About the Brand: Tabac is a name that has been in the shaving community for many decades. Largely considered something of a “Dad soap,” Tabac original has been produced since the 1960s. Owned by a German Perfume and Beauty company known as Maurer & Wirtz, Tabac is a classic line of fragrances designed specifically for men. Honestly, I do not smell it. To me, it is very overly floral and sweet. It smells like old people. It is the same fragrance I get when visiting my grandparents’ house where I can’t touch anything and have to be on my best behavior. My shaving brush is a synthetic brush. Therefore if you are using something like a full silver-tip badger or super badger brush, you will probably have no trouble building a nice and rich lather to go with this.

Tabac | Gents Tabac | Gents

I can only assume that the Marketing types believe that vegetal shave soaps will be more profitable based on focus group data. The rich lather and texture are very nice and soft, perfect for a safety razor and several days worth of growth. So, at the end of the day, I believe that I have moderate to hard water since the city is publishing something every year. The Tabac staff obviously have better senses of smell than I do. In the bowl, on my face and after the shave I experienced a lightly but indistinguishably scented soap. No specific fragrances stood out—for me, the olfactory experience was “meh.” Not terrible, not great. I asked my wife to smell the soap in the bowls and after I shaved and the fragrance reminded her of Ivory soap. That’s an acceptable scent for a body soap, but it’s not my first choice in a shave soap.I do not believe that it is possible to replicate all of the performance attributes of tallow with a vegetal base at the same price point. A comparable vegetal base would require the use of exotic oils, which are expensive. The shelf life of a tallow based soap cannot be replicated with a vegetal base, unless it is triple milled, which precludes the use of exotic oils. Ease of lathering: As with the original formula, I scored this a 5 with a badger brush and 3 with a synthetic for an average of 4. But there was a major difference between the original’s lather and the new formula. The original produced a dense, silky lather while the new version was much lighter and less dense. I don’t know how chemists score density so I’ll use a dairy analogy. The original formula was like a low-fat yogurt—OK, not exactly and without the fruit—while the new formula was like whipped cream from an aerosol can. The difference on my face was noticeable and that concerned me because less dense lathers have produced inferior shaves for me in the past. IMO, the demise of traditional mass produced tallow based hard shave soaps is a loss. I bemoan the marketeers being put in charge of the firms that used to make these soaps. This is yet another manifestation of finance capitalism swallowing up whole our heritage of industrial capitalism.

Tabac Shaving Soap: A Great Choice For Everyone A Review of The Tabac Shaving Soap: A Great Choice For Everyone

That is a HUGE word-salad there. Most of it doesn’t look out of place for professionally made soap, but I would prefer a few less “sciency” words in the list. Overall though, there is nothing that really jumps out at me except for the Benzyl Alcohol and the Citronellol.According to online posts, the formula changed because M&W’s tallow provider went out of business in late 2020. M&W’s media department did not respond to my questions about the formula change so I can’t confirm this but the information appears solid.

Tabac Original Shaving Soap - Sharpologist Review: Tabac Original Shaving Soap - Sharpologist

It is much thinner, of course. However, it will still be more than enough for you to shave with a safety razor and be protected. How is the Texture? My usual is a 3 pass shave. I currently have a Merkur 38C with Astra Green blades. I use a finest badger. I face lather by loading the soap on my face directly and then, I build the lather. The good side is that the scent can be covered up very easily, so if you have a good aftershave that you like, this is probably going to be something you can overcome. Ingredients Okay, my plan is to shave for 30 days with the new formulation and alternate with the old formulation for 1 shave only every week or so. I might switch from a boar to a badger to a synthetic brush but I will try to keep the same setup for at least a week. That way, I should be able to keep a consistent result. For this article I spent a week shaving with each soap, using a Merkur 34C razor with Feather blades. To test the duration of the soaps’ fragrance, I applied Nivea’s Sensitive Soothing Post Shave Balm after most shaves. The Nivea balm isn’t completely scent-free but its fragrance is very mild.Ease of lathering: I scored this a 5 with a badger brush and 3 with a synthetic for an average of 4. The results with the badger brush were impressive: easy to load with a fast buildup of copious amounts of lather. I had lather spilling over the Tabac bowl and my shaving bowl in less than a minute and the load held up for all three passes. There's a new version of the Tabac shaving soap. The reviewed version will be refered to as the "new" formulation.