For most of us our first exposure to a new brand is when it shows up on the menu at Maggards or West Coast Shaving. In our excitement seeing a NEW soap to try we don’t immediately think of what went into the creation of that brand. Our initial thoughts tend to focus more on the scent descriptions, the formula and the label than the story behind the brand. As hobbyist and consumers our focus on the NEW more than the HOW and WHY.
Despite the ever-growing list of artisan soap makers it isn’t often one gets to bear witness to the birth of a new artisan brand. For most of us it is as if an artisans brands just appears, as if they were created overnight and brought to market the next morning. Most of us are savvy enough to know that the journey from idea to reality must have taken time but I think many would be surprised at just how long and difficult that journey may have been. For many artisans the choice to bring a new brand to market meant leaving a well paying but unsatisfying career to pursue a passion. Failure for these artisans comes at a great cost and they do all that they can to ensure failure is not their fate.
What I hope to do here is to shine some light on my own journey from Barbasol to hobby shave soap maker to a fledgling artisan brand. By many measures my journey has only just begun, where I end up and how I get there has yet to be seen. Will CBL Premium Tallow Shave Soap become a widespread success or will it pop and fizzle without achieving any reach at all? We shall see….
It all started with a desire to help an artisan I admired develop a shave soap for the masses. I won’t divulge the artisan but she would recognize herself as a character in my story if she were to read it here. This artisan had done just as I previously describe, left a wonderful job she was very well qualified for to saponify her future. While she had to learn the craft of soap making she had a VERY strong innate ability to tell a story. After risking life and limb to learn the art of soap making she and her husband launched a brand that has survived and thrived for many years now...all because she made purchasing her soap an experience to be savored and enjoyed rather than simply a means to a clean get away.
I love(d) this artisans story and the experience I enjoyed as a customer, but I didn’t love her shave soap. I had been given (PIF’d) a puck of vintage Williams Tonsorial shave soap that simply knocked my socks off. I figured if I could learn to make soap then recreate that puck and show her how I did it, she would have a soap worthy of her brand. With this in mind I set out to learn how soap is made. I will admit, if I had know there were entire forums devoted to soap making learning to make soap would have been much easier and faster. While I didn’t find those forums until much later, I did find an old text from the late 1800’s on soap making that described the processes and theories that informed my current recipe and process.
For the next three years I would continue to learn through experimentation. I can’t be certain, and if my wife were to ask I would deny it, but over the years I think I spent between $1000 and $1500 on supplies and shipping as I created different soaps and shared them with other members of the forums. By this time I had given up on recreating that puck of Williams Tonsorial, I just wanted to make a decent soap in the scents people dreamed of having. Soaps scented like Pinuad Clubman, Lilac Vegital, Jeris, Brut and Stetson are but a few of my proudest creations.
I never intended nor imagined I would ever go into production or sell my soaps, in fact I constantly rejected the idea when others would suggest it. Still the fact remained, my soap was good and getting better with each modification. So much so those who had been on the receiving end of one of my surprise packages began to post about how much they liked it. Unbeknownst to me, the misconception that I was a vendor in disguise, intent on launching a brand to beat all brands grew despite my declarations to the contrary. I truly believed I was not an artisan in the same sense as the one who first inspired me, after all...I had no story.
Early in 2018 a series of events, the seeds of which had been planted many months earlier, led three friends to take a giant leap into the unknown ...and The Shaving Cadre forum was born. In the case of The Shaving Cadre forum it was most definitely born overnight, proving there is power in the brotherhood of man and that anything is possible when good men conspire to do good things. The birth of the TSC brand is not the point here, but it is still important for reasons that will become clear soon enough.
As the ink dried on The Shaving Cadre Forum partnership agreement the three of us felt empowered and impassioned. I felt empowered and impassioned! Alone, many things feel impossible but with a couple of good partners it seemed I could do anything. I think many of the Legacy members and early followers believed the formation of The Shaving Cadre would naturally lead to the eventual release of the CBL soap brand. It was, after all, one of the contributing factors in the bond that was created between the founders and it was certainly a part of the story that lead to the NEED for The Shaving Cadre.
