Erasmic shave stick

I use this in the shower as a face soap and pre-shave prep. It leaves a slight waxy feeling on skin which is why I do not like it for shaving but I think that it makes as a decent face soap and I think using a shave soap as face soap pre-shave helps soften the whiskers more than other cleansers I have used.

I had the Erasmic Shave Stick on my list for a very long time. The Boots Shave Stick is also on my list but I will get that one later as I want to finish my current soaps before I introduce new ones. From my point of view, living outside the UK, I see Erasmic as a local British product. Those products are usually very well made and it's a name that has been around for a very long time.

When I was about to finish my 30 shaves with De Vergulde Hand Shave Stick, I saw many negative posting about that Stick. I thought that if the first ingredient is Tallow, it can't be that bad. Well, that's not exactly true. I used a product in the past named Fitjar Norwegian Fern shaving soap. The shave cream was great, the scent is fantastic, the performance is a big zero. I did not try that one as a stick yet so I might change my mind.

Anyways, back to Erasmic. First the scent, it's light and a bit lemony but not like Arko where it's screaming citronnella. I think that's nice. The price is also pretty good at $3 CDN for 1 stick (depending on where you buy it but that's what I paid).

The issues, it doesn't lather, it's really doesn't. I thought I was going to be able to do something it's either super light with big bubbles or too thick and falling apart. I tried a few different methods and using it as superlather was the only way but then, it's the other soap that saved it. Bottom line

Avoid this soap, it's not good!

It's the best of the best. The soap is top notch in every way. I highly recommend it.

I don't like this. I have the tally-version and bought from Ebay three sticks with couple of euros shipping included. Lather is poor and it is difficult to shave with it. Price is ok tough and scent is mild. I tried to moosh it in a cup. Let's see how it goes that way. Compared to Arko-stick this is still worthless. With Arko I can get rich lather and have another pass with the foam I have left in the brush after first pass.

Received one last friday and shaved a cpuple of times with it. I have the tallow formula, do not know wheter it is nos, or the new with the tallow back in. It comes in a small 50 grams stick, with a holder. The holder I had was not much, but the stick fitted in a Vergulde Hand stick holder with travel cap. I really like the scent: not strong, but very pleasant. Used it with the small, Chinese Erasmic boar. The lather was thinner than I am used to, and seemed to disappear a bit. But I had a very good shave, close and irritation free. Skin felt good afterwards. Worth a try.

Foams up well enough but the lather is thin and doesn't lubricate well. Smells nice and costs little but you're better off with a puck of Williams. This is the sodium palmate / glycerin variant.

I bought a stick of this from an online vendor for $5.00. Then found another vendor was selling it for $2.50. Oh well. Just wanted some sort of stick for an upcoming trip, and didn't really know what to pick. Then I read some extremely negative comments about the reformulated version of this in a "worst soap" thread, and thought I'd better try it ahead of time.

I really like the smell. Might not be for everyone, but it's great for me. Had to work pretty hard to get a good lather (face lathering), and had to add plenty more soap and water for each pass. On the other hand, it did get there in the end, and I got lots of rich lather, and a good shave. It does have a tendency to dry out, but again, use lots of water.

Also, I was using an undersized Omega boar travel brush, so if I can get a lather with that, the stick can't be all bad.

When I try other, more expensive, shave sticks, they may turn out to be worth the extra money, but the Erasmic does work, and will be fine for my next few trips.

Stauff;149896 said:

Ditto on all the positive comments above. Found it for 90p in an Indian grocery store in London, and it is virtually as good as my Harris Arlington stick! Excellent, Excellent. If only I could find the bowl somewhere...

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I know it's a little late but did you find the Erasmic shaving soap bowl?,i can get you some and post at cost if you still want one.


Dave.

I won't give a detailed score as I may have been just unlucky.
I was recently in a pharmacy in Galway when I spotted a lonesome single stick of Erasmic lurking among the dozens of cans of goo.Cost €1.20
I thought something was amiss when I went to put the holder on it - the stick just crumbled into powder.
Anyway I decided to mill it into a bowl,put lots of water and left to dry out for a week.It looked fine in the bowl.
No matter how much I used or how much I loaded, I couldn't get a decent lather out of it,looked thick enough but still airy. I've tried face, bowl and heated scuttle - no joy.This morning I actually shaved it just in case it worked better than it looked,let's just say I've some nice razor burn for my stupidity
(This is the old tallow formula - bin man comes tomorrow)

I received the new formulation...the naysayers are right. Really nice scent and easy to lather--but the lather was thin, disappeared quickly and had no slickness or protection. I tried several attempts to see if it was just my technique.

After having such good results from other products lauded here (tabac soap, omega cream) it was kinda sad. It's a nice bath soap, but I wouldn't recommend it just for that.

I haven't tried the new formulation stick but was able to find an older formulation stick from a well-known vendor. This was a terrific product.

It was relatively expensive, just under $10 for stick plus shipping, but given the quality, I think it was a good buy.

The scent is nothing special. It reminded me a bit of a La Toja stick's scent. It's a sharp, soapy scent, but as I said absolutely nothing special. I wish Erasmic had scented it something like its old shaving cream.

