My Dad started shaving in '61 or so. He's never used a shave soap in his life. Canned foam the entire time.
FWIW, I've been using proraso canned foam lately. It's awesome.
FWIW, I've been using proraso canned foam lately. It's awesome.
When did shave soaps decline in favor of canned cream?
- Thread starter Shavetheman01
- Start date
It was definitely prior to 1964 when I started college. I can't remember any guys in my dorm using a shave brush and puck to lather. I hated the electric my parents gave me in high school and, shortly after starting college, switched to a Schick Injector. I used canned foam with my injector, as did guys using a DE. One thing to consider is that there were no high-end badger brushes back then. There was no internet, only "manly" commercials like this.
Aerosol cans didn't exactly replace soap, they were more likely to replace shaving cream in a tube. Cream in a tube went way back to the 1920s-30s. But there was a generational thing going on, where older people continued to use soap and a brush since they grew up with that. Soap/brush was fading out gradually until eventually the aerosol cans became what the majority of shavers used, sometime in the 1960s, probably.
Chandu
I Waxed The Badger.
Yes, I think the progression (for the average shavers) was as follows
Hard Soap --> Lathering Cream -->WWII shortages -->Non Lathering Cream -->Canned Foam -->Canned Gel
I think it was all average shavers until the advent of the internet, then the hobbyists became a large enough population to be distinct from the average shavers. By and large, today your average shaver is using some product that doesn't require a brush. I'm sure there are a couple that are not hobbyists that that use hard soap and brush, but I bet that number is very small compared to the number of hobbyists using hard soap an a brush.
As to generational, the grandfather of mine that ended up using electric from the 80's on started on straights and then SE. My brother had gotten his straights and I remember seeing a (what I would call beautiful, but he probably thought of as very normal) SE razor. I only ever saw him use an electric, but being born in 1906, he started with a straight and moved to SE and finally to electric, so for him it really wasn't generational, it was moving with the times and picking what he thought was best.
Our local Kiva Market carries Erasmic shaving soap, and cream, and Omega Boar brushes.
Clayton
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I have been using canned foam and cream for 50 years. I prefer canned gel because it's slicker. I love Barbasol, Gillette Foamy, Nivea and Edge. Edge Sensitive Gel is for me the best Gel I have used. Close and comfortable shave. As far as drying out my face; that's what a good facial moisturizer is for.
And back then it was just part of your daily grooming, like brushing your teeth. My dad went from a 1955 Flare Tip, to a Trac-II, and then a Norelco VIP, all in the name of progression. I think he liked the Norelco the best because it didn't nick him and it got him out the door faster in the morning's.
Clayton
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The Kiva! I'll have to check it out next time I'm down there. Boy howdy, Market of Choice sure stocks some questionable shaving software (as well as good old Williams).
Judging by shelves here in the Pacific Northwest, tubes of gels and brushless creams are beating down the aerosol competition right now.
- Thread starter
- #31
To be honest, I think it was products like Barbasol's brushless cream that probably killed soaps to begin with. I can understand why it was well-received in the army during world war 2. You don't always have water available to make a lather.
I never knew shave soaps existed until I found this forum a few years ago. When I grew up in the 90s, all I ever saw was the canned stuff. And asking my dad who himself grew up in the 60’s, he never knew of soaps either, just the stuff in the cans, in Greece no less. I know his dad shaved with a straight but who knows what he used for lather, he raised his family in the remote mountains of Greece where it took about an hour to walk to the nearest grocery store!
Probably just used the bar soap that they had back then.
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- Thread starter
- #34
It would have probably been different in cities during the 90s. I remember seeing the older males in my fam use Gillette Sensor+Williams Mug soap
I do think the Williams back then had a better formulation though
shavefan
I’m not a fan
My guess is about the same time TV Dinners were introduced
I'm in my 60's, and canned foam came into the thing way before my time. I understand it was invented in the 50's. It probably took over immediately. That was the age of Levittown, suburbs, etc.
All the men in my family when I was kid used canned foam, except one of my grandfathers, who used a brush and an just regular soap, with his straight.
All the men in my family when I was kid used canned foam, except one of my grandfathers, who used a brush and an just regular soap, with his straight.
When I was younger and saw Williams Shave Soap in the drug store I probably didn't even realize what it was.
The internet tells me the aerosol shaving cream can was invented in the mid-1950s and soon afterward Barbasol changed its formula from thick cream in a tube to foam in can. I have no idea whether Barbasol was the first shaving foam in a can, but it sounds like it was at least among the very first. It also sounds like from what I read that Barbasol dropped the tube version of its product when it came out with the can, but I really have no idea whether the author even intended to say that, much less whether it is true. I also have no idea when canned foam became the best selling method of delivering a "shaving medium."