I’ll admit, after the formation of the TSC forum I began to feel more like the artisan I had imagined I would need to be if I wanted to introduce ANOTHER brand of shaving soap to the world. Challenged by one of the partners to make a soap worthy of distribution via barbershops across the nation, I made the final tweaks to my recipe. Dave (Xenostr8shaver) had posed the challenge with no boundaries or expectations and in doing so he released me from the preconceptions that had held me back. The result was the CBL soap in production today.
I had made a deal with the members of the shaving community, I would not enter into production a soap that was a copy of what was already available, or merely “good enough to compete”. I would only enter into production if I thought I had something to add to the community. AND I would only proceed if I were producing a product that was both desirable and lacking in availability else ware. By late summer 2018 I had been secretly producing buckets of soap for months and had a decent stock pile. One final tweak in the process and Dave declared I had achieved my Opus ...I finally had a product worth introducing to the world. More importantly, I had a story to tell.
I also had one major advantage that few artisans have at their disposal. I had a forum of 100 plus members who had come to know me, many had already tried my soaps and enjoyed them. I had a forum to bounce ideas off of, to GET ideas from and to ask questions of. Absent a place like The Shaving Cadre I would have had no choice but to spend months or years going to farmers markets and meet-ups peddling my soap and hoping to be noticed.
I mentioned that the birth of The Shaving Cadre was important in my story and it is. The Shaving Cadre Vendor program was designed to encourage vendors and members to interact with one another so both benefit. By interacting with and learning from the members I was able to make soap in a way that they would enjoy it and be willing (even, eager) to support. In the month following my launch on The Shaving Cadre the members shared videos and reviews that have been seen by hundreds worldwide. I have had many hundreds of visitors to my website from all corners of the earth. My brand is gaining awareness and orders are flowing in (ok, trickling ...but it’s a strong trickle).
My brand is small but it will continue to grow, that is certain. What CBL Premium Tallow Shave Soap will look like in a year is anyone’s guess. All I know is, I am happy to have The Shaving Cadre and its members along for the ride. Whether I am in worldwide demand or simply serving the wishes of a growing forum...I’ll be happy.
Stay Tuned....
Despite the ever-growing list of artisan soap makers it isn’t often one gets to bear witness to the birth of a new artisan brand. For most of us it is as if an artisans brands just appears, as if they were created overnight and brought to market the next morning. Most of us are savvy enough to know that the journey from idea to reality must have taken time but I think many would be surprised at just how long and difficult that journey may have been. For many artisans the choice to bring a new brand to market meant leaving a well paying but unsatisfying career to pursue a passion. Failure for these artisans comes at a great cost and they do all that they can to ensure failure is not their fate.
What I hope to do here is to shine some light on my own journey from Barbasol to hobby shave soap maker to a fledgling artisan brand. By many measures my journey has only just begun, where I end up and how I get there has yet to be seen. Will CBL Premium Tallow Shave Soap become a widespread success or will it pop and fizzle without achieving any reach at all? We shall see….
It all started with a desire to help an artisan I admired develop a shave soap for the masses. I won’t divulge the artisan but she would recognize herself as a character in my story if she were to read it here. This artisan had done just as I previously describe, left a wonderful job she was very well qualified for to saponify her future. While she had to learn the craft of soap making she had a VERY strong innate ability to tell a story. After risking life and limb to learn the art of soap making she and her husband launched a brand that has survived and thrived for many years now...all because she made purchasing her soap an experience to be savored and enjoyed rather than simply a means to a clean get away.
I love(d) this artisans story and the experience I enjoyed as a customer, but I didn’t love her shave soap. I had been given (PIF’d) a puck of vintage Williams Tonsorial shave soap that simply knocked my socks off. I figured if I could learn to make soap then recreate that puck and show her how I did it, she would have a soap worthy of her brand. With this in mind I set out to learn how soap is made. I will admit, if I had know there were entire forums devoted to soap making learning to make soap would have been much easier and faster. While I didn’t find those forums until much later, I did find an old text from the late 1800’s on soap making that described the processes and theories that informed my current recipe and process.