The lather, on the other hand, is absolutely fantastic. I rubbed the stick on my face and I thought relatively little was on my stubble. I kept rubbing it on trying to coat my stubble really well. I then used a badger brush on it and realized, if anything, I'd overdone it. I easily generated a lot of lather. I continued to make lather in a small bowl and had more than enough for 3-4 passes and then some.

It's a really efficacious lather. It was a very smooth shave that had lots of protection.

It's too bad this tallow formulation is no longer available. It was a fantastic soap.

adamant;1230848 said:

dang, I should have read to the bottom before ordering a stick of this.

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I just received my erasmic, but haven't used it. The first ingredient is sodium tallowate. Is this the original formulation? I picked it up pretty cheap from an online vendor, shipping was a bit high as it was from the UK, but I did get 2 sticks of erasmic and 2 of palmolive for about $11 (USD). Someone please tell me if I hit a jackpot with the 'old, rare' version.

Finally used the stick. I got mine from westons.com just the other day, and it is the tallow version. This stuff is great, it lathered really nicely, and didn't dry out my skin like some glycerin soaps I've tried. The scent leaves something to be desired, but it gave me my best straight razor shave to date, so I can't complain. I definitely recommend it if you can get this tallow version.

Just picked up a stick from my local Turkish/Polish/Greek shop.
The ingredients definatly state Tallow as the main ingredient, cost 79p.

Going to give it a go in a min.

C

pedroso268;1133781 said:

some people have complained about the quality of this soap, so i went to my chemist here in london (uk) and i bought a shaving stick. i wasn't desapointed by the results, the soap is magnificent. again, this is a soap that has been formulated with tallow and coconut oil, the two main ingredients you need

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You were lucky enough to get an old-formula one - there is no tallow in the new formulation and most of the poor experiences above are from the new tallow-free formula.

some people have complained about the quality of this soap, so i went to my chemist here in london (uk) and i bought a shaving stick. i wasn't desapointed by the results, the soap is magnificent. again, this is a soap that has been formulated with tallow and coconut oil, the two main ingredients you need ( in my experince) to make a lather as good as any cream. my technique when making lather is in a bowl, take the shaving stick out of its foil, plastic and out of its plastic base and give around 60 or 80 swirls with your brush in the palm of your hand (the brush must be wet !!!). make sure that the mixture doesn't fall out from hands !!. take the mixture to the bowl and add some water if needed, then mix and wow, here is the lather like cream. mind you, my shaving brush is a silver tip xl shavemac but my water is really hard. i think the bad experiences here with erasmic is because people have used this soap straight to their faces ( it is a shaving stick after all ) instead of lathering in a bowl. it is a good soap, just don't lather on your face, use a bowl and a good badger brush.

Too bad about the reformulation because Erasmic Shave Sticks with tallow are heavenly. Excellent lathering properties & the best moisturising available. The scent is clean and not over-powering. Its a real treat to use. I cant say enough about them. A1 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Im afraid since they've removed the tallow, this stick is a pale shadow of its former self. I tried 4 sticks of the new formula just to see if I wasn't imagining it and various techniques to get a solid stable lather but I couldn't manage it.

The new stick is much harder to get a decent lather with and I think Erasmic have really shot themselves in the foot with this one. Its a real shame

I have found the Erasmic stick to be a wonderful soap for people who need to travel. Despite jet lag and a disposable razor, I got some truly excellent shaves! (For full disclosure, I was shaving with a Bic Metal, which is the best disposable razor I have yet to encounter.)

Price: Rather inexpensive for the performance of the product

Quality: I found the quality of the shaving stick uniform from start to finish.

Scent: Clean, mild and refreshing. At first I found it rather strong, but the scent faded over time. I have not found the scent to linger long enough to interfere with a cologne.

Lather: I found the lather produced from the stick to be slick and very cushioning. A few swipes of the stick across my beard and a best badger brush produced an excellent lather with little effort.

Efficacy: As I was traveling (strictly carry-on) and was without my DE, I was bracing myself for sub-par shaves. Well, even with a disposable razor, the results were outstanding. I experienced little irritation and very close shaves.

I love the concept of drugstore products that perform well for low cost. Erasmic disappointed me, especially given it's reputation.

For me the scent was soapy and if you like soapy scented shaving products it fits the bill. When using the cheaper products, scent is not on the top of my agenda so I rated fairly neutral there. I don't expect this stuff to have the complexity and ability to please the proboscis like a Harris or Trumper.

The biggest issue for me was the quality of the lather. It is easy to generate a generous amount of lather and it starts out OK (still a bit sub par in performance). But it gets thin, foamy and airy during the second pass. I've tried several different efforts to get the soap/water ratio correct and in all cases the lather peters out mid-shave. I have never had this issue with any other soap or cream I've tried (and I've tried a lot of them!) so I dinged Erasmic pretty hard for Quality and Lather.

It could be the water quality in my area is affecting the lather but again I've used many, many products with no similar issues. So I'm sad to say the lather from Erasmic has