My Trip to Pasteur's Pharmacy - The Mecca for All Things for the Wet Shaver

I think anyone who enjoys wet shaving and finds themselves in Manhattan has to make the pilgrimage to Pasteur's Pharmacy. I did just that. I was asked to join my daughter on a school trip to the American Museum of Natural History. We, both my daughter and I, decided it would be cool to stop at Pasteur's while we were there. Pasteur's has 2 locations, one on 34th St and the other uptown on Lexington Ave. Since we took the LIRR to Penn Station, it was just several blocks East, just a block past the Empire State Building on the North side between Madison Ave and Park Ave at 53 E. 34th St (tel:212-683-3838).

Prior to our trip, I did extensive research about what soaps they might carry and looked over reviews to see if any enticed me. Since they do not have a website(soon to be rectified), I perused any and all online photos taken a the store to determine what brands they might carry. The list was posted, to the best of my knowledge, in the other thread asking about what soaps would you buy if you went. Once I knew I might like a soap base, I looked over their scents to make a rather extensive list of ones I want to smell and possibly buy. Of course I believed I could keep my purchases to 5 soaps.

Once you visit, you will see that this is impossible!!!

To entice you all, here are some photos of the store and the vast array of soaps this store offers the wet shaving hobbyist.

Shot from the outside the store



The enticement window out front:

 

What may be a rather small storefront, houses hundreds of soaps. Since the shelves will change with time, here are shots, as best as I could of all the soaps currently on them.

Please be patient as I need to resize them to be allowed to be uploaded so check back from time to time and more will be added.

 

Still more shaving vendors:

 

And More Soaps!!!



There are still MORE photos to come!!!

 

Still More Photos!!!

 

So what did you end up buying?


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Don't think the photos of soaps are done. More to come!

 

In case you are fed up with soap photos there is like 20 more to come. Be prepared!

 

So you are starting to see my dilemma. So many soaps, so little time.

 

I want to go there so bad. That is like Disneyland for me. I want to see all the soaps in one place

 

Only a few more to go....

 

OK, just about done...

 

And finally, we got to meet the proprietor, Leon. Really great guy. Very cordial and helpful. To my daughter and I, he treated us like an old friend we hadn't seen in a long while. In reality, this was our first meeting. Extremely attentive and can really talk about wet shaving. You can really see in his eyes that this is not only a business but a passion of his. We are very fortunate to have him support our hobby. The clerk also let my daughter take a candy bar at no charge. That was very nice of them to do.

A few things he made sure to let us know. He allowed us to open any soap we wanted but were asked to keep the PannaCrema and I Coloniali sealed. At their prices, I would not want someone to open them and I am sure it could affect resale. I was already being careful not to break any seals as it was. Other than that, he had lots of 'Tester' marked soaps and others that were not sealed for smelling. I do not think there was a single soap I was unable to smell. Even the PannaCrema leaves a little slack in the seal so that the scent does come out. It was enough for me to select one.

Thank you Leo for a great time at your shop. I would also like to add that his prices are as good or better than what I see online. Even with taxes, I think you do not pay anything extra doing business with him as compared to online. For those of you a little too impatient to wait for the website to come online for Pasteur's, he did indicate that he could ship anything I needed. He did say that he has someone working with him to get a website up and running. In case you cannot wait, it would be worth a phone call if you see something you might like and see if he can ship it to you. He seems like a very accommodating guy.

Here is a shot of Leon with my daughter.


My daughter had a great time smelling all the soaps and trying to find one that I would like. This was to be her gift to me for Father's day. MY daughter ended up grabbing B&M Reserve Cool, B&M Le Grand Chypre and Tallow & Steel Boreal for me. These were on my list to try. She also found Soap Smooth Ceret all on her own which I too enjoyed.


So with all those great soaps, It was nearly impossible to narrow down my selections. My desire to limit myself to 5 soaps was not going to happen.

This was what I went home with. The one turned around is a Tabac stick. In addition, my daughter grabbed a Stirling Black Cherry soap for my wife for her birthday (not pictured). We all enjoy wet shaving and enjoy the better shaving feel and post shave benefits of wet shaving soaps. Even my daughter enjoys the soaps. whatever lather that is left over, she gets to use to wash her face with it. We all enjoy this hobby as much as possible together.


The three Soap Commander bath soaps were purchased for my daughter. she enjoyed those scents and has been enjoying different soaps during bathing. At almost 10, I think we will have another to enjoy wet shaving and will support artisans with their bath lines as well.

 

SO I am sure some may ask why I chose those soaps.

I have never tried PannaCrema nor I Coloniali but their reputation is outstanding and from what little I could smell from the jars, I fell in love with them.

Tallow & Steel's new formula intrigued me and the scents online sounded great. I will admit that I had a hard time selecting one since I did not love them all and chose Boreal because it had a forest kinda scent and I did not have one in this scent and liked it. As I have seen from other soaps, what they smell in the jar can be different in use. I will see if T&S will change my mind on some of the other scents in the future. For now, this will peak my interest.

I am a fan boy of B&M. I received a sample of Reserve Cool and enjoyed its scent as well as Reserve Spice. Reserve Classic was good too but I felt I would order them from best to worst as Cool, Spice and finally Classic. It was a close race. Le Grand Chypre just smells great to me and I love the Glissant base from other B&M soaps.

Saponificio Varesino I have liked since trying Dolomiti from the Pass Around Box. It was the older formula but once I obtained the Black version, I loved it as well. 70th and Stella Alpina were hard choices to make from their line. All except the Fern scent I loved. It just would be too expensive to get them all. these two, were the best scents to me.

Fine, again, has such a following that I wanted to see what the hype was about. I love Executive Man and just purchased a knock off cologne of Aventus that I felt I couldn't go wrong with Platinum. I also liked Italian Citrus, Orange Noir, Green and Fresh Vetiver scents from Fine. Once I sample their soap, I could be adding others in the future.

Wet Shaving Products(WSP) Formula T Black Amber Vanilla just had a rich delicious and unique scent to me. I currently have nothing like it and I just loved their vegan soap that I had to grab it. when you find a scent you like, you just have to grab it when you can.

Tabac was a choice between it and Michell's Wool Fat. Since Tabac was lesser priced and I wanted to try one of them, I grabbed the Tabac Stick.

Finally, Soap Sooth was on the discount rack for 1/2 off. The scent is Cherry and vanilla and I found it very good and since my daughter selected it, I just had to grab it as well.

The only aftershave I grabbed was a Stirling Balm called Weekend In Malibu. I loved that one and Island Man the best of the summer scents and they just barely edged out South Padre. Seeing it, I had to grab it. I have been using only on special occasion the Executive Man Balm. I figured this might get more air time since I won't need to save it for special occasions like I have relegated Executive Man, bath, shave and Balm to.

In all, my daughter and I had a great time at Pasteur's. I would recommend everyone to make it a family trip there.

 

Awesome pics


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And to think, I didn't even go into all the brushes and razors, aftershaves and colognes you see in the photos!

Even with lots of prep, a focused list, it is too easy to get lost in all the options. I think we spent over 1.5 hours and even that was not enough.

Send the wife to Macy's just up the block while you enjoy 'your shopping '!!!

 

Great great great choices. SV 70th is one of the best soaps ever made in my opinion.

 

Cool photos and report. Jealous!

 

Excellent haul, thanks for the pictures

 

Amazing! Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I'd blow a head gasket going in there and trying to figure out what get haha

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