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Back when I was reviewing hifi for a living, I used to hate it when other writers would devote a whole column to some obscure piece of gear that was unobtainable for whatever reason -- the gear was heinously expensive, the designer hand-soldered only one per month, the "company" was really the designer's parents' basement, etc. I mean, what's the point of getting people ginned up about something if they can't go out and buy it, or at least check it out?

So please forgive me for talking about Tabac's incredible shaving soap from Germany. Because you can't get it. Well, you can, but you're going to have to get down on your hands and knees and truffle-pig this sucker if you want to score some -- I know of no stores in this country that sell it, and I've only found one US vendor online that sells this stuff, smallflower.com, but I've never ordered from them so I can't vouch.

Tabac comes in two versions -- a small glass jar with a cake of the Tabac soap in the bottom for lathering with a shaving brush, and the handy dandy push-up shaving stick you rub all over your wet face like a roll-on deodorant and then swirl your shaving brush around to create the lather. A friend from England sent me a Tabac shaving stick a few days ago, and I finally got around to shaving with it this morning.

Given its name and country of origin, I expected Tabac to smell like the streak of smoke a German cigarette makes as it falls to the ground before being snuffed out with the toe of a black leather jack boot. But it doesn't smell tobaccoey at all. Rather, it smells like a very strong, very bold, very soapy cologne, like something a guy who kisses his muscles in the mirror would wear. It's not really my thing, but it's certainly pleasant enough to sniff temporarily as a shaving soap that washes off after you're done at the sink.

But the scent isn't what Tabac's about. The shave's the thing, and the shave I got with this Tabac shave stick today was tremendous. I did as I was told, and rubbed the stick all over my face and neck after splashing myself with hot water, and then I lathered the soap into a nice, thick lather with my Vulfix #2234 shaving brush. Unlike the glycerin-based shaving soaps like QED's and Col. Conk's, a tallow-based soap like Tabac can lather up as thick and rich as a good traditional shaving cream like Trumper and Taylor. I was pleasantly surprised at how much more like a good cream's leather this Tabac was like than most other hard soaps I've tried.

Shaving with a Featherjector -- a 1940's Type E3 Injector loaded with a modified Feather Pro Super disposable straight razor blade -- the Tabac cut extremely close without any irritation. The only other hard shaving soap I've tried that could shave this close without razor burn was Classic Shaving's soap.

The kicker was the mole on my upper lip -- for the first time ever, I shaved with a hard soap and didn't nick my mole! Good creams like Taylor's Avocado and Trumper's Violet never let any razor nick my mole, but almost every hard shaving soap I've ever shaved with has. Not Tabac. I even shaved again in the evening with it, and still didn't nick my mole. This is great stuff!

But you can't buy it. Fine, go Google it. See what I mean? Amazon carries almost every product Tabac makes except the shaving soaps! Nobody sells this stuff outside of Germany, it seems. You can order it from the Shavemac site over there and pay a ton for shipping, or you can try your luck with smallflower, but I can't vouch for either site. I do know that a lot of shavegeeks who ordered brushes from Shavemac got stuck withy hefty FedEx surcharges on top of the already bloated S/H charges, so smallflower looks like the best way to go.

Someone really ought to bring this stuff to the US market. Along with the Classic Shaving soap, it's the best shaving soap I've tried yet.