Long post warning!
I wanted to wait until after the 1st of the year to post this new offering from ETHOS Grooming Essentials and it's another in a series of Limited releases that will be offered this coming year. As far as I know this is the first ever authentic pure Vanilla Shave soap and there's a couple of stories behind this soap.
I'll start with the story that inspired me to make this Shave soap. Well I started wet shaving about 18 yrs ago and as many it was because I was tired of using cartridge razors and the shave they gave me as well as the ridiculous prices for a replacement cartridge. My very first DE razor was a Gillette Fatboy and I bought it not knowing what the heck it was I just wanted something that twist to open like my dads old razor and I liked the name. I only used that razor and Proraso shave soap for the first 5 years. At that point in my life I was racing cars and I belonged to a bunch of car forums so one day I thought I wonder if there's a shaving forum. Well looked and found B&B and the Shave Den. So I joined them both. I was welcomed on B&B by a man called Honka Hey aka Mark who was a Native American of the Lakota Tribe which really has nothing to do with this post except I thought it was very cool because back in the day when I was just a little guy playing Cowboys and Indians on a Saturday morning in the old neighborhood I was always a Sioux warrior. Anyway I was also welcomed almost the same day by one of our very own members GlazedBoker Gus who has been a long time shaving friend. So Mark and I used to call each other at least 3 times a week and he taught me a lot about Vintage Gillette razors and especially the Aristocrats and New Type as he was a big fan of the New Deluxe. So one day on the phone knowing that I have developed and made personal care products for a long time he said " if you ever decide to make a Shave Soap will you please make a pure Vanilla Shave soap as I"ve never seen one ever in all the years I"ve been wet shaving. At the time I said sure of course I will. Yeah little did I know what the heck I was getting into. So lets move the clock ahead quite a few years and now having ETHOS Grooming Essentials and making Shave soaps etc so about a year and a half ago I said if I start making soaps I'm going to keep my promise and make a Vanilla shave soap.
Ok so now one day I"m on the phone with a very well known Soap maker friend of mine I'm sure you would all know whom I met for the first time at a Shave meet up and I mentioned to him I wanted to make a pure Vanilla soap. Well he immediately said without hesitation forget it. It's impossible! You'd be better off using a synthetic Vanilla fragrance oil or Aroma Chemical. I"m like nope I want it to be all natural. So again he said good luck on that cause I'm telling you it's impossible don't waste your time. This was backed up by two other well known soap maker friends of mine. Ok just so you know me a little better, I"m a little hard headed and before I will concede on something I have my mind set on doing I have to at least explore things and if I run into a brick wall where I feel it is impossible then I will back off. This was not the case with this project as I did more research I thought to myself this may be possible but it's going to take a lot of time and some unconventional ways of making the soap become a reality. So the first thing I did is buy a large bunch of whole Madagascar Vanilla beans and guys they aren't cheap. I then began an 8 month process of infusing the beans into an oil base of Coconut and Jojoba oil. This infusion required time to sit and a time that needed slow heat. So once a month I'd take the infusion and slow heat it for 36 hrs and then let it sit again in a dark cool spot. 8 months later I thought to myself I think it's ready! Well I tested it in a bar soap base as it's much easier and the scent strength was not very strong yet when you smelled it from the bottle is was amazing! Pure Vanilla is so much better than synthetic which to me smells like butter and I don't like it at all. Anyway so I knew I had to use a different technique than pouring the oil into a soap at a high temperature so a talk with an friend who told me a story about an old soap maker who had a technique he called " the car method " told me how that works and I thought I"m going to try it on a small scale and low and behold it worked. So now I"m getting more excited about this project. In another conversation with a long time friend of mine whos a master perfumer at IFF which one of if not the biggest fragrance houses in the world told me about a " Vanilla Absolute " I'm like I've never heard of it or read about it in my online searches and he said now that you know the name of it do a search. Ok did the search and bam found it only to see the going price. BTW only 2 US suppliers I found sold it and prices were between $380 to $400 an oz! Ok so that right there takes thing to a whole new level price wise but I said I was going to make it and I meant it. I also thought why not put it in a special jar but then I thought why not a custom shaving bowl that once the soap is used up can be used with any shave soap. So below is the new Shaving bowl that the Shave Soap which is in the new " Afrika Collection ' called " Vanilla Saffi which in Swahili means "Pure Vanilla " I think it's fitting since so many of the ingredients are indigenous to the African continent.
