Thread: Castle Forbes creams reformulated

Hark! Is that a thunderous drum roll or the sound of a huge glove hitting the earth?

I shiver with anticipation.

OK, so I was a bit lucky and managed to take photos of new packaging (outer box, showing 'paraben free', that is) and ingredients list. Here they are attached. These are of the C&S box. The words "paraben free" can be seen below the larger words that read "Shaving Cream" on the front of the box.

Sorry about the quality - this is using a mobile phone camera...

Originally Posted by rum

Come to think of it, our very Lynn is a strong supporter of the CF creams, so it would be interesting to hear what he knows/has to say about this. Lynn, if you're reading...

Don sent an inquiry and we are waiting too. I am still using CF Lime and Lavender and still loving the big suds.........

FWIW, Xpec was pulled off the shelves as well. I know many of you haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it's awesome, Read the review here: http://straightrazorpalace.com/shavi...oap.html?ltr=X

I contacted the distributor, who, in turn, contacted the manufacturer in Milan Italy. I got an email and they told me it was being reformulated. They didn't go into detail, but I'm betting it's the same thing. Parabens....
I guess, We'll just have to wait and see....

I am crazy about my CF sandalwood and lavender creams. I will be happy to move to the non-paraben as it moves into the supply chain because I believe
CF would not risk a superb product performance to deal with whatever they
believed they needed to deal with on our behalf. Meanwhile I will continue to order what I need from SRD regardless of this information.

I was doing some searching and it appears most people are tired of trying to decide what product are good for children and grooming products for ourselves. Meaning, people are tired of reading it's okay and no it's not... back and forth, thus they are just demanding it. Those same people are trying to get the governments to ban paraben but are now moving to just demand it from the manufacturer.

There are rumors that it's banned in Europe but is mostly a myth. I found one article that talks about how it's banned in cosmetics in Denmark but no government evidence to prove it. (I could use a citation here if it's true) However, all the information I dug up points towards anti-paraben movements that are leaning on the manufacturers.

To set the stage, after reading this thread last weekend, I looked up the company’s information and found the contact address for their representative in the United States and sent that individual the following email.

"I apologize for this unsolicited message but I got your email address from the Castle Forbes site as the point of contact for America and I had a question for you. I am a wet shaver who enjoys the Castle Forbes line of shaving cream and I read on a forum dedicated to straight razor shaving that Castle Forbes shaving cream had made fundamental changes to its ingredients. I was wondering if you could shed any light on the change and if there is any noticeable difference with the new cream. Thank you for your time and have a wonderful day.
Sincerely,
Eric xxxxxx"

I expected to receive some sort of letter back from the representative with the company’s position and maybe even why they were doing so, what I did not expect was to receive a personal letter from Castle Forbes director carefully explaining not only what they had changed but why, and then to go on and explain why they were changing their packaging also. I was impressed that a company like this cares enough about one person writing an email about a product change to have a senior person in the company take the time to explain their position… I can only think of one other company that would do that and that’s not in this market. Regardless, I’ve been given permission to post his letter here. It’s my hope that Castle Forbes new formula does as good a job as the previous recipe because I would like to continue doing business with a company that cares this much about one customer to write them a reply.

"Dear Eric,
Please don't apologise, we depend on the people who use our products to help us and it is as a result of requests from our customers that we changed our preservative from parabens to a non-paraben version but that is the only change that we have made to our formulation. While we know that the jury is out scientifically in the case of parabens we decided that we would change as we were asked to and it is less than 1% of the formulation.
The significant change that we have made is to our packaging because again, many of our customers either felt that ridgid boxing was no longer ecologically sound or that Castle Forbes was open to criticism with its use of ridgid packaging. During the year we hope to complete the change with all of our products but we have started with the shaving creams and I think that this is where the confusion has arisen. The new cartons allow us the space for a description of our products and perhaps the declarations, which include the No paraben declaration are all thought to be new. No colours has always been the same, No fragrance as we have only ever used pure Essential Oils and No animal products too as we have used plant glycerines from the start, we mentioned tallows as we have been asked if the cream contains tallows in the past. It may be that this has given the impression that we have changed several of the ingredients but you can rest assured that the preservative is the only change and despite the minute quantity involved we made several trials to ensure that the consistency did not alter before we made the change.
I was unaware that we had raised some concern because we do not go on the boards, as we believe that they are the domain of the wet shaving community but if you think that it would reassure people I would be very happy for you to pass on this information. We remain a very small company, we rely on our customers and would never alter our formulations to their detriment having worked so hard against the status quo to develop our range.
Best wishes,
Andrew

Andrew French
Director
The Private Perfumery at Castle Forbes, Aberdeenshire, Scotland"

And there you have it. I look forward to trying out the new formula and I hope that it performs to the same level as the creams I have now.
Eric

to Castle Forbes.

I've wanted to try it, but now I've GOT to try it. Such gentlemanly conduct deserves to be rewarded.

Anyone know where I can get CF in Canada ??

Originally Posted by Glenn24

to Castle Forbes.

I've wanted to try it, but now I've GOT to try it. Such gentlemanly conduct deserves to be rewarded.

Anyone know where I can get CF in Canada ??

I've made a couple purchases from Rasage Poulin, a "brick & morter" store as well as online sales in Canada. But there are several stores that carry CF that could ship to you including Straight Razor Designs and Classic Shaving both advertising on this forum site. Good luck, I love the CF creams and I hope you do too.

Eric

Well said, Castle Forbes, well said. Your shaving cream is an excellent product and one which I use regularly.