Last year when I switched to using a safety razor, I could find Van Der Hagen razors and soaps pretty much everywhere in the Cleveland area, especially Target, Walmart, Walgreen's, CVS, and Rite-Aid. Now it's all but gone, especially the soap pucks. The shave butter I can still find at CVS, but that's about it. What happened?
If they are disappearing, that would be a real loss. They are great entry level hardware and soaps for the newbie. I still like my VDH Luxury soaps. The razor blades are way over priced compared to what you can get on the web. And as I said on your other thread, I'm glad we still have Williams. It has staying power.
Can still find VDH Luxury SS in the local Walmart but nowhere else. Glad I have several pucks of the Deluxe which I like as well. It's a decent product that provides very nice shaves. I know it's still available online for now. Wonder if this will be another scare like there was with Williams awhile back?
The VDH pucks and DE razors disappeared from the Target, Walmart and supermarkets near me. Don’t know why. I guess they weren’t selling. In fact, Aqua Velva musk is gone from all the local supermarket. Shaveagedden????
I don't see how they're not selling, especially since CVS and Wal-Green's still carry them along with the shave butter, but I suppose one can send the company an email message asking about it. Maybe there's a change in distributors?
Most stores are pushing harrys at the moment. Vdh showing up everywere was a response to the retro boom, and hipsters, most have moved on, either giving up on old school shaving or have moved on to artisan soaps they have read about on sites like this. so now they move on to the next thing, which happens to be harrys and i have a feeling you will start seeing dollar shave club next. You can tell what sells the most as it usually gets the most shelf space. Vdh is still selling soaps online, i think amazon has them for 22 bucks a 12 pack for deluxe. Shaving soaps are actually a hard market long term, most soaps last a long time and are sharing shave time with multiple other soaps, which means even your loyal users are buying twice a year, its why the more popular artisans discontinue and create new scents, once sales go down to a trickle they discontinue, which causes a small boom of people stocking up, and the new soaps bring the same people back to try the new scent.
That’s the same as I was thinking. It’s been a years use out of 1 puck of vdh ss, since I shave every other day and have other soaps to use as well. I had noticed that not even Walmart is caring the starter pack with the soap, boar brush, and mug anymore.
Welcome @rbilly! Great First Post and thank you for the enlightening info. If you take a moment to visit The Welcome Center and make your intro there's a bunch of folks eager to meet you.
I love Aqua Velva musk! I’m going to have to stack up just in case. VDH pucks are great for the price. It’s not a bad soap at all. I figure if it’s slick enough for an SR shave, then it’s a good soap.
It's a shame if they are going to discontinue selling VDH in local stores. The kit especially is a great way for beginners to start "traditional" shaving easily and inexpensively. It contained everything you needed to start and it was all very serviceable, the soap was excellent IMO, I still use it today. Oh well I guess I need to stock up on my Arko. I had never thought about how hard it was to make a buck on shave soap until reading @rbilly writeup.
