I recently found this Van der Lovett shaving soap at Marshalls in Canada.
Let's get a look at that puck. It is definitely not an extremely hard soap. I would say somewhere around the hardness of Haslinger Schafmilch.
This shave was performed with a 1951 Gillette tech (except the handle) with a new Gillette 7 O'clock green blade, a Vie long horse hair brush, and a custom Germiyon painted bowl.
I first let a thin layer of water sit on the puck while I showered.
I loaded it up for about 30 seconds
This is after lathering for about 20 seconds.
I added about 3 drops of water and lathered for about 30 more seconds and poof:
Here is my ugly mug, this one didn't turn out well but my description of the lather is that it is very cohesive, it really sticks together, similar to how proraso often does. It was not quite as thick as I was hoping, but still very acceptable and if I had loaded for maybe another 5 seconds, it would have been noticeably better, I think.
It was definitely not the slickest soap I have used, but definitely not poor. I would, and will use this again. I would use this over proraso, personally, and any geo F Trumper. In the end, I got only 2 small nicks that didn'teven need styptic, and overall I would say a DFS, that I finished off with skin bracer.
Let's get a look at that puck. It is definitely not an extremely hard soap. I would say somewhere around the hardness of Haslinger Schafmilch.
This shave was performed with a 1951 Gillette tech (except the handle) with a new Gillette 7 O'clock green blade, a Vie long horse hair brush, and a custom Germiyon painted bowl.
I first let a thin layer of water sit on the puck while I showered.
I loaded it up for about 30 seconds
This is after lathering for about 20 seconds.
I added about 3 drops of water and lathered for about 30 more seconds and poof:
Here is my ugly mug, this one didn't turn out well but my description of the lather is that it is very cohesive, it really sticks together, similar to how proraso often does. It was not quite as thick as I was hoping, but still very acceptable and if I had loaded for maybe another 5 seconds, it would have been noticeably better, I think.
It was definitely not the slickest soap I have used, but definitely not poor. I would, and will use this again. I would use this over proraso, personally, and any geo F Trumper. In the end, I got only 2 small nicks that didn'teven need styptic, and overall I would say a DFS, that I finished off with skin bracer.