I am finally ready to admit it- I hate Williams Mug Soap!

[Multum in parvo]

For me sitting in Europe, to get Williams together with a fitting Marvy mug was quite an exotic endevour.
Never the less smell and performance for me is very good and so close to Arko - which is dirt cheap on my end - that there is no real need to rebuy. I mostly use these two for headshaving and either will work without much hassle.
That said, the mini pucks look cool so I will buy more in the future and use them alternately.

 

[Owen Bawn]

*I'll take this one, fellas...*

I'll be that guy who inevitably and dutifully appears in each and every Williams thread to say that he's used Williams for nearly 50 years and sees little change in the product or in its performance.

 

[pdieten]

We have a market filled with soap makers who can come up with something for anyone. With so, so many options, I don’t think anyone is obliged to like any particular soap or even owe a defense for their opinion. Personally I don’t care for products with a lot of heavy butters and emollients and whatnot because they feel too heavy and sticky on my face. So I sold my tub of AoS cream, and do fine with Williams. There’s something out there to please everyone, and YMMV.

 

[Billski]

I like Williams mug soap.

 

[old_school]

 

[chuckd]

(IME)

Pro: slick
Cons: poor protection, harsh/drying
Can take it or leave it: scent

This! It's the slickest soap I have ever tried. The cons went away for me when I stopped using the exhaust fan after a shower: humidity is Williams' friend (and Arko's friend, too).

 

[Guitar10]

Just a matter of opinion or I should say the results you get from the soap! For me the soap is top notch, but I do understand that it could be frustrating for some. It do take some technics to lather modern Williams, is it worth it! It’s all matter for the users, like to me I pay $1.69 can a puck and it could gave me about 90 to 100 shaves(quality one to), so for me it’s a yes and I founded that it worth the efforts. But like I said it’s all a matter of what you want. Williams mug is my go to soap because I get exellent results.

 

[Ad Astra]

Williams just takes another 30 seconds of brush-thrashing, that's all.

Better soaps - soaps that explode into lather after ten seconds - they spoil us.


AA

 

[SharpieB]

Am I the only one that gets very little smell out of a puck of Williams? It’s like a very mild hand soap to me. I use it at the cottage and don’t mind it at all. It lathers fine and is $1-2 a puck.

I don’t know why some people complain about the scent. On a scale of 1-10 for how strong the scent is, I would say that Williams Mug is a 2 and Arko is a 9.

Am I olfactorily challenged or just nuts?

 

[SilentTuba]

Life is too short to expend effort on a shave soap. If I have to jump through hoops to "make it work", I'll move on.

 

[Ron R]

Williams mug soap is just OK, you have to know how to apply with your brush when loading it. I found you have to apply to face with a thicker pastier lather than other modern croaps we are use to. When you figure that out you will enjoy it bit more, if you added to much water it becomes a foamier dissipating lather and you will just chase the puck again for more soap. It's not my favorite hard soap but once in a while I like a challenge and that is how I use it and it works, it is a reasonable slick soap for protection & scent is mild lemon freshness. I like to use a synthetic 24 mm tuxedo knot when using Williams mug soap.

 

[Blade4vor]

I can't believe you guys are paying so much for William's. I can pick it up at my local Wegmans for $0.99

 

[emwolf]

Modern Williams is only okay for me too. I get a much slicker lather from Arko for the price, or What The Puck for that matter. I can get a nice, thick lather from Williams, it just isn't that slick and I feel like there's a tacky residue left after the shave. If Williams was all there is, I'd be okay. Before I discovered B&B, it WAS all that was available where I shopped.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I can't believe you guys are paying so much for William's. I can pick it up at my local Wegmans for $0.99

I'll have to check Wegmans next time I feel the need to try it. Last time I had to order from Walgreens and have it delivered to store and it was like $1.59 or $1.69 iirc. Was wondering if anyone was still stocking it at the .99 rate I remembered.

 

[Tallships]

I started shaving with Williams back in 1962, it was a very good soap at the time, my dad used it all the time. I learned to build my lather right on the puck, first soaking my brush, giving it a shake and then puck lather, still use this method. The only reason I switch over to the Old Spice soap was the scent. But Williams Mug Soap back then is now called vintage. Today's Williams takes a bit more work and time to get a decent lather and I feel it's not worth the effort with all the other great soaps out there at comparable prices. Arko shaved and bowl pressed into a bowl gives me a fast and great lather far superior than the new Williams, kilos of Cella and Vito's are another great choice. Williams may be great for some guys but for me it's a soap of the past.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Yeah, I try to always keep perspective on Williams. It's Not THAT bad. Back when I was switching from Glycerin soaps to pure soaps, I actually remember doing several threads demonstrating that it made pretty good lather.

Then I did the Blue Willie/Glycerin mod which made it much easier to lather. Then I started buying vintage soaps. This was all before there were a ton of good artisan soaps available from a thousand and one makers. And I discovered that 90%+ of vintage soaps performed as well as the top 1-3% of modern soaps. And WILLIAMS was the standout best of the vintages for me. Today's Williams isn't a terrible soap. It isn't the fizz that MWF has always been for me. It isn't the utter garbage that some of the worst reforms (I think Erasmic is the legendarily bad reform people like to reference if I'm remembering right) became. But it went from being the best shaving soap among a field of almost exclusively incredible shaving soaps to being an ok performer in a much, much weaker field.

Even without all the artisans people love today, Speick stick, Wilk Sword stick, Tabac, Cella, Dr Harris, and dozens of other soaps outperformed it. And with all the artisans today it's REALLY been pushed to the bottom of the pile once you remove the truly terrible soaps from consideration. It's one of the worst soaps that is still usable. That's the thing. It IS usable. It's not garbage. It's the subway sandwich of sandwiches. That makes for a pretty big fall from where it once was.

 

[Chandu]

@RayClem

I'm pretty sure that this is just like the 10 year old boy that "hates" girls. In this case you are the boy and the Williams is the girl. Give it a couple of years, you'll feel differently.

 

[SilentTuba]

@RayClem

I'm pretty sure that this is just like the 10 year old boy that "hates" girls. In this case you are the boy and the Williams is the girl. Give it a couple of years, you'll feel differently.

I've been wet shaving with a DE and soap/brush for 11 years...there are prettier girls who are nicer to me than Williams ever has been. Just not worth my time!

 

[Tpach]

I couldn’t get any lather from Williams for a WHiLE. Just the foamy, dissipating lather.

Just recently did I sit down and experiment with it. It DOES require a lot of water. The lather will be voluptuous but airy at first. Keep beating it and adding water slowly. It WILL eventually erupt into a dense, creamy lather. I was calling everyone’s BS until I finally figured it out.

Since it requires so much water, I made a Williams stick. Apply to face and enjoy the exfoliation while it lathers up!

 

[Chandu]

I couldn’t get any lather from Williams for a WHiLE. Just the foamy, dissipating lather.

Just recently did I sit down and experiment with it. It DOES require a lot of water. The lather will be voluptuous but airy at first. Keep beating it and adding water slowly. It WILL eventually erupt into a dense, creamy lather. I was calling everyone’s BS until I finally figured it out.

Since it requires so much water, I made a Williams stick. Apply to face and enjoy the exfoliation while it lathers up!

Yup, it's big on the proto lather up front. You have to forge ahead. You are rewarded when you do, but there are a lot of good soaps that don't require that and people have become accustomed to them. If you use Williams daily, it starts to give you the good stuff quicker. Most rotate it and thus have to work for the lather each time.