offering products to the public, this is not to say that I do not believe that The Bomb would make an excellent marketable product. I would probably wait to hear/read the comments from people that would test The Bomb at the gatherings first. At that point, if there is any interest, I may consider making The Bomb in larger quantities for sale, perhaps starting with small sample size containers. I must tell you, up to this point, the main motivation for making The Bomb has been to shave with the best soap in the world; originally, it was to have a soap that would not dry my face out. I have not done much research to buy ingredients in bulk, packaging, pricing, legal issues, etc.. but I do not think these would be a problem or that it would take a long time to figure them out. Given the economic climate, I will seriously give this a thought if the interest persist though.

Thank you,

Al raz.

I helped my wife turn a very small ear rings building hobby into a nice little business, and it wasn't that hard. You can avoid a LOT of legal stuff by just keeping it simple. You could easily beta test the product right here on this site (OH OH ME ME ME!!! PICK ME!). Then when the time is right, once you have all your feedback from your beta tests...then you move forward with production on a small scale.

My wife was nervous about it at first, but she just paced her self and when she feels comfortable with the amount of orders (currently about 4 per week) then she stops advertising (mostly via emails) and just relaxes. When she is ready to get more business she starts sending out the emails and handing out business cards everywhere.

I got to test the 'winter' version of Al's soap.

I am a face latherer, and my daily brush is rooney's finest. The consistency is something between cream and a soap, but I treated it as a soap, i.e. I'll swirl the brush over it to pick some and then work on my face.
Al has told me that it takes little, but I judge the quantity by looking at the brush as I load it. Due to the different consistency of this, the first time I ended up with too much soap on the brush.
Lots of water to get good lather and then tons of it left on the brush.
So on the second try I bracketed it from the other side, i.e. too little of it, because that's the easest way to find the goldielocks point.

Building the lather does take a bit more effort (not hard, just 30-50% longer) and it's on the heavy/creamy side. But it conditions the skin really well - on one occasion I decided not to use aftershave (I always do) and it was not a problem (and I tried with C&E's soap for comparison and my face was extremely uncomfortably dry).

As you know Al has done another formulation past the one I tried to improve the latherability.

I most certainly liked the lavender scent - can't go wrong with really high quality essential oil. I'm fairly particular about scents, that's why I don't have much use for most of the commercial products.

So, thank you Al for letting me try it.

Originally Posted by Dirt4dinner

I helped my wife turn a very small ear rings building hobby into a nice little business, and it wasn't that hard. You can avoid a LOT of legal stuff by just keeping it simple. You could easily beta test the product right here on this site (OH OH ME ME ME!!! PICK ME!). Then when the time is right, once you have all your feedback from your beta tests...then you move forward with production on a small scale.

My wife was nervous about it at first, but she just paced her self and when she feels comfortable with the amount of orders (currently about 4 per week) then she stops advertising (mostly via emails) and just relaxes. When she is ready to get more business she starts sending out the emails and handing out business cards everywhere.

Well, it is not so simple: there has to be a real interest to make a a product commercially available first. Also, the number of reviews that I have received do not compare to the number of samples that I have sent out. I have received good reviews but since I am not selling this soap, I keep the reviews private. I have asked a few people to post something about The Bomb but not many have done so. Perhaps this would change after the gathering. I have received requests to buy The Bomb, so if people want to buy a tub, fine but I would not consider myself as being in the business. There are way too many people selling shaving soap for this to be a very profitable venture.

Originally Posted by gugi

I got to test the 'winter' version of Al's soap.

I am a face latherer, and my daily brush is rooney's finest. The consistency is something between cream and a soap, but I treated it as a soap, i.e. I'll swirl the brush over it to pick some and then work on my face.
Al has told me that it takes little, but I judge the quantity by looking at the brush as I load it. Due to the different consistency of this, the first time I ended up with too much soap on the brush.
Lots of water to get good lather and then tons of it left on the brush.
So on the second try I bracketed it from the other side, i.e. too little of it, because that's the easest way to find the goldielocks point.

Building the lather does take a bit more effort (not hard, just 30-50% longer) and it's on the heavy/creamy side. But it conditions the skin really well - on one occasion I decided not to use aftershave (I always do) and it was not a problem (and I tried with C&E's soap for comparison and my face was extremely uncomfortably dry).

As you know Al has done another formulation past the one I tried to improve the latherability.

I most certainly liked the lavender scent - can't go wrong with really high quality essential oil. I'm fairly particular about scents, that's why I don't have much use for most of the commercial products.

So, thank you Al for letting me try it.

Great review gugi, thanks!!!! I loved the Goldie Locks analogy ;-) I am glad that The Bomb could help others with sensitive skin. After we talked the other night, I tested face lathering The Bomb and I agree 100% with your perception. I also did not have a a brush like yours that excels in face lathering situations and I made a huge mess in the bathroom ;-). I would have to work on my technique first as I loved the method and with my new brush, abrasion does not seem to be an issue. I developed The Bomb for bowl lathering, which is what I currently do but I will, in fact, I already started to make the necessary changes to make it explode in the face when face lathered. This is no big deal... The bottom line is that The Bomb as you tested it, provides good lathering with outstanding conditioning. This is what I had in mind when I made it.

Al raz.

Glen worked up The Bomb in short order into a very nice, thick lather



And several guys including newcomers shaved with it without complaint! This is good stuff!

Another plug for the bomb! Although it is neither cream nor puck it easily loads the brush and just as easily builds lather on the face, I loved the aroma(lavender IIRC) the lubricity enabled the razor to glide so very smoothly along the skin and then caused the softened whiskers to stand up and take what they had coming. I am a HUGE FAN of Colleens products, I believe they are the ultimate and the bomb easily competes. Thats my story and Im sticking with it.