Arko shaving soap stick

Arko does beat any canned foam I've tried and was one of my first shave soap purchases and always is present in my den. I enjoy ARKO sticks a lot, but can see the shortcomings; for what they are, they're great. I purchased another dozen sticks just after New Year, after using and giving away the last dozen I had. I'll use ARKO again for most of August this year. If I get low, I wouldn't hesitate to buy another dozen sticks. At ~$15 for a dozen sticks, ARKO is a real bargain- about 50 cents an ounce!

I always leave two sticks partially unwrapped out to breathe; after some months the industrial scent fades and the soap is much better for me. In fact, when the soap starts turning a bit off-white it's best IMO. My scent rating below is after aging the ARKO sticks. Also, don't buy the bowl; buy the sticks and press them into a bowl if you want a bowl. The ARKO bowl soap is much more expensive.

An half stick always travels with me, as it delivers a very good shave in a most portable package- a small baggie. In terms of value, ARKO is a hard soap to beat; but IMHO there are better performing artisan soaps with better lathers and post-shave feel available now, but those are almost always way more expensive. ARKO isn't a luxury experience for me; it's a basic shave soap that performs well above its price point.

Best shaving soap ever.It just smells like soap so I never understood the "smell" ,first world, problems.

5 years ago I bought one after reading numerous reviews where users were raving about it. The only good thing about it is it is dirt cheap. After 3 passes my cheaks are absolutely BBS, but I got very strong irritation for hours. Don't even want to discuss the smell. To me even the 0.95 EUR Palmolive is so much better.

I find this soap one of the best for face lathering and SR shaving. One stick lasts me about 200 shaves.

The smell is growing on me but it's not its selling point. Stupid cheap, quick to lather, very good slickness. A little drying for me, but I often use an AS balm so it's not a deal killer. If I was stuck somewhere and this

I got this one off ebay. 3 pieces for 5 US, shipping from Turkey incl. Once the Arko arrived i did try it straight away, great leather compare to some other soaps. Scent is not really the one that appeals to me, more of a "cheap cleaning solution" scence. It is easy to lather and i mean you could be brain damaged and still get this product to perform. Great value for your buck!

I've heard a lot of comments on the scent. I've worked janitorial before and it doesn't smell of urinal cake. The best description for me is it smells like my grandmother's guest soap...kind of an old lady and lace. So, yes, it's a little much and takes some getting used to. It lathers extremely well and does an okay job gliding the blade along. It is drying and one should probably use a moisturizer afterwards. The price is its biggest redemption. This is the barbasol of soaps. It works and it's oh so cheap.

Excellent Product, in all respects.

Very affordable. Lots of creamy, moisturizing lather. Helps for a great shave. Cool retro, environmentally sound packaging.

It has a faint smell, of, well, soap. This is fine. Soap should smell like soap. When soap doesn't smell like soap is when you need to start wondering what's in it.

I picked up 12 of these on amazon for $13. So at $1 a piece these were a steal. I figured I could get 12 of them for less than the price of one tub of TOBS, so might as well get that many without trying it first. I'm glad I did.

The shave that I had was amazing. My wife even commented that she loved the smell, even after I told her that it smelled like a lemon industrial bathroom spray.

After mashing the whole stick into some tupperware, I was able to whip up a quick lather. It was nice and thick and produced a really close shave.

The postshave felt good with no drying effects. The smell maybe lingered 30 minutes but was faint at best even then which is a good thing.

Great product. Terrible scent. I know people in this forum say it goes away and some even like it and compare it to Ivory. I might a bit particular but I do not like its scent.
I tried different ways to make it go away and have only managed to diminished it.
Other than that, a very good product for a low price.

This was the first stick soap I ever used. The packaging is straight out of the 1940s or 50s, but if it ain't broke don't fix it. Applying it directly to the face and lathering with a brush from there seems to work best as all other methods over-complicate it. The smell is the best of any soap I've used simply because of how basic it is. Soap, plain and simple. It checks every box quite well and I would be perfectly happy to use this and only this if I had to!

