I was at the local Saturday market and one of the merchants was a farm about 12 miles away named Celestial Farms. Their main business is raising Dexter cattle for show, sale and beef. They also sell vegetable starts and plants. However, the lady of the house has started making soaps and moisturizers. She is just getting started making shaving soaps but from the sounds of it she has done a lot of research and is really trying to make a top notch product. She doesn't use palm oil or coconut oil like most makers do. She only had 2 shaving soaps at the market: a very nice smelling green citrus and "silk shaving soap". The silk shaving soap is actually infused with silk to provide the slippery texture needed for shaving. I haven't tried either of them yet. I'm going to try the silk soap tomorrow before church and will report how it goes. She says she is not averse to adjusting her formulation because she is still early in development.
I hope it is home run for you. As long as she does not try to rebrand her body soap as shave soap, which many 'amateur' artisans try to do, it could turn out to be a nice shave soap.
I realized this morning that both of the soaps I bought were silk infused but were just different fragrances. Anyway, I was a little disappointed right away as the soap didn't seem to foam up very well and the foam was wimpy with big bubbles that burst after just a few seconds. What foam there was seemed to lose its loft straight away. I moved on anyway figuring if it was a slippery soap and I got decent coverage it would still work out okay. I am VERY impressed with the slipperiness! Up to this point I've been using Pre de Provence No. 63 and it's a great soap but on my 3rd pass the top of my chrome RazoRock "squeaks" and bounces along my neck. Not so with the Celestial Farms soap. Slick and smooth passes all the way through. Here's the kicker though...for my last pass I worked the bowl with the brush a few times (the puck was not in there...just the brush and leftover later) and the lather came to life! It piled up and filled the bowl with a thick, creamy lather. No big bubbles this time. My conclusion is that I had too much water in the brush early on. It will require a little practice to optimize it. Bottom line: a great shave this morning. Perfect BBS result and the soap left my skin soft yet clean feeling after rinsing. I followed with a splash of Clubman that usually dries me out a bit but as I write this my skin feels soft rather than tight. I'll post up again the next time.
that's awesome to hear. I always like positive stories about small time soap makers. it seems there is a lot of negativity towards craft show or farmers market soap vendors. I think some of them just crank out a product without testing it but it sounds like they were doing their homework and trying to make a quality product. its always worth giving something a chance and see how it works out for you. I hope there are many more great shaves to come from this soap.
Similar results again this morning. An exceptional shave with suds that started out meh and then got thick and creamy by the third application. I'm not sure what's going on with that. Maybe I need to get the later started, let it cure while I brush my teeth and then shave. I'm not sure what's happening in the time that the brush is laying in the bowl that makes the lather improve. It's got to be drying out...whatever...it works. The slickness is killer though. I really like this soap!
It was actually really cool getting to talk to the maker and listen to her stories of experimentation, success and failure. I could tell she is really excited about her products and is striving to make them better and more varied. She will stand there and talk your ear off about why she doesn't like using some ingredients and opts for others. She really puts a lot of thought into it. I hope she's successful and keeps adding new items to her line.
that's great to hear. I wish all the soap makers would do that lol. I know quite a few of them put their heart and soul into making a quality product, but it seems to me that some of the higher end products I've tried that are 4-5 x the price are not 4 or 5 times as good as a cheaper product. what counts is that they care about the product and there is always room for improvement and experimentation.