Shaving bowl made by Tim at Knothead Brushworks> Thanks Tim for the hard work and time with the back and forth phone conversations.
The shave bowl specs are:
Epoxy/Resin Base
Macro Pearlescent white
Wooden Top = 5 inches
Logo Laser engraved
Top opening of the bowl = 4.5 inches
Base of the bowl = 4.25 inches
Bowl overall height = 1.5 inches
Bowl depth = 1.375 inches
Circular bottom for easy lathering
Shave soap = approximately 5oz
Wood Species of the top - Bhilwara also known as Ceylon Rosewood or Black Siris from SE Asia which is a durable and dense hardwood.
NOTE If this wood runs out we will switch to another wood.
Shave soap and Shaving bowl - $200.00
Shave soap in a regular jar - $135.00
Since this is a limited release I'm starting a list. No money is required at this time. I will need your name and an a email address to put you on the list. I will send out a notice when the soap is a week away from shipping and you can then pay for the item. If you are on the list I ask you to let me know as soon as you can if you change your mind somewhere along the line as there may be others who want to be on the list that will take your place. There are already a few people on the list already and I don't want anyone to miss out on this offering that want it as it did with the Dragonsbeard V2 shave soap that went very quickly. I don't think this is a soap that I'll be making very often as the infusion process is so long. I may make it again down the road but I have some other interesting projects I'll be doing this year so we will see if and when. As far as I know this is the first 100% Pure Vanilla Shave soap and I feel really good about it and I'd like to say if my old friend is still on this earth and you see this post or are told about it. I've got one saved just for you!
Approximate time to be released is 6 to 8 weeks as there is one release before this one.
I know this Shave soap is expensive and it may not be for everyone which is understandable. Also this brings up a subject that I"ve been wanting to address and have discussed with many of my customers and shaving friends. As many of you know I price my products according to what is in them. In the case of ingredients like what's in the Vanilla Saffi it can take just one ingredient to take a shave soap from one price to another much higher price. Aroma ingredients are the most common ingredients that can have a huge affect on price. Here's an example. Take my unscented shave soap base or any soap makers base for that matter whether it sells for $45 or $15 it doesn't matter because if only Pure Rose Absolute is used to create a Rose scented soap and guess what? That would take either soap price into multiple $100's of dollars a jar! Reason Rose Absolute sells for about $750 an oz! That's the reality of it and there's no getting around it. Now if you use a Synthetic Rose Fragrance oil or even if you use the more expensive Aroma Chemicals that simulates Rose Absolute the shave soap will most likely be the normal price that any other scented Shave soap in the line sells for. Oh yes a drop or two of Rose Absolute could be used in a soap formula that uses 99.9 % Synthetic Rose fragrance oil and it can be put on the label and the person that made it can say we use " Real Rose Absolute in our Shave soap " and yes they did....2 drops in a 50lbs batch of soap. Sorry that's not the way I roll and when I say it's 100% whatever you can rest assured it is just that like in my Lavender Supreme or Peppermint Shave soaps where only the pure Essential oils are used. There are some scents that are pretty much impossible to get without using a synthetic of some sort. I use a blend of natural aroma ingredients, Isolates and and a couple of Aroma Chemicals in the Pineapple Noir scent as it would be impossible to create that scent using only natural essential oils. I will always let my customers know what I used in my blends.
Anyway sorry for the long post but I wanted to give you the whole story!
Thank you as always!