As a zealot of the Kült of Kirko, my review may appear more like a plea to you; I may speak with my heart rather than my reason but it does not necessarily call into question the intrinsic value of the infamous Arko shave stick.
When I started wet-shaving years ago, I used to hate soaps. The reason was purely irrational and with maturity and experience I learn to enjoy them more and more at a point where I clearly prefer them to creams. I also tended to give up bowl lathering in favor of face lathering, and this was when my interest in sticks grew on me.
Besides, I have been a DE shaver for a long time and I am currently converting into straight razor’s. There were some glide issues that were not that much structuring with a DE safety razor that became critical with a straight razor. My first attempts were kind of painful with the blade stumbling over my hair. Arko shave stick changed literally my life.
The lather comes out effortless and so quickly in the face and your brush will provide a luxurious and thick outcome. It would last for several passes if I had not some issues at keeping the lather warm (improving my equipment with a specific brush scuttle mug might be helpful solving that matter). The glide is truly awesome; I don’t have to pull any additional strength to feel the blade sliding along my skin. To me, the moisturizing quality appears pretty decent; at least it does not dry my skin at all.
The layout is rather simple: a foil-wrapped cylindrical soap. What genuinely makes the product iconic is that vintage artwork with a stuck-in-time smiling dude that looks like a Turkish William Shatner doppelganger as Captain Kirk in Star Trek TOS, therefore the cunning nickname Kirko that already entered history. Much similar to the scent, the question of the packaging is quite polarizing: the delight of ones is the disgust of others. You probably figured out in which camp I stand.
And here we go with the scent now. It is objectively odd –neither good nor bad– just plain odd, for anyone with a sane mind. The scent is kind of hard to describe with words: what comes the closest is an artificial citrus-scented detergent or washing powder. But this is where the magic works: despite its oddness, it is simultaneously a wonderful scent. Arko would not be Arko without that peculiar scent. I always enjoy sniffing it deeply, especially when the warm scent of fresh lather fills the entire bathroom after a shave. I admit being a weirdo but aren’t wet-shavers kind of weirdos themselves in the 21st Century?
In conclusion, my humble opinion is that Arko shave stick is a timeless classic that should be included in EVERY wet-shaver’s den. Any wet-shaver should give it a try at least once in their life. If you have never used Arko shave stick, you have really nothing to lose experimenting it. The price is so inexpensive that if you eventually hate the product, you can still PIF the stick or throw it away with no remorse.
All hail Kirko!

Some folks love, some hate it. For me, I did not mind the scent and the performance was outstanding. I really enjoy using a stick.

It's a citronella type of scent for me. But a different one than Williams mug soap. I find it okay in small doses. I find that Arko is a good soap but the scent is a flat line for me. There are so many other products out there that make equal or better lather with a much better scent.

In the Cult of Arko thread, everyone will answer "yes but Arko is cheap". I understand that, I can shave on the cheap side sometimes but not all the time. Here and there it's okay but I don't know if I want to smell like mosquito repellent while I shave on a regular basis. I don't see the point of mixing something else to it as I always believe that if the product is good and made the way I like it, I don't need to do anything to it. Sure, the scent is not for everyone but that's why there are so many other products out there.

Arko is worth trying yes, but only if you think that citronella won't bother you much or at all. It's a product that makes a lot of lather easily and quickly.

It's possible to produce terrible lather with Arko but, it's also easy to produce great to acceptable lather. So, if you are new to shave sticks, this could be a good start as it didn't mind much the hard water that I have in Montreal.

I would probably buy Arko again but only if I need to complete a basket for free shipping or that my stock is running low. There's no need to keep a huge stash of Arko in the den since it's accessible and cheap.

Finally, I will only add that I got the stick for free when I bought my shave brush a while ago.

For all of this to make sense, follow this link: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/310894-Shave-Sticks-Review-Project

I found that for me personally, the stick was too stiff to rub on the face comfortably, I really had to press hard. So I sliced it into thin discs like you would a banana and then smashed it into a small dish. Lathers very easily and as long as you use the right amount of water it makes for a very slick great shave. I happen to like the scent. If you've ever smelled the little pill shaped candies called smarties, then picture that, with a lemony background. I could use arko and nothing else and be fine with that but YMMV.