My Dad was born in 1915 and passed away in 1998. As far as I can tell, he shaved with a DE his entire life, and he always used a brush and SS. I think he told me he had never shaved with a straight. I cannot remember him ever using an SE. As far as my memory goes back, he used the same, boar, I assume, shaving brush, which looks a lot like an Ever Ready brush I saw on line that was supposedly bought at a PX during WWII. My Dad was in the infantry in Europe in WWII. By the time he passed away that brush was pretty much utterly used up. He seemed to always use a shaving soap stick, with no shaving bowl, so he face lathered. I think I asked him about it, and he did not see the use of having a puck and/or a bowl. I am not sure what brand. Could have been Williams. I wish I could put a more specific time frame on it, but I remember there definitely came a time when he was having a hard time finding SS sticks. I think when he could find them he bought several. That could have been any time from the late 60s to say the 80s, when he first complained. I know he tried canned foam and said he did not like it. As I recall he seemed to apply a very thin, perhaps rather dry, coat of lather when he shaved. In other words, he did not work up much of a lather.
I do not think my Dad was a very test of when various shaving items came into vogue.
When I first started shaving, in say, the mid/late 60s, I definitely remember wanting to use canned foam. A brush and soap seemed really old-fashioned to me even at the time.
By the way, I might be wrong, but I would guess that part of the attraction of canned foam was that it was sort of like the foamy lather that came out of a barber shop Campbell hot lather machine. I assume they had those going back into the 50s. There is something that seems luxurious to me even today about the lather that comes out of those machines.
I think canned gels probably came out in the early 70s. Seemed like it came out about the same time as Trac II razors, but I could be way off.
My Dad was born in 1915 and passed away in 1998. As far as I can tell, he shaved with a DE his entire life, and he always used a brush and SS. I think he told me he had never shaved with a straight. I cannot remember him ever using an SE. As far as my memory goes back, he used the same, boar, I assume, shaving brush, which looks a lot like an Ever Ready brush I saw on line that was supposedly bought at a PX during WWII. My Dad was in the infantry in Europe in WWII. By the time he passed away that brush was pretty much utterly used up. He seemed to always use a shaving soap stick, with no shaving bowl, so he face lathered. I think I asked him about it, and he did not see the use of having a puck and/or a bowl. I am not sure what brand. Could have been Williams. I wish I could put a more specific time frame on it, but I remember there definitely came a time when he was having a hard time finding SS sticks. I think when he could find them he bought several. That could have been any time from the late 60s to say the 80s, when he first complained. I know he tried canned foam and said he did not like it. As I recall he seemed to apply a very thin, perhaps rather dry, coat of lather when he shaved. In other words, he did not work up much of a lather.
I do not think my Dad was a very test of when various shaving items came into vogue.
When I first started shaving, in say, the mid/late 60s, I definitely remember wanting to use canned foam. A brush and soap seemed really old-fashioned to me even at the time.
By the way, I might be wrong, but I would guess that part of the attraction of canned foam was that it was sort of like the foamy lather that came out of a barber shop Campbell hot lather machine. I assume they had those going back into the 50s. There is something that seems luxurious to me even today about the lather that comes out of those machines.
I think canned gels probably came out in the early 70s. Seemed like it came out about the same time as Trac II razors, but I could be way off.
Turns out Trac II came out in 1971. There is an on-line reference to gels first coming out in the 70s, which is not very precise.
Shaving soaps never completely died out.
Williams has been in continuous production for over a century.
But shaving soaps began to decline in the USA in the 1920's with the introduction of shaving creams and later, brushless shaving creams.
Other forms, such as shaving powder and flakes had some limited influence, but it was the pressurised can of shaving foam that finally began to come to prominence in the 1950's. By the early '60's, aerosol foam dominated the market.
Still, major players like Gillette, Colgate, Williams, and Palmolive (and a few others), continued to produce both brush and brushless shaving creams in the 1960's,'70's, and even '80's, though they became increasingly hard to find over these decades. Most were discontinued in the late '80's to early '90's.
Hard soaps declined precipitously in the 1950's and practically disappeared in the 1960's, with the exception of gift sets from fragrance lines such as Old Spice, Aramis, Seaforth, Yardley, &etc.
In Europe, soaps and creams were never eclipsed by canned foam to the extent they were in America.
An array of soaps, brush and brushless creams, and even shaving sticks, remained readily available on pharmacy shelves along-side aerosol foam throughout the 1970, '80's, and '90's. Brushes, at least utilitarian ones, were always to be found at any local chemist in any year you care to name.
Williams has been in continuous production for over a century.
But shaving soaps began to decline in the USA in the 1920's with the introduction of shaving creams and later, brushless shaving creams.
Other forms, such as shaving powder and flakes had some limited influence, but it was the pressurised can of shaving foam that finally began to come to prominence in the 1950's. By the early '60's, aerosol foam dominated the market.
Still, major players like Gillette, Colgate, Williams, and Palmolive (and a few others), continued to produce both brush and brushless shaving creams in the 1960's,'70's, and even '80's, though they became increasingly hard to find over these decades. Most were discontinued in the late '80's to early '90's.
Hard soaps declined precipitously in the 1950's and practically disappeared in the 1960's, with the exception of gift sets from fragrance lines such as Old Spice, Aramis, Seaforth, Yardley, &etc.
In Europe, soaps and creams were never eclipsed by canned foam to the extent they were in America.
An array of soaps, brush and brushless creams, and even shaving sticks, remained readily available on pharmacy shelves along-side aerosol foam throughout the 1970, '80's, and '90's. Brushes, at least utilitarian ones, were always to be found at any local chemist in any year you care to name.
