I had a limited edition Mystic Water Indian Summer soap that performed very well, but had palm oil in it and irritated my skin.
My top five are: B&M Maggard's WSP GreenShave TSD I haven't tried many of the others mentioned, but I may at some point.
Michelle admitted that she erred in making this soap as she used a cooking spice to get the desired scent that a customer wanted and she said that she would never do that again!
Larry is a great dude and stands behind his quality and customer service. You should be pleased with the overall performance of the select line of his soaps. I haven't smelled puro fresco yet, so I'm curious to hear your opinion. I love how threads like these only encourage us to buy more soaps! Great stuff gents, thanks for the input. Who else knows of some great stuff not mentioned yet??
Not in order: Barrister and Mann TSD Shop Cold River Soap Works Mike's Natural Soap RazoRock Honorable mention: Ginger's Garden WSP Stirling's Soap
From your top five...best 3 citrus leaning soaps. Any formula works for me, coconut, tallow, palm oil, it doesn't matter. I can get away with using almost anything.
Ooohhhh, that is a great (but tough) question. B&M Cheshire is a great soap, dominantly bergamot. But it smells more like Earl Grey tea than citrus. I am partial to lime. Castle Forbes is the best lime cream I have tried and Mike's has the best lime soap I have tried. Combine the bergamot and lime and you have another favorite from Maggard's. Mike's also has Orange, Pepper, Cedar which is very nice but not straight up citrus. Catie’s Bubbles has sugary citrus with Boucles Fruite (aka Fruit Loops) It smells EXACTLY like the cereal. I didn't think that sounded appealing at all - until I used it. CB Purple Grapefruit is exceptional, but more lavender than grapefruit to my nostrils. Haven't used a citrus soap from WSP or Reef Point. So, if I limit to my top 5 and extend it to citrus containing soaps, it would be: Barrister & Mann Cheshire Catie’s Bubbles Boucles Fruite Mike's Lime If I extend beyond my top 5 and just consider pure citrus: Castle Forbes Lime Mike's Lime Maggard's Lime Bergamot Honorable mentions: Dapper Dragon Blood Orange Mike's Orange Pepper Cedar Muhle Sea Buckthorn (kinda citrus, scent is amazing but performance is just okay) TOBS Grapefruit Truefitt & Hill Lime That answer is guaranteed to be longer and more useless than you intended when you asked, but I love too many soaps.
I had been considering Maggard Lime Bergamot. I tend to like things that are citrus, Lucky Tiger AS for instance, but always seem to go toward oranges. Boucles Fruite sounds interesting as well as Mike's Orange Pepper Cedar. so much soap to choose from. I am gonna spend a little time browsing that list in a more thorough way online. Thanks for putting that together.
Mikes orange, cedar, and pepper is amazing. Great citrus scent to it and you get some other stuff in the background.
I agree. If you tend to lean toward orange soaps, the Mike's Orange Pepper Cedar will give you a unique take on orange that is complex but really pleasant.
Ginger's Garden Grapefruit Mint; I can't vouch for her Lime, other than in terms of the overall quality of her products. RazoRock has a couple of citrus croaps, and I've never had any problem getting them to lather; for instance, Cumba Cheech is strong on the orange blossom, which may translate as 'citrus leaning' for you.
Just for clarification: 'Artisan Soap Vendors'—implying not necessarily the volume produced or scale of operation, but artisanal (i.e. involving skilled work, with comparatively little reliance on machinery); how are we to diffentiate between a one-person artisan and perhaps a larger artisanal shop such as Martin de Candre, or do we? In the pics below, you can see skilled handiwork is involved throughout the soap-making process with 'little reliance on machinery.' Or do we consider a one or two-person shop a more accurate definition of 'artisan,' with the larger numbers of employees and volume produced at other soap makers invalidating their inclusion? Just curious.... By the way, Kraft Foods produces a line of 'Artisan Cheese'—but I don't believe anyone considers Kraft Foods, Inc. an 'artisan shoppe.'
Fair enough. "Artisan soap maker" just sounds better than "some guy or gal with a soap crock pot" which is probably the case in many instances. I was differentiating the mom and pop shops from mass produced products but I don't have a clear line of demarcation. I am fine with leaving the interpretation up to the poster. If you want to post MdC as one of your top 5, you'll get no complaints from me.
Based on the soap making process, it's hard not to consider MdC an artisan. I have yet to try this soap for fear that it will cure my soap addiction.
I took Artisan soap maker here to mean independent operators who produce soap in the spirit of artisans. Scale of operation is not necessarily a consideration. If a shop has 100 people making soap by hand, they could be just as artisanal as a one person operation. I always thought Cheez Whiz (not to be confused with Easy Cheese) was so good it must have necessarily been produced by old world masters. What's next, are you guys are gonna try and tell me that the tooth fairy aint real?
