Arko shaving soap stick

I had forgotten how much I loved Arko until I gave it another spin tonight. MAN!! This stuff is so much fun to use. Easy to lather, and it leaves your face feeling refreshed and even a tad bit softer....

I was really surprised by this soap. I wasn't sure about it because of the scent and so forth so Paul.C sent me one. Love it. I also had the best straight shave today, is it technique improvement, is it the soap??? The Arko is soft and pliable easily smashed into a container. I decided to use my BBB instead of my Boar and this worked very well.

Price: So cheap for a killer shave.
Quality: Cheap but cool looking foil wrapper.
Scent: Old school ivory soap, toss in a chunk of Williams, and some plant I can't pinpoint. I like it, very clean and enjoyable.
Lather: Mountains of thick creamy lather.
Efficacy: My 6/8 glided through with nary a hitch. I got zero irritation, no nics, no weepers.
Moisturizing: Tallow soaps always leave my skin feeling good. This one too.

Bottom line, try this soap. You may or may not like the scent but the shave is great.

Never found such an effective shaving prep. IMO the ARKO stick lathers quicker than anything else, and is perfect fot softening the whiskers.
This means shaving with really no pressure, and thus saying goodbye to nicks and cuts.
Yes, the scent is almost absent, just a bit of old times laundry soap.
A cheap, underrated, wonderful product.

I´ve using Arko for years. 99% of barber-shops in Turkey use it. It can´t be wrong. The scent is a matter of taste. Smeels like normal soap without any parfume.

I'm still thoroughly enjoying this stuff, what a great find! For a couple bucks American (go to Shoebox Shaveshop), it's a great substitute for Tabac (without so much scent) - slippy, thick, everything seems to be in perfect balance. The only reason I rated the scent lower is because I don't like quite as MUCH scent as this, but I DO like the scent - kind of floral and citrus. Quaint and exotic...I wonder if Turkish women are as sweet and nice as this soap? LOL

Its the cheapest shaving soap I can find in Sweden: $ 50 cent a piece.
So, I tried it and it performs much better than I excpected. The scent is not so nice and quite strong but otherwise there is not much to complain about.

(I dont like the stick and found a way to get rid of most of the scent and to get it in a bowl: Put the stick in some warm water so that it melts. Dont heat it more than needed. Keeping it warm for a while will get rid of some of the scent and afterwards I put it in a small bowl where it became like a normal soap after cooling down. The more water you use, the softer the soap will become. I guess that it is possible to give the soap a new scent by adding some parfume or scenting oil, but I didnt try that yet.)

Well, let's start from its price...IT IS THE CHEAPEST SOAP I've ever had!

Quality: Very Good! It's not excellent, but very good!

Scent: I don't know for others, but I like scent. It reminds me on some soap or shampoo from my childhood...Very pleasant, although it's old fashioned... Maybe this scent was popular 30 or 40 years ago, but now it isn't...I like it, no matter what!

Lather: I don't think I should comment it...Everyone who tried Arko said enough...10+

Effcacy & Moisturizing: Let's say very good! (Not excellent)

All in all a nicely priced product, but you have to buy it in quantity to make up for shipping costs. It is a simple soap at its best. No fancy wrapper, scent or coloring. I do wish it had one of the little plastic stands that other sticks have.

As far as the scent is concerned, it is pretty basic. To me it smells like ivory soap with a touch of lilac. The scent isn't horrible but it isn't top drawer either.

I use it to face lather with good results. The soap is softer than other sticks I have used so I guess it will run out faster. Lastly the moisturizing is OK but not as good as top offerings.

All in all, a good product at a good price. Clearly an everyman offering rather than a high end purchase. With that said, it definitely does the job and I like its utilitarian roots.

Sorry guys. I find this soap to be average at best. While it lathers like crazy, that's where the positive attributes of this soap end for me.

The worst thing about it is it's smell. It smells like toilet cleaner.

I find that for just a little more money, I can buy a great soap that gives me great results and a very enjoyable shaving experience. Life is just too short to deal with this scent.

3 things I love about Arko soap

1. Lathers pretty quickly when applied directly to face.
2. It never gets dry on my face
3. The scent kinda growed on me I know some people don't like the scent at all and I understand them well but I just can't get enough of it

I think Arko sticks are wonderful. The packaging looks great (sort of nostalgic) and it works brilliantly. The scent is not exactly the best thing since sliced bread, but its ok (has the sort of scent I would associate with a Turkish Barbershop, but at the same time, it smells just like ASDA's Lavender-scented Bleach...).

The lather it whips up is traditional tallow lather; creamy, thick, extremely good. Furthermore, the stick is larger than usual for a shaving stick (at 75g) so you will get plenty of usage out of it.