I wanted to wait until after the 1st of the year to post this new offering from ETHOS Grooming Essentials and it's another in a series of Limited releases that will be offered this coming year. As far as I know this is the first ever authentic pure Vanilla Shave soap and there's a couple of stories behind this soap.
I'll start with the story that inspired me to make this Shave soap. Well I started wet shaving about 18 yrs ago and as many it was because I was tired of using cartridge razors and the shave they gave me as well as the ridiculous prices for a replacement cartridge. My very first DE razor was a Gillette Fatboy and I bought it not knowing what the heck it was I just wanted something that twist to open like my dads old razor and I liked the name. I only used that razor and Proraso shave soap for the first 5 years. At that point in my life I was racing cars and I belonged to a bunch of car forums so one day I thought I wonder if there's a shaving forum. Well looked and found B&B and the Shave Den. So I joined them both. I was welcomed on B&B by a man called Honka Hey aka Mark who was a Native American of the Lakota Tribe which really has nothing to do with this post except I thought it was very cool because back in the day when I was just a little guy playing Cowboys and Indians on a Saturday morning in the old neighborhood I was always a Sioux warrior. Anyway I was also welcomed almost the same day by one of our very own members GlazedBoker Gus who has been a long time shaving friend. So Mark and I used to call each other at least 3 times a week and he taught me a lot about Vintage Gillette razors and especially the Aristocrats and New Type as he was a big fan of the New Deluxe. So one day on the phone knowing that I have developed and made personal care products for a long time he said " if you ever decide to make a Shave Soap will you please make a pure Vanilla Shave soap as I"ve never seen one ever in all the years I"ve been wet shaving. At the time I said sure of course I will. Yeah little did I know what the heck I was getting into. So lets move the clock ahead quite a few years and now having ETHOS Grooming Essentials and making Shave soaps etc so about a year and a half ago I said if I start making soaps I'm going to keep my promise and make a Vanilla shave soap.
Ok so now one day I"m on the phone with a very well known Soap maker friend of mine I'm sure you would all know whom I met for the first time at a Shave meet up and I mentioned to him I wanted to make a pure Vanilla soap. Well he immediately said without hesitation forget it. It's impossible! You'd be better off using a synthetic Vanilla fragrance oil or Aroma Chemical. I"m like nope I want it to be all natural. So again he said good luck on that cause I'm telling you it's impossible don't waste your time. This was backed up by two other well known soap maker friends of mine. Ok just so you know me a little better, I"m a little hard headed and before I will concede on something I have my mind set on doing I have to at least explore things and if I run into a brick wall where I feel it is impossible then I will back off. This was not the case with this project as I did more research I thought to myself this may be possible but it's going to take a lot of time and some unconventional ways of making the soap become a reality. So the first thing I did is buy a large bunch of whole Madagascar Vanilla beans and guys they aren't cheap. I then began an 8 month process of infusing the beans into an oil base of Coconut and Jojoba oil. This infusion required time to sit and a time that needed slow heat. So once a month I'd take the infusion and slow heat it for 36 hrs and then let it sit again in a dark cool spot. 8 months later I thought to myself I think it's ready! Well I tested it in a bar soap base as it's much easier and the scent strength was not very strong yet when you smelled it from the bottle is was amazing! Pure Vanilla is so much better than synthetic which to me smells like butter and I don't like it at all. Anyway so I knew I had to use a different technique than pouring the oil into a soap at a high temperature so a talk with an friend who told me a story about an old soap maker who had a technique he called " the car method " told me how that works and I thought I"m going to try it on a small scale and low and behold it worked. So now I"m getting more excited about this project. In another conversation with a long time friend of mine whos a master perfumer at IFF which one of if not the biggest fragrance houses in the world told me about a " Vanilla Absolute " I'm like I've never heard of it or read about it in my online searches and he said now that you know the name of it do a search. Ok did the search and bam found it only to see the going price. BTW only 2 US suppliers I found sold it and prices were between $380 to $400 an oz! Ok so that right there takes thing to a whole new level price wise but I said I was going to make it and I meant it. I also thought why not put it in a special jar but then I thought why not a custom shaving bowl that once the soap is used up can be used with any shave soap. So below is the new Shaving bowl that the Shave Soap which is in the new " Afrika Collection ' called " Vanilla Saffi which in Swahili means "Pure Vanilla " I think it's fitting since so many of the ingredients are indigenous to the African continent.
