For me the "perfect" shave soap is one of the many that I love and choose for that day.
I have many top tier soaps and I can get a great shave from any of them. These include, but are not limited to, Barrister & Mann, Declaration Grooming, Grooming Dept, Wholly Kaw, Jabonman, Saponificio Varesino, The Club/A&E, and Stirling.I'm interested in others comments about this. I started wet shaving in January of 2018. Within a few months of working with a Merkur 34C, a 26" Yaqi synthetic brush, Astra SP blades, and a tub of Taylor of Old Bond street, I became infatuated with finding the best of all of them, or at least the top 3-5 of them. Of particular interest was finding the best soaps. I tried or owned many soaps over the years and I participated in a 400 soap pass-around about two years ago. Thank you defoulk! Today I own 16 soaps across 8 soap makers.
It seems to me that many of the artisan soap makers have mirrored this endeavor leaning heavily towards maximizing post shave while holding shave performance or pleasure the same. For me, I found that the better the post shave, the worse the shave performance or experience. I finally gave up the pursuit this week in favor of sticking with the simple formulas that maximize shave performance and pleasure and leave the majority of the post shave performance to post shave products. I like Thayers witch hazel with aloe, another simple but very effective product. My soap keepers today are Caties, Mike's, Shannon's (original formula), PAA (Crown King formula), and Sudsy Soapery. The closest I'll go to the face food category is Wholly Kaw (original formula). These are the soaps I will continue to use and rebuy as long as they keep making them.
Comments all?
This seems to be a common thread and I whole heartedly agree. However, I still get caught in the next "best" thing merry-go-round and self control isn't always easy. My wife certainly insists. I'm also surprised to see the number of members who enjoy commercial soaps over artisan soaps.For me the "perfect" shave soap is one of the many that I love and choose for that day.
What are you sticking with?I guess I'm fortunate in that I both found a few shave soaps that just work for me, consistently, and that I have no burning desire to try dozens of others in the hopes that, maybe, something will work better. Once I run out of something that's in my current stock I'll branch out and try something else but... I doubt it. Once I find something I know works for me I tend to stick with it. I dunno, maybe I just have low standards.
My Dad always used Palmolive classic cream so I still make sure to always have a tube on hand and the smell always reminds me of him.I started using Williams Mug Soap in 1974, probably as a way of rebelling against my father who thought using soap and a brush was stupid. Or at least my decision to use soap was solidified when he declared that it was stupid. Later that year, or sometime in 1975 I first used a Palmolive stick in Ireland. In the old days Palmolive was essentially the only bath soap cake available in Ireland, so the scent of the shave stick took me back to early childhood memories there. So for about the next 25 or more years I used Williams, and supplemented it with as much Palmolive as I could reasonably bring back to the States each time I went to Ireland.
When I discovered online shopping I bought all kinds of soaps and creams, and I still have too many piled up around here. But I would pick Palmolive and Williams over any of the others, perhaps adding the Wilkinson Sword and maybe even the Arko sticks. Looking back I see that I've wasted a lot of money on soaps and creams because I had it right from the beginning.
The one soap new to me that has been most impressive is the unscented Canada Shave Soap. I actually ordered a second puck sent on for my current two-month stay in New York.
See this thread: Where to buy Canada shaving soap (US) - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/where-to-buy-canada-shaving-soap-us.607671/#post-11262497Richard, can you please post a link where to order it from?
Thank you!