Blimey! The table pushes forward with a lot of new information ...
Give or take, I think this is about it! Presenting,
The Definitive Guide to British Triple-Milled Shaving Soap.
So, again, Standard Company Limited were bought by Soapworks in 2012 but clearly did not carry the knowledge and expertise forward and quite frankly decimating the standard of British shaving soaps, particularly among the London Cartel.
We can see quite clearly that the big names Crabtree & Evelyn, Penhaligon's, Trumpers, Truefitt & Hill, Taylor of Old Bond Street and other established names like Vulfix, possibly also Floris and further afield Musgo Real were all supplied by Standard (marked as
Standard in the table). With the Soapworks acquisition came reformulation for these houses (marked as
Soapworks in the table). The Standard formulation was known-good and vintage spotters should seek the ingredient sets (as layed out in the
Key in the table) to confirm what they're buying is of the vintage they are seeking.
Some of the brands went through a further reformulation during the 2010s which is presumably a second Soapworks formulation (marked as
Soapworks II in the table) and a couple called it a day at that point, ceasing the sales of shaving soap altogether - Crabtree & Evelyn certainly
enjoyed both Soapworks formulations, while I'm still hazy as to whether Penhaligon's accepted the second formulation. Trumpers certainly did and to this day maintain that there's "absolutely nothing wrong with it" despite, I'm told, not using it themselves in their shop < they use the creams. The soap makes for a poor lathering experience - thin, foamy and dissipates on the face within seconds and visibly on the brush thereafter. In use, the residual slip is more of a juddering sensation.
Other brands continue to use the newer Soapworks formulation, notably M&S in their Apothecary range and newcomer Bulldog. Pseudo-British eBay brands like Haryali also, with Haryali still on the first Soapworks formulation.
Rather than accept the second formulation, some brands looked elsewhere. Most notably, Truefitt & Hill and Taylor of Old Bond Street, but also Vulfix. We have a common notion that this new formulation is from Culmak, but I don't have absolute confirmation of that ... largely because I cannot find a Culmak ingredient list with that base ingredient set (nevertheless,
T&H is used in the table to denote those houses which use this new formulation and by T&H themselves, I've marked it as
T&H (Culmak?)).
Clearly a good formulation, Scottish Fine Soaps and later Mitchell's Wool Fat move to the same base, abandoning their hitherto tallow-based offering.
On Culmak, I have several ingredient lists going back through time and while I can see that at one time they also make a soap which had a base very similar to Soapworks base, their previous (pre-2011) soap did not match Standard ... being an entirely different formulation (hence,
Unknown Base in the table). Pushing forwards, Culmak move to a highly simplified formulation based on Coconut Oil (which itself seems at odds with Soapworks Palm-focusses offerings, so I don't think it's a Soapworks) which is regarded as delivering a very poor shaving lather experience - thin and dissipating, but unlike the Soapworks formulation does have some residual slip rather than a juddering effect.
This latest base is also found inj Czech & Speake branded shaving soaps (having moved from the tallow-based Valobra base some time during the 2010s) and newcomer EcoWarrior, again having moved on from a perfectly workable formulation.
Meanwhile, Floris remains a bit of an enigma to me with a lack of historical ingredient lists I can only show that their base appears to be a little different to the others (and so I've marked that as
Unknown Base in the table for Floris themselves and
Floris? for others that appear related to this base). Further afield, Musgo Real appear to have ditched the Soapworks base for the same base as Floris and Arran Aromatics moving off what appears to be the LEA (c.2017 Reformulation) onto the Floris base with their gentle rebrand to Arran (Sense of Scotland).
Somewhat deviating from the British names, but worth mentioning because Edwin Jagger appear to be in this camp, LEA reformulated their tallow soap to a palm-orientated vegetal soap around 2017 (noted as
Unknown Base in the table for LEA themselves and
LEA (c.2017) for those using the same base ingredient set). Notice that LEA themselves use a different ingredient set for their hallowed stick and yet another for their Classic soap which I am not finding in common with other brands. This 2017 base appears to be used by some of the European names, like Muhle, De Vergulde Hand and Carthusia ... as well as Edwin Jagger. As a shaving soap, it is workable - not as delightful as the former tallow soap, but workable nevertheless. It is also worth noting that this 2017 formulation bears considerable resemblance to an older formulation used by Boots through the 1990s and 2000s - same formulation as their hallowed shaving stick and soap dish tablet.
Which brings us finally to DR Harris, who have continued throughout with their own tallow-based soap, attracting other names like Cyril R Salter from other formulations and newcomer Captain Fawcett. While I don't have precise examples of historical ingredient sets for DR Harris, I've filled out the respective columns with a best guess.
For your own comparisons and for the sake of hunting down vintage examples, I've put what I think are the base formulations in the key - green is good, red is bad, dark red particularly so (and worrying for perhaps the T&H gang who might be supplied by Culmak, given the trend now not only away from tallow but also palm) and dark green for good/tallow-based. Amber is where I'm still filling in the blanks and/or don't have direct experience of the soap.
Happy hunting! Enjoy your soaps and I hope that this helps you place and understand the soaps that you have and ones that you may have passed on through the dark age of Soapworks.
I will continue to update the table itself as more comes to light, but the story most likely remains the same ...
