Martin de Candre (MdC)

Martin de Candre for some reason seems to be a polarizing soap. Let's break down those two items up fromt.

Scent. It's a love it or hate it. No doubt. When you first receive the soap and open it the scent is overwhelming. With some time, the scent mellows down to an earthy lavender scent. It is still strong, but for those who don't care for it, there is an unscented variety. At the time of this review a Limited Edition Fourgére (Fern) scent is available, but the last batch sold out in two days. So .... if you don't like strongly scented soaps (or earthy lavender for that matter), there is an unscented. Give that one a whirl.

Price. OK, let's get this out of the way as well. It's not cheap to buy, especially here in the states. The soap runs €38, plus €18 for the most insanely well protected and fast shipping from Europe you will ever find. Now that the expensive up front cost is out of the way, let me tell you why I gave this a 4 our of 5 stars for price. This stuff lasts FOREVER. I purchased mine last fall,and I use it at least 4 times a week and up to 7. Here is where my jar sits today at the time of this writing.

Most people using this soap every day get 9-12 months out of the 200g jar. While still not on par with something like a Proraso, it isn't all that expensive on a per shave basis.

I exclusively face lather with MdC. Usually with a SOC 2 band, or SOC 2012 SE mix, although any brush with some scritch works for me. For today's purposes I decided to use a 2010 LE Semogue Silvertip and bowl lather. My face lathering load time is 5-6 seconds. Yup, that's it. Today, due to bowl lathering I went for 7-8 seconds. Here are the results.






Mounds of rich creamy lather in 8 seconds of loading and about a minute of bowl prep. Even with my 5 seconds or so of loading for face lathering, a lot of water gets added to the mix to produce best results. This is an exceptionally slick and protective lather. I have ZERO complaints on any qualitative (yes it is all subjective) test to look at. When I face lather, I tend to go for a slightly dryer lather than this, but this should server the purposes for a review.

Is this soap "expensive"? Up front, yes. No doubt. Depending on various factors it will run you $50 to $68 to have it shipped to you. Is it worth the money? To me yes. I get tons and tons of great lather with very little soap used. The experience is nothing but fantastic, the skin care ..... So far today I have yet to apply anything to my face after rinsing my face post shave (Joris / Super Iridium) and my skin feels great. The scent (yes I am a scent lover), the richness ...... It's all here for the taking.

Finally the ingredient list:

Steric Acid, Water, Coconut Acid, Potassium Hydroxide and Glycerin. Not listed with the scented version are essential oils. That's it. Four items plus water. Short and sweet. For those with skin allergies, the unscented version of MdC is about as simple as one can get.


This is the only soap in my rather extensive collection of which I have zero complaints.