I bought a box of 12 of these, now stashed in a drawer, they are really that good.

Just a quick comment.

My lather didn't resemble the above pictures at all. I ended up with a luxurious, thick lather .

The above gentleman's lather looked like it had too much water. Just my opinion.

The scent is okay, and it works pretty well.

not my favorite, but a great value.

BoldSpice;790796 said:

Great shaving stick, equal to the palmolive and erasmic sticks. I don't like flowery scents, so this suits me just fine.

The one drawback is that there's no case or lil plastic holder for the stick.

Click to expand...

Just use the red plastic bottom (holder) from an erasmic stick. (It pulls off, with three prongs that force into the Arko. Works fine.

Great shaving stick, equal to the palmolive and erasmic sticks. I don't like flowery scents, so this suits me just fine.

The one drawback is that there's no case or lil plastic holder for the stick.

I received a stick of the infamous Arko as a freebie in a box from Tryphon.

Well... what to say?

It's overall a nice soap, the stick format works well for face lathering, but for anything else it is extremely unwieldy. That being said, the softer texture lends itself well to being squished into a container for use as a cake type soap.


Now the smell. It seems to be a 'love it' or 'hate it' thing for a lot of people. I myself, find it to be rather indifferent. It smells clean, it has notes of citrus and some sort of spice i cannot identify. With the strong soap smell, it is easy to confuse this scent with detergent type smells, but it is definitely something different.

Really, for the price, you can't argue with this soap. It lathers and moisturizes better than any common bar soap i've tried to use for shaving. And it definitely protects and provides a slick surface.

I'm also very surprised that anybody would have trouble making lather with this soap. I've found that it likes a fair bit of water, but once you figure it out, it practically explodes into lather at the touch of your brush.

Arko is a prototypical diamond-in-the-rough. Inexpensive, but matches the performance of soaps and creams many times its price. Mind you, I also love Musgo Real, Proraso, Speick, etc., but Arko holds a special place in my rotation.

I use this as a stick soap, spreading on my wet face, and brushing in situ. Done right, it lathers up superbly, lubricates and moisturizes with the best of them. I have a half-size stick in my travel shave kit--no need for a bowl.

The scent is reminiscent of Ivory soap--just that. I find it pleasant; certainly not objectionable or overpowering. The advantage: the neutral scent provides a "clean slate" for your favorite aftershave balm, not clashing or making war. To me, that is an advantage.

WOW.


a great little inexpensive soap. even more so for me, since one of the members sliced off a quarter of his stick and mailed it to me for free. THANKS.

most are thrown back by the scent. no, it does not have EOs in it, nor does it have that down home triple milled smell. BUT, it does not smell like household cleaner, as some would have you believe. It smells like soap. If you can imagine a combination of Williams Shaving Puck and Ivory soap; that is pretty much what it smells like to me. and i have always associated those smells with clean smells; so it does not bother me; i can understand why many DON'T want that in a shaving soap; to each his own.

there is no mistaking, the lather is GREAT. it lathers as easily (and as well) as any of my QEDs; it is a great soap;

i actually used it as it was probably intended, as a shaving stick.....

if you are looking for a shaving soap, but are on a budget; or are new to DE shaving and want to ease into it from canned goo; this is an inexpensive "luxury soap" in my opinion.

The more I use this soap the more I like it. It lathers and protects well. It leaves my face feeling soft. The smell is definetely different in a clean way and it doesn't bother me at all. I bought this soap along with some aluminum block and just wish I had bought more. It is a keeper for me. I pressed the whole soap in an empty soap container and that worked really well.

This is really a great soap. I normally use handmade soaps and didn't expect much of it.The smell to me is just a (strong ) classic soap smell but I feared it would dry my skin as bad as "de vergulde hand" which is my worst experience sofar.My skin liked this stuff very much though and at this price ARKO is simply the best.Besides this is maybe not my best smelling soap but the only one I can use all my AS with.

After pondering the suave dude on the wrapper for a moment I unwrapped this little Turkish delight and was immediately struck by the heady aroma of Ivory soap and laundry detergent (x10). Yuck, thought I. It felt like lard going on but when the brush hit it -BAM!- instant clouds of lather! It also smelled like it was gonna dry my face right out like a strong soap would, but surprisingly it didn't. The shave was close and I actually found myself liking the scent after only the first shave. While it certainly doesn't smell 'natural' it does the job and does it well. Amazing product. My only complaint would be that it's a bit messy to handle after being used (hey, come on now..) so I might try the suggestion some have had of squishing it into a container and using it like a regular soap. For those who have never tried it, drop 2 bucks and fear not the Arko-man!