Shaving bowl made by Tim at Knothead Brushworks> Thanks Tim for the hard work and time with the back and forth phone conversations.
The shave bowl specs are:
Epoxy/Resin Base
Macro Pearlescent white
Wooden Top = 5 inches
Logo Laser engraved
Top opening of the bowl = 4.5 inches
Base of the bowl = 4.25 inches
Bowl overall height = 1.5 inches
Bowl depth = 1.375 inches
Circular bottom for easy lathering
Shave soap = approximately 5oz
Wood Species of the top - Bhilwara also known as Ceylon Rosewood or Black Siris from SE Asia which is a durable and dense hardwood.
NOTE If this wood runs out we will switch to another wood.
Shave soap and Shaving bowl - $200.00
Shave soap in a regular jar - $135.00
Since this is a limited release I'm starting a list. No money is required at this time. I will need your name and an a email address to put you on the list. I will send out a notice when the soap is a week away from shipping and you can then pay for the item. If you are on the list I ask you to let me know as soon as you can if you change your mind somewhere along the line as there may be others who want to be on the list that will take your place. There are already a few people on the list already and I don't want anyone to miss out on this offering that want it as it did with the Dragonsbeard V2 shave soap that went very quickly. I don't think this is a soap that I'll be making very often as the infusion process is so long. I may make it again down the road but I have some other interesting projects I'll be doing this year so we will see if and when. As far as I know this is the first 100% Pure Vanilla Shave soap and I feel really good about it and I'd like to say if my old friend is still on this earth and you see this post or are told about it. I've got one saved just for you!
Approximate time to be released is 6 to 8 weeks as there is one release before this one.
I know this Shave soap is expensive and it may not be for everyone which is understandable. Also this brings up a subject that I"ve been wanting to address and have discussed with many of my customers and shaving friends. As many of you know I price my products according to what is in them. In the case of ingredients like what's in the Vanilla Saffi it can take just one ingredient to take a shave soap from one price to another much higher price. Aroma ingredients are the most common ingredients that can have a huge affect on price. Here's an example. Take my unscented shave soap base or any soap makers base for that matter whether it sells for $45 or $15 it doesn't matter because if only Pure Rose Absolute is used to create a Rose scented soap and guess what? That would take either soap price into multiple $100's of dollars a jar! Reason Rose Absolute sells for about $750 an oz! That's the reality of it and there's no getting around it. Now if you use a Synthetic Rose Fragrance oil or even if you use the more expensive Aroma Chemicals that simulates Rose Absolute the shave soap will most likely be the normal price that any other scented Shave soap in the line sells for. Oh yes a drop or two of Rose Absolute could be used in a soap formula that uses 99.9 % Synthetic Rose fragrance oil and it can be put on the label and the person that made it can say we use " Real Rose Absolute in our Shave soap " and yes they did....2 drops in a 50lbs batch of soap. Sorry that's not the way I roll and when I say it's 100% whatever you can rest assured it is just that like in my Lavender Supreme or Peppermint Shave soaps where only the pure Essential oils are used. There are some scents that are pretty much impossible to get without using a synthetic of some sort. I use a blend of natural aroma ingredients, Isolates and and a couple of Aroma Chemicals in the Pineapple Noir scent as it would be impossible to create that scent using only natural essential oils. I will always let my customers know what I used in my blends.
Anyway sorry for the long post but I wanted to give you the whole story!
Thank you as always!
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