From the very beginnings of Fine Accoutrements, it was obvious that a soap offering was needed to fulfill the promise of a truly “Fine Shave”. However, given the impact that Fine Classic After Shave has had on the traditional wet shaving community, we felt a responsibility not to tarnish the brand by slapping the name on a product that wasn’t similarly remarkable. This has proven much more difficult with soap than it was with aftershave.
It’s easy to forget that “craft aftershave” barely existed (outside of bay rum) at the time Fine Accoutrements was launched 3 years ago. There were the big European brands, the drugstore American Brands, and precious little in between. There were certainly some products out there, but most had the feel of a soap-maker’s afterthought, and the beautiful glass flask bottles we made famous were nowhere to be found. In other words, the world was ripe for something new, and our updated take on Alt-Innsbruck was just lucky enough to hit the mark.
The competitive landscape of shaving soap in 2016 is a much different beast. The world is full of not just good, but great shaving soaps, many of which can even be had at reasonable prices. Creating a product worthy of distinction in such an environment is no easy task, but… we think we’ve done it!
From the beginning of our endeavor to create a dream shaving soap, we had a straight forward goal: the lather of Tabac, with the Fine scents. Little did I know how difficult such a thing is to achieve. We talked to every large American Soap maker in an attempt to duplicate the Tabac experience, but to no avail. We even paid one $3,000 in an attempt to reverse engineer the ingredient list, but after 46 different attempts, the exercise proved to be nothing more than time and money down the drain. It became clear that something was lost in soap manufacturing while coming to the new world (at least when it comes to shaving).
As frustrating, time consuming, and expensive as that experience was, it also marked the turning point in our endeavor, because we finally got the idea to just start calling around Europe. It was this decision that led to a moment, months later, where we received a sample of a soap base with a lather and ingredient list (ex- fragrance components) identical to Tabac! It was love at first lather, and we soon struck an exclusive agreement with the single manufacturer that had access to this soap, and could produce it in appropriate volumes, to utilize it for Fine Classic Shaving Soap.
Although we could not obtain official confirmation that the soap base I had discovered is the same as used in Tabac, we have little reason to suspect otherwise. Regardless, even if we're wrong, I’m still happy to bring to market a triple-milled, tallow-based soap with lather remarkably similar to Tabac. But if we're right, wet shavers will now have access to what amounts to the first new scent(s) of Tabac since Sir Irish Moos!
Made in The Netherlands, Fine American Blend Soap is now available. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
www.westcoastshaving.com
