Dr. Dittmar

Dr. Dittmar is a family-run German manufactory in Alpenrod, in the Westerwald region of Rhineland-Palatinate, that makes wet-shaving and hair-care goods by traditional handcraft. Its catalogue centres on an alkaline shaving soap built from a recipe first developed in the late 1970s, alongside straight razors, shaving brushes, wooden and horn combs, and boar-bristle hairbrushes. The company trades as Lexxa Dr. Dittmar & Schmidt GmbH and remains active, running a Shopify storefront that ships to more than forty countries.

The brand's history is closely tied to an older name, Golddachs, and the two are best understood as a single family line that split into two separate companies. The current business dates its own start to 1979 [1], while the predecessor brand it grew out of was founded earlier; the editorial record places Golddachs in 1971 [5]. Both figures are defensible and refer to different legal entities started by the same family.

The original Spezial shaving soap was created at the end of the 1970s by Rainer D. Dittmar in Alpenrod, and was first sold under the Golddachs name in Europe and exported as Rivivage. According to a German shaving-trade portrait of the company, the soap was produced largely unchanged for close to two decades, with a first reformulation in 1998 that removed the preservative BHT [5].

Founder attribution depends on which company is meant. Rainer D. Dittmar developed the original product; the present Dr. Dittmar firm was established by Dr. Sandra Dittmar, who revised the recipe, together with Antje Schmidt [5]. Alexander Dittmar, Rainer's son, is the company's current managing director rather than a founder [2].

After roughly three decades the original family business ran into financial difficulty, and the Golddachs operation passed to the Pfeilring group, which entered the company in 2007 and fully acquired the Golddachs trademark in 2010, moving it to Neustadt/Wied [5]. The Dittmar family did not sell the Alpenrod site itself. Instead, the original founders stayed at the Westerwald location and relaunched the family recipe under a new name, Dr. Dittmar & Schmidt GbR [5]. As part of that relaunch, Dr. Sandra Dittmar updated the soap a second time, removing coumarin and geraniol to reduce the risk of skin irritation [5]. The outcome is that Golddachs and Dr. Dittmar exist today as two distinct brands drawn from the same origin: Golddachs under Pfeilring at Neustadt/Wied, and Dr. Dittmar with the founding family at Alpenrod.

The current legal entity, Lexxa Dr. Dittmar & Schmidt GmbH, was registered at the Amtsgericht Montabaur (HRB 24441) on 5 February 2015 [8]. In October 2024 the company retired its earlier shop at rasur-online.de and moved its full range to the drdittmar.com domain [1].

Dr. Dittmar presents itself as a craft manufactory working against mass production and corporate bureaucracy. Its stated identity rests on traditional handwork, German manufacturing, and natural materials: the company says its hairbrushes use only high-quality woods and genuine boar bristles, and that its horn and wooden combs are made by hand. The positioning is voiced bluntly by managing director Alexander Dittmar, whose recurring company statement remarks that bureaucrats do not produce hairbrushes, shaving products, or beard wax. The brand describes itself simply as a specialist for wet shaving and hair care.

The Spezial alkaline shaving soap is the manufactory's flagship and one of its oldest products, still made to the family recipe more than four decades on. It is a plant-based formula; an independent ingredient database lists water, glycerin, sesame seed oil and salt among its components and records the soap as certified vegan [7]. The company states the soap prepares beard hair for shaving and helps avoid skin irritation and ingrown hairs [7].

Around that core sit handcrafted straight razors, shaving brushes and sets, boar-bristle hairbrushes graded for different hair types, and combs cut from black or light horn, wood and acetate. The range extends further into body brushes, travel goods and leather articles. All production is based at the Alpenrod site [1].

Dr. Dittmar is active. Its online shop carries a 2026 copyright, displays recent customer reviews, and completed the migration from its old domain in 2024 [1]. The Lexxa GmbH entity remains registered, and the brand ships internationally across the EU, the UK, Switzerlandand beyond.