Give or take, I think this is about it! Presenting, The Definitive Guide to British Triple-Milled Shaving Soap.
I'm streamlining this somewhat with the removal of a lot of chaff and a red-herring with the LEA formulation which, after looking through the whole lot again, I'm quite sure simply I've just got wrong and joined dots together that don't dot together.
What I have come to understand is that actually, the current Trumpers, TOBS, T&H and Floris are actually all different formulations, but that's not to say that they're not all made by the same (new) supplier. There are a number of peripheral names that adhere to the core formulation of some of these names from the London Cartel and I've shown that in the (new) table. I've also put in an Edwin Jagger/Muhle section since there does appear to be some consistency there and there's a curious throwback to Boots vintage, which I believe is an old Culmak formulation. We understand that Culmak is the new supplier to the good bases used by the big names and I think this lends some credence to that.
So, once again, presenting:
The Definitive Guide to British Triple-Milled Shaving Soap
I'll largely copy and paste from the previous post so that there's the full and running story presented here rather than having to flick back and forth.
Standard Company Limited were bought by Soapworks in 2012 but clearly did not carry the knowledge and expertise forward and quite frankly decimating the standard of British shaving soaps, particularly among the London Cartel.
We can see quite clearly that the big names Crabtree & Evelyn, Penhaligon's, Trumpers, Truefitt & Hill, Taylor of Old Bond Street and other established names like Vulfix, possibly also Floris and further afield Musgo Real were all supplied by Standard (marked as
Standard in the table). With the Soapworks acquisition came reformulation for these houses (marked as
Soapworks in the table). The Standard formulation was known-good and vintage spotters should seek the ingredient sets (as layed out in the
Key in the table) to confirm what they're buying is of the vintage they are seeking.
Some of the brands went through a further reformulation during the 2010s which is presumably a second Soapworks formulation (marked as
Soapworks II in the table) and a couple called it a day at that point, ceasing the sales of shaving soap altogether - Crabtree & Evelyn certainly
enjoyed both Soapworks formulations, while I'm still hazy as to whether Penhaligon's accepted the second formulation. Trumpers certainly did and to this day maintain that there's "absolutely nothing wrong with it" despite, I'm told, not using it themselves in their shop < they use the creams. The soap makes for a poor lathering experience - thin, foamy and dissipates on the face within seconds and visibly on the brush thereafter. In use, the residual slip is more of a juddering sensation.
Rather than accept the second formulation, some brands looked elsewhere. Most notably, Truefitt & Hill and Taylor of Old Bond Street, but also Vulfix. We have a common notion that this new formulation is from Culmak, but I don't have absolute confirmation of that ... largely because I cannot find a Culmak ingredient list with that base ingredient set.
What is clear is that each of the big names has a new formulation that is actually unique to them and the table does show whether the formulation is good, or otherwise - that's Trumpers, Truefitt & Hill, Taylor of Old Bond Street & Floris and, of course, DR Harris.
Let's just run through those ...
- Trumpers continue with a poor-performing formulation which we suspect is a Soapworks reformulation.
- T&H now have a clearly good formulation, so much so that Scottish Fine Soaps and later Mitchell's Wool Fat move to the same base, abandoning their hitherto tallow-based offering. Note that Trumpers Oxford Blue and Officer & Gentleman appear to be the T&H formulation.
- TOBS maintain a couple of quite different formulations for their offerings, both good.
- Floris, again slightly different formulation, but known-good and Arran appear to have adopted that formulation.
- DR Harris is the only tallow-based producer from this group now, with a couple of minor variations to their known-good formulation. Cyril R Salter adheres to this formulation and Captain Fawcett also appear to be making use of their formulation, offering further scent profiles.
I've put in an Edwin Jagger section, which I'd previously mis-identified as related to LEA (I now don't think that's correct) but it's worth having this in because it relates out to Muhle and also Carthusia who appear to use the same/highly related ingredient set. What is perhaps more important is that I have some vintage Boots which bears the very same ingredient set to current Edwin Jagger and I believe that vintage soap to be a Culmak formulation ... which might lend some credence to our shared notion that Culmak are now the supplier across the board, practically, for the Brits.
On that, it's worth pointing at Culmak's own current offering as a decidedly bad formulation that probably isn't worth bothering with. That formulation appears to have been adopted by EcoWarrior whose once good shaving bar is also now a bit of a dud. This also appears to be where Czech & Speake have landed.
Once again, for your own comparisons and for the sake of hunting down vintage examples, I've put what I think are the base formulations in the key - green is good, red is bad, dark red particularly so (and worrying for perhaps if the current good formulations are supplied by Culmak, given the trend now not only away from tallow but also palm) and dark green for good/tallow-based. Amber is where I'm still filling in the blanks and/or don't have direct experience of the soap.
Happy hunting!
I will continue to update the table itself as more comes to light, but the story most likely remains the same ... or similar ... or something ...