A cold-saponified shaving soap, conveniently cured in the tub and with a whopping 30% donkey milk base (the soap firm raises these Pyrenees donkeys), the Hitton shaving soap is a 100%-palm-and-tallow-free offering that uses only pure essential oils for its fragrance base; in fact, the lavender used here is grown on their own farm!

Compisition of this soap is 30% organic donkey milk accompanied with a few other precious oils (olive, coconut, castor), the Francophilian presence of shea butter and white clay, and perfumed only with essential oils.  When the French say 30%, they are referring to the ingredient percentages before the saponification process.

Here at The Superior Shave shop we enjoy a fine collection of small French shaving/bathing soaps, which by and large eschew palm oil (Maître Savonitto excepted) and tallow and stick to essential oils (Maître Savonitto excepted) for smellplitude, which tend to be more subtle and accurate than more powerful/cloying fragrance oils - "FO" can be impossibly creative when under the stewardship of an olfactory genius, but they cannot be more natural or subtle than a good "EO" base.  We're confident that this soap among our current offerings has the best amplitude of all of those we carry which only use the essential oils for their fragrance; you can likely smell the donkey milk if you're attentive, but first and foremost you'll receive a bright and fresh cedar/lavender/vetiver concoction that simply must charm those who like the family given; it is obvious that lavender is here, but the wood texture of vetiver and cedar gives it a terrific balance, and in a magnitude that is hard to believe for the no-fragrance-oil set.

Lather is creamy and wet and extremely unstable-you must use as little water in the brush as possible, the latitude of going from too dry to lather as dense as it can be to too airy an exacting affair as many of the French soaps (Théophile Berthon seems to be the only French soap we've stocked with exceptional stability, if that is important to you...but it does not rinse away as this one).  It can certainly present a wet and slippery cushion for 30 seconds to one minute, regardless of what you can read to the contrary at a (commercial-competitor-owned) shaving enthusiast forum here, and this should be plenty to make a superior pass of the blade.  In fact, this soap quite unsurprisingly reminds me very much of the La Savonnerie Bourbonnaise soap we carry which also refuses to incorporate palm/stearic or tallow.  Stearic acid (almost always a palm oil derivative when speaking of soapmaking) used as heavy as possible is the easiest path towards perfect functionality of shaving soap if all of the practical merits are given maximum consideration (which is so often for all of the hobbyists, I think, though they seem to love-love-love those fragrance oils!)   Nobody does this better than these famed French producers and Sampsons All-Natural.   Nonetheless, there is a place in my heart for the obscenely-different approach of the cold-saponified palm-and-tallow-free European soap, which primarily but not exclusively originates in France.   If you look at all the listings here, we have a few of them and have looked at most, and thus far cannot find a drop of palm/stearic or tallow on the board, and a LOT of them have effusive rave reviews (written in French), including this exact soap which has 5-star reviews from 5 folks and nothing else at the time of this sentence's creation.   It is not the belief here that those people are shills or being nationalistic for France; it is instead likely they're putting priority on other factors, which all reside on the face mind you, which they find more important, and which they think make a better final outcome - which is always the goal.   This is indeed a hard to use soap, every time, just like our utterly-beloved (but palm based) Zartgefühl Ziegen Bart.   The way the moisture and slip occurs is unique to these particular 'Slow-Cosmetique' Frenchmen.   There's days when one will want the easy outcome like Sampsons (or Theophile-Berthon among our French stuff), and other days when tinkering with the French no-palm/tallow method, or Zartgefühl, is worth the "reward".   That does not make them 'defective', just _very_ different, but if you lack the patience to deal with La Savonnerie Bourbonnaise (or for that matter with a conventional straight razor), this is not the soap for you.  Bourbonnaise has been in our shop for just over a year and has sold very, very well for us with many people repurchasing it, so they must be doing something right (or tricking a lot of dedicated wetshavers), but making a stable lather, that certainly is not one of them!   Take a look at the second YouTube video above's end, which was made with a very early voyage with this soap, and make up your own mind.   Since this video, using at home and without having to worry about where a camera is seeing, this brush has been making pretty results with quite good stability.

A thankfully-large target here of 3.68" (93mm).  This is 150 grams of slow-stirred cold-saponified soap, and using an average brush for a reasonable shave has settled in at a ~1.1g per use consumption, meaning a typical lathering will cost ~$0.18/session retail for a ~20mm knot.   A year and a half is the designated shelf life after you start introducing the water to the party.  100% Made in France.  Also available in a cute gift set seen further down!