Thursday night I found myself in the same town as Stirling Soaps so I called Rod and asked if he would mind me stopping by to smell the soaps and purchase some samples face to face. I got to meet Rod, Mandy and Brad and talk to them about the business and other aspects of life while smelling every one of the shave soaps they have to offer.
I went with the intention of buying a couple pucks of soap and seeing the operation but after smelling everything I ended up coming home with 10 shave soap samples (Orange Chill, DGO, Iced Coffee, Barbershop, Bay Rum, Sharp Dressed Man, Eskimo Tuxedo, Vanilla Sandalwood, Black Cherry, and Hot Apple Cider), 2 full sized soaps (Return from Elba and Mogadishu Hope), a boar brush, a badger brush, a sample of SDM A/S, and 4 small tins for storing soap.
Although it will be a while before I can review all of these products I can tell you a few things about Stirling Soaps and the dedication they show to us as a community.
1) Rod and Mandy take what their customers say to heart and want nothing more than to give us exactly what we want. They really are reading the reviews on TSD and other sites and tweaking the soaps to fit our needs.
2) They only wish to sell the best products they can and when something isn't up to the standard they wish to deliver they will sacrifice profit rather than selling subpar product. Recent posts on their FB page will show that they quit selling one of their new soaps and are giving it away with orders for no other reason than Rod felt it could be better, regardless of the near perfect reviews listed in this thread. I was also the lucky recipient of a Stirling badger brush that Rod wouldnt sell because of a tiny cosmetic flaw that doesn't affect its performance at all.
3) The small crew at Stirling Soaps doesn't rest until everything is caught up. I had a great time hanging out and talking with all three of them but that didn't slow them down one bit, the entire time we were chatting they were filling orders and slapping on labels to get them out as soon as possible.
It seems like everyone on this board has nothing bad to say about Stirling but if you are a fan of the products and customer service they provide make sure and let them know how much they are appreciated I for one am looking forward to seeing them again once I've had a chance to sample all of the products
And just for fun here is a picture of the evenings haul:
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