For the next three years I would continue to learn through experimentation. I can’t be certain, and if my wife were to ask I would deny it, but over the years I think I spent between $1000 and $1500 on supplies and shipping as I created different soaps and shared them with other members of the forums. By this time I had given up on recreating that puck of Williams Tonsorial, I just wanted to make a decent soap in the scents people dreamed of having. Soaps scented like Pinuad Clubman, Lilac Vegital, Jeris, Brut and Stetson are but a few of my proudest creations.
I never intended nor imagined I would ever go into production or sell my soaps, in fact I constantly rejected the idea when others would suggest it. Still the fact remained, my soap was good and getting better with each modification. So much so those who had been on the receiving end of one of my surprise packages began to post about how much they liked it. Unbeknownst to me, the misconception that I was a vendor in disguise, intent on launching a brand to beat all brands grew despite my declarations to the contrary. I truly believed I was not an artisan in the same sense as the one who first inspired me, after all...I had no story.
Early in 2018 a series of events, the seeds of which had been planted many months earlier, led three friends to take a giant leap into the unknown ...and The Shaving Cadre forum was born. In the case of The Shaving Cadre forum it was most definitely born overnight, proving there is power in the brotherhood of man and that anything is possible when good men conspire to do good things. The birth of the TSC brand is not the point here, but it is still important for reasons that will become clear soon enough.
As the ink dried on The Shaving Cadre Forum partnership agreement the three of us felt empowered and impassioned. I felt empowered and impassioned! Alone, many things feel impossible but with a couple of good partners it seemed I could do anything. I think many of the Legacy members and early followers believed the formation of The Shaving Cadre would naturally lead to the eventual release of the CBL soap brand. It was, after all, one of the contributing factors in the bond that was created between the founders and it was certainly a part of the story that lead to the NEED for The Shaving Cadre.
I’ll admit, after the formation of the TSC forum I began to feel more like the artisan I had imagined I would need to be if I wanted to introduce ANOTHER brand of shaving soap to the world. Challenged by one of the partners to make a soap worthy of distribution via barbershops across the nation, I made the final tweaks to my recipe. Dave (Xenostr8shaver) had posed the challenge with no boundaries or expectations and in doing so he released me from the preconceptions that had held me back. The result was the CBL soap in production today.
I had made a deal with the members of the shaving community, I would not enter into production a soap that was a copy of what was already available, or merely “good enough to compete”. I would only enter into production if I thought I had something to add to the community. AND I would only proceed if I were producing a product that was both desirable and lacking in availability else ware. By late summer 2018 I had been secretly producing buckets of soap for months and had a decent stock pile. One final tweak in the process and Dave declared I had achieved my Opus ...I finally had a product worth introducing to the world. More importantly, I had a story to tell.
I also had one major advantage that few artisans have at their disposal. I had a forum of 100 plus members who had come to know me, many had already tried my soaps and enjoyed them. I had a forum to bounce ideas off of, to GET ideas from and to ask questions of. Absent a place like The Shaving Cadre I would have had no choice but to spend months or years going to farmers markets and meet-ups peddling my soap and hoping to be noticed.
I mentioned that the birth of The Shaving Cadre was important in my story and it is. The Shaving Cadre Vendor program was designed to encourage vendors and members to interact with one another so both benefit. By interacting with and learning from the members I was able to make soap in a way that they would enjoy it and be willing (even, eager) to support. In the month following my launch on The Shaving Cadre the members shared videos and reviews that have been seen by hundreds worldwide. I have had many hundreds of visitors to my website from all corners of the earth. My brand is gaining awareness and orders are flowing in (ok, trickling ...but it’s a strong trickle).
My brand is small but it will continue to grow, that is certain. What CBL Premium Tallow Shave Soap will look like in a year is anyone’s guess. All I know is, I am happy to have The Shaving Cadre and its members along for the ride. Whether I am in worldwide demand or simply serving the wishes of a growing forum...I’ll be happy.
Stay Tuned....
