For every palm oil soap that is sold they execute one orangutan. Did you know that?
How you keep it from going bad?Cella's "brick". Not a one to one "replacement", but in my shaving journey I find Cella is a worthy next generation favourite. Cella has the weight of time and tradition on its side, having proven its worth through generations. It's simple, also in terms of scent, super easy to lather, super slick, super cheap, tallow based. Just a suggestion.
How you keep it from going bad?
Thank you for the reply. The reason I asked was the Cella is one of the few soaps reported to go bad/rancid. It seems like sensible storage is all that needed.There is no need to. I just store it in a cool room in a plastic bag. The first 1 kg brick I went through lasted 5 years (aprox), and was sitting there all along, as I was working my way through. Not the slightest sign of anything going bad.
For every palm oil soap that is sold they execute one orangutan. Did you know that?
I agree with most of this, especially about the Stirling Beeswax and Sheep. The Shannon's Chupacrabra base is superior to MWF, but the scents are very heavy. It would be nice if she made a lighter scent for this fantastic base.Hard to believe it's been more than two months since my last update.
I've been meaning to write a summary of the third round for weeks now, but life always finds a way of interfering. The past months has been way too busy (luckily nothing too serious) and that doesn't seem to be about to change, so I think I'll skip the "round format" after this summary and rather deal with the soaps I try individually.
As always happens in stressful times, the least skillful members of the "committee of the mind" are at their loudest and the self-control muscles get a training opportunity. Mine failed spectacularly, and so I ended up getting a bunch of shaving gear I didn't really need. Luckily most of it is rather nice. The Zenith unbleached boar is one such item, and by now it's starting to get properly broken in. The Yaqi AC format razor I got is another example. I've come to understand that it's a copy of the Vector, so to avoid giving the copy version free advertising let's call it the Yaqi Voldemort. The Yaqi Voldemort is turning out to be an excellent razor, though it's my first experience of the AC blade format so maybe it's the format and not the razor that impresses. Getting the Voldemort shipped here took some time, and of course the aforementioned committee members took the chance to convince me to get an AC shavette as well ("since you already got all those AC format blades to try out"), so please welcome the Feather SR shavette as well.
In any case, the Fat has been a useful benchmark/anchor/centre from which to evaluate all these new toys.
On with the show.
Round 3 - The Sound of Silence
Or: Unscented soaps.
Is there anything more suited for the shaver interested in convincing himself that it's all about "keeping it simple" though he owns enough blades to last him three lifetimes and brushes and razors to convince everyone who knows about it that he's got some sort of personality disorder?
In any case, I like unscented. And the scents I like tend to be very mild (to my nose, obviously), e.g. MWF. The kind of scents it's hard to describe as anything but "mild soap scent". More important than the olfactory aspect is the skin reactions. I believe the fragrance ingredients are the main culprits of most of the shaving products I have had issues with.
Since it's been weeks since I finished this third round and I have the detail memory of a goldfish, I'm gonna keep the comments fairly brief here. However, my general ranking of these soaps remain very clear.
Haslinger Sensitiv - Good shaving properties (as have been the case for all Haslinger soaps I have tried) and truly without any discernible scent to my nose. But I'm not very impressed by the post-shave, not nourishing enough for my preferences.
Scheermonnik Puur - Very similar to the Haslinger in terms of performance and (lack of) scent. It's an excellent soap in many respects, but the post-shave properties (or lack thereof) are not for me. (Also, for the budget minded shaver I'd rather opt for the Haslinger which has a much better price per gram.)
Signature Soaps Capra (Unfragranced) - This is a very interesting soap base. I will start of by saying that I don't think I've ever experienced anything with as nourishing a post-shave feel as this has. Absolutely perfect post-shave for the dry winters we are having here now. With that being said... I couldn't get anything but a gooey lather out of this. Actually felt pretty tired in my right arm after lathering it. And I needed plenty of warm water to rinse the razor. These are first world problems (as are all shaving related problems, I guess) for sure, but the lathering and rinsing part took long enough that my total shaving time was about doubled from 20 to 40 minutes. The rich, fatty lather also had me nervous that the sink plumbing would need more frequent de-greasing than I have time for in mentioned "busy life".
in this post
It feels a bit like what @Mr. Shavington mentioned in this post, which immediately rang true to me as I read it while I was testing out this soap.
This soap reminded me of this Monroe quote which I've always found pretty awkward: "if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best". I don't think I can handle this base at it's worst, although that means missing out on its fantastic best (the post-shave).
That said, I haven't seen other people comment on these issues of mine, so maybe it's a me problem (at least the lathering part) and not a soap problem.
I should also mention that this thing smells like the goat's milk it contains. Or to my Norwegian nose, "brown cheese". I quite like that part of it.
Stirling Sheep - Good, but I don't find it as good as the tallow MWF in the post-shave compartment (though not falling very far behind). Less lanolin maybe? Kinda smells like chamomile to me, but a very, very mild scent that I enjoyed.
Stirling Unscented with Beeswax - Even better shave properties than the Sheep IMO, and an equally good post-shave. No clear faults with this one to me. Maybe not quite up there with MWF in terms of post-shave (though again not far behind). But overall I think I prefer this to Sheep, though both are very good soaps.
Shannon's Soaps Nil - Ended up buying a jar of this when I discovered that Maggard's shipping to Norway was really low. And I'm glad i did. This is the only soap besides the Capra that I feel actually outperforms MWF tallow in terms of post-shave. Perfect for the winters here, excellent shave properties too. A little gooey and like the Capra needs a bit warmer water to fully rinse, but nowhere near to the same degree as the latter.
Summing things up, "Nil" and "Unscented with Beeswax" takes the crown of this round, with "Nil" probably being my favorite (though I might have concluded otherwise if I was comparing them during the summer). Will either of these be able to dethrone the MWF? No need to, since the king has already abdicated. It's a bit like Magnus Carlsen voluntarily withdrawing from the World Championship cycle. But I will say that I am pretty sure that while I prefer the hard puck format of MWF to the two honorable mentions of this round, there really isn't many objective criteria by which I can say that it's a better soap than either of these.
Also, I went ahead and froze then grated the Capra, Haslinger Sensitiv and Scheermonnik Puur and combined them all to one soap. Felt like a kid at the soda dispenser, desperately trying to create something better by combining blends that are already skillfully crafted by masters at their craft, but the combination of the Capra's unbeatable post shave with the latherability of the two others at least has me thinking the end result is going to be decent at worst and excellent at best. Will report back.
Just come to the dark side, join SMAUG
and make your own King of Soaps.
ignature Soaps Capra (Unfragranced) - This is a very interesting soap base. I will start of by saying that I don't think I've ever experienced anything with as nourishing a post-shave feel as this has. Absolutely perfect post-shave for the dry winters we are having here now. With that being said... I couldn't get anything but a gooey lather out of this...
Maybe you should have experimented with it a bit more. First off, you don't need very much soap to develop a good lather. Second, the soap can tolerate quite a lot of water, it just becomes slicker. I think this would help avoid the gooey sensation, also.
It's entirely possible that I buy more of this later to try it out again. The grating with the Haslinger and Scheermonik turned out great too, so if I always have that option if I still can't quite dial in the lathering.
Coconut oil comes from a different palm tree than palm oil. This is a good read.Is the coconut oil used in Kalifornia soaps obtained from Indonesian forests?
Good thing I left a 1% uncertainty buffer, because I did end up bringing the Stirling Unscented with Beeswax in addition to the Lea stick. "Just in case"We'll be travelling to China for a good month soon and I'm 99% sure this wil be the soap I bring.