When I mentioned the new soap I ordered from Bufflehead Soap Co., which is made with duck fat, @Darkbulb asked me to post a review. Here are my first impressions from one shave with it: Background Justin, the guy behind Bufflehead, previously sold shaving soap as the Wax Pass Lather Co. for several months last year. Unsatisfied with his formula, he shut down and spent a few months in R&D, and once he settled on a new formula decided to re-brand as well. He caught my interest by including duck fat as one of the saponified fats. I'd never heard of a shaving soap using it, and I absolutely love food cooked in duck fat, so I decided to give it a shot. Packaging Check this out: The soap is sold at 3.5 oz. but in a much larger tin, so there is a lot of headroom to make lathering less messy. In addition to the tin of soap (which came in a little drawstring bag), he included a bar of pre-shave soap (I was a "lucky winner"), an empty sample container to encourage me to share his soap, two hard water test strips and a hand-written note. Nicely done! Lathering This stuff loads and lathers as quickly and voluminously as any shave soap I have used. Very impressive in this regard. I did not take any photos, though. Sorry. Lather performance Plenty of slickness, nice and dense. Has that nice residual slickness that can be activated with just a bit of water for touch-ups and buffing, too, which I value in a soap. Post-shave is nice, not the least bit drying. Scent The scent I got, Islamorada, is named after an island in the Florida Keys and the scent is described as "Basil, Bay Leaf, Cedarwood, Grapefruit, Honey, Mandarin Orange, Rose Absolute, Tobacco Blossom." The combination of the Caribbean name and the bay and citrus elements had me imagining an unique take on bay rum, but that is not really the case. The dry puck smells most prominently of rose. When lathered, it becomes more complex, with the cedar, tobacco blossom and citrus coming on as strong as the rose. The other elements lend a complexity but I didn't specifically pick them out individually. The overall impression is clean, soapy, floral-but-masculine. They offer four other scents as well, all of which sound fairly complex and interesting. Ingredients Stearic Acid, Water, Palm Kernel Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Glycerin, Duck Fat, Fragrance, Blush Kaolin (clay) Duck fat? Here's what Justin says about using duck fat in another shaving community: "If you've ever cooked with duck fat, you know that it's a very soft (often liquid at room temperature) and creamy fat. That translates very well into the lather, giving you that tallow feel we all love. It's distinct advantage over beef tallow is that its skin conditioning qualities are much, much higher. It allowed me to create a soap that left your skin feeling very conditioned without leaving behind a slime when washed away." Is duck fat among the first ingredients? No. Does it smell ducky? No. (Nor would I want it to.) Does it quack? No. Is it possible a small amount is included just as a conversation starter, something unique to set his soap apart? The thought has crossed my mind, and it certainly is what drew me in. I don't think that's the case, though, as he seems like a genuine guy who spent quite a while tweaking his recipe to find just the right formula. Regardless of whether it's because of the duck fat or not, the soap performs really well.
this is interesting... duck fat....? im not too sure if the type of fat is important or not but they do offer something different I haven't heard of before
Update: having used it a few times since I wrote this, my opinion of it has not changed much, but has solidified. It lathers extremely easily, performs at a top tier level, and the scent is nice and not quite like anything else I have.
Thank you for the feedback, Chuck. If you all have any questions for me, feel free to ask. MODS: I looked for forum rules regarding artisans, but couldn't find much. If this type of post is out of line, please let me know. EDIT: I did find the Vendor rules and I'll assume I fall under those.
I find the term to be pretty subjective. You can push your finger into it with some pressure. It can also be scooped out with a spoon. If you allow it to dry before closing it up, it should harden slightly beyond that. Comparatively speaking, it's similar to MLS in regards to consistency.
Another soap added to list of soaps I want to try. At this rate, I am going to have be buried with my razors, brushes, and soaps.
Thanks. For those that may be interested, I decided to release the stock I had on hand instead of waiting and releasing it in bulk. It's available now.
I picked up another Bufflehead soap, a scent called Mannish Boy. Couldn't resist the Muddy Waters song title as a name. The packaging has been updated a bit with the addition of some classy looking cork on the tin. The scent is sort of a modern barbershop scent, not an 'old-man' scent at all. The first thing you get is a fresh, clean mint and ginger thing with a little bit of anise and camphor in it. Then as you lather, some darker woody tones come up and keep the whole thing balanced and grounded. Nice. The performance is exactly the same as the Islamadora I have: really great.
