Arko shaving soap stick

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

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.

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

Arko is one of the single best shaving items that I've ever found. It lathers if you glance in it's general direction. Okay, not quite, but it is easily the best and quickest lathering soap that I've ever used. The smell has a lemony scent that smells somewhere between clean Ivory soap and lemon PEZ. The lather is thick and slick and very protective. I would recommend everyone at least try it to see how nice of a lather it can make.

Easily one of my favorite soaps. It's super cheap, lathers like a dream and I personally find the scent clean and sweet. Sometimes it reminds me of a lemon flavored Jolly Rancher. I understand the scent isn't for everbody so I gave it a 9 there. Don't miss out on this one!

This has quickly become my favorite soap. The smell took some getting used to, but now I actually love it! It is a wonderful soap for face and bowl lathering.

It's truly outstanding. It could be sold for $10 a stick and it would still be a good buy. 10's across the board, except scent. It's like shaving with toilet cleaner, which isn't that bad, but it's definitely not a luxurious scent. It's just a bit out of place for a shaving soap.

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!

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.

Seven weeks ago, I started my wetshaving adventure with Arko because I saw it recommended as a good, low-cost shaving soap. I ordered one stick, and with shipping to Norway it came out at over $4, but I can live with that. I still remember when my first stick arrived, and how the smell instantly took me back to my travels in Italy (for some reason, I don't know exactly why, the smell just reminds me of Italian houses... ). Oh, how awesome!

Now, I'm quite new to wetshaving, but I have been trying out some different stuff over the last seven weeks, and so far it all comes down to this: Arko is THE BEST! I've tried Old Spice shaving cream (from India) - I love the scent, but it hasn't given me a better shave than Arko. I've also bought a sample pack of stuff from GFT, and tried some of the shaving creams. I've liked those too, great scent and great shaves, but there is just something that Arko provides which these do not. I don't know what. Is it the tallow? I don't know, but so far it's my impression that Arko gives me a better shave than the other products I have.

I find it gives me excellent lubrication and protection. With Arko, my Omega badger brush, my cheap Lord L6 razor and an Astra blade, I'm good to go. Two passes (WTG+XTG) give me a really good shave, three passes (WTG+XTG+ATG) gives me a friggin' awesome shave! I've been touching my face all day, it's so smooth I can barely believe it.

So this is a review from a relatively new and inexperienced wetshaver's perspective, so you might want to take it with the proverbial grain of salt. (And oh, I just ordered a 12-pack of Arko!)

There are some things that work remarkably well for how much they cost. The paperclip. Scotch tape. Shoelaces. Butter. Well, butter ain't cheap nowadays, but you get my drift.

Add Arko Shaving Stick to that list. Costs next to nuttin'. In return for your buck and some change, you get a shave stick that goes on comfortably, lathers like falling off a log and provides fine glide and cushion, and leaves your face feeling like you just got out of a Turkish bath.

So, what's the catch? First of all, it's not going to dethrone the top of the line soaps in the lather, efficacy and moisturizing departments. It's merely quite good, not eye-poppingly excellent.

And, to quote Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Ooooh, that smell!" When you first open a stick of Arko, you're going to think that either somebody's been doing lines of Lemon Kool-Aid in your den and they had a sneezing fit, or maybe that Ivory Soap and Country Time Old Fashioned Lemonade had a love child and tried to hide it with that Arko wrapper. Woooohhheee, that's some scent!

Thankfully, it calms down a whole bunch after a day or so of exposure to the open air, and, perversely enough, I kind of like it.

If you can get by the first blast of Arko's unique scent, there are a lot of fine shaves to be had for chump change in this stick. You owe it to yourself to find out if it's for you, and if it isn't...PIF it or use it to cure your dry, cracked heels. How many soaps can make that claim?

I was amazed at how much lather this soap generates! Just a light coating directly on the face builds into mountains of creamy, protective lather on the face and brush. It creates enough lather for 4 or 5 passes. It feels wonderful to build the lather on your face with a quality brush and some hot water. Pure luxury! I have been using soaps and creams that I lather in a bowl (or load the brush directly in the shaving container and then face lather)...and I loose a lot of the warmth while building a lather/loading the brush. The lather produced by this "shaving stick method" avoids any cool down period while loading the brush or creating a lather in a bowl and your face is treated to warm, slippery, protective goodness! A real treat! The smell, however, is something that may not please some. It smells like a strong soap with just a slight hint of "artificial lemon flavor". I also detect a note of black licorice. That's the best description I have. I don't mind the smell; if you do not like the smell, there are many tips to reduce its assault on your nose in the many other tips and reviews on the internet. This soap reminds me of Cella, but I like the smell of Cella more. I bought this soap in bulk and also purchased some twist-up containers for storage/application. This soap gave me an extremely close shave with 2 passes, a Merkur 34C HD razor, and an Astra blade. I did not feel the need for an aftershave balm, but applied one nonetheless. One stick contains 75 grams or about 2.6 ounces. Highly recommended!

Having heard so much about Arko, and its retro packaging, I tracked some down through Amazon.

Firstly, the price is very good. The smell of an unwrapped bar, however, is a little disconcerting but it changes to a clean scent once applied.

After wetting face, I rubbed the soap stick across my whiskers and used a boar brush to build the lather on the face. The lather was pretty good - thick and wet - but the third pass was a little thin.

Using a Gillette Super Thin 'Mejorada' blade in my Merkur 34c I found the shave (three passes) to be smooth and comfortable. The brush was held in a scuttle to keep warm and I did not experience any drying during shaves.

For the price, this is a GREAT soap and will definitely replace the VDH I have been using up to now as my daily soap.

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.

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.

Having grown up in a third world country where the cheap soaps have the same smell, the smell of Arko evokes significant nostalgia though I suspect this may ultimately grow old. I love it's generous lather and the fact that it gives me an easy and very generous lather while face lathering after a brief application to my face.

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.

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!

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 received this free with the B&B 2011 brush. I didn't have high expectations, but it is okay stuff. I soak it with the brush while in the shower. Rubs on in sufficient quantity and lathers nicely. I am not tossing my scuttle, but I am starting to appreciate the face lathering technique. The scent is not at all offensive, nothing special, but it doesn't stink up the place.

I tried it once without soaking it first. yawn.

I think this is far superior to cheap soaps being with the letter "W." I think I will buy more.