No better soap for the price. Arko is my standart shaving soap!

As it was free price was excellent for me,it lathers easily enough but i just cannot get past the smell,it smells too much like toilet cleaning agent for me,however getting it to lather was a piece of cake,lubricity was ok,nothing special and i felt it had no moisturising properties as i still felt i needed a balm afterwards.
Arko is a classic example YMMV,or,as we say in the UK a Marmite product,you either love it,or hate it.

Dave.

Arko - much maligned because of its fragrance - well, I like it!

I don't believe a shaving soap has to have the 'ultimate' fragrance, it is afterall soap for a man to put on his face. if you want fragrance use an aftershave.

a shaving soap's job is to allow the shaver to get a good shave by providing a cushiony lubricious coating to the face to allow the razor, blade and shaver to do their jobs. Arko does this very well!

it produces a heavy lather without much work and does everything else very well. in fact the lather it produces would probably allow for a six pass shave if you wanted one and your face/neck could handle it.

let me start this bit by saying - ymmv. those complaining about the 'bad' smell are distracted from the true efficacy this soap offers - peg your nose and it is as good as any soap stick out there. really, the fragrance is not overpowering to the point that it is a problem. you can always stick a few drops of essential oil into your soap/lather bowl and have the best of both worlds if you find the smell that bad. all I am trying to say is don't discard this great product just because it's not the best smelling (in your opinion).

my only 'negative' - when lathering, make sure you add enough water otherwise the lather may dry on your face and you may find the second half of the pass is not as lubricious as it should be.

for the price and the quality of the lather this is a great soap and I do recommend you give it a try. it makes an awesome face or bowl lather. it is much cheaper than canned goo and a hundred times better!

when applied directly to the face it works well, but milled in to a bowl it works even better. i found that when i applied to my face if i left the lather to thick the razor would clog, easy fix tho. also a lot of product could get caught in your beard if you apply directly to your face, so make sure you really work the brush around to even every thing out. overall its simple and great!

Legend says that in the gents' rooms in heaven, there are dispenser packs of Arko shave sticks, along with razor blades to slice it and press it into tubs for the bowl latherers. The air fresheners in the Bugatti Veyrons of heaven are scented with Arko.

PRICE: it is very inexpensive. If you pay four dollars for it you have overpaid.

QUALITY: the low price would lead you to believe that the ingredients list reads like a chemistry test, but it is surprisingly modest, like a good soap should be. The ease of use testifies to the quality. It lathers amazingly easily, and the luxurious feel of my face after using it is similar to the way my face feels after using AOS.

SCENT: it is a clean, soapy smell that is definitely masculine. The smell is 100% polarizing: you either love it, or hate it. I imagine that the air fresheners in heaven smell like ARKO, Pinaud Clubman classic barbershoppe, or a fine single-malt scotch whiskey. However, there is the cult of ARKO for a reason. I imagine that there are some very silly people who can't tolerate the scent, but they are foul, craven, silly people.

LATHER: this soap EXPLODES into a rich, thick, creamy lather that can't be beat! It is thick, slick, and protective, everything you could want in a lather. It builds easily and effortlessly, almost as soon as you look at it. The moment your wet brush hits it to start building, it starts to explode out from your brush at a simply absurd rate.

EFFICACY: the cost to performance ratio of ARKO to any of the highest-end soaps is simply unfair............. to the higher-end soaps. Scent aside, since that is very subjective, the lather, efficacy, and moisturizing properties (allergies aside) perform very nearly on par with the best out there. It is simply crazy, that's all there is to it.

MOISTURIZING: ARKO is tallow-based, so that tells you a lot about how it finishes. I love the way my skin feels after using ARKO; it feels soft, and smooth as silk.

I'm not sure sometimes if there are BETTER soaps than ARKO, simply..... DIFFERENT soaps. The one bad thing I will say about ARKO is that there are soaps out there, for similar price points on up, that are much, much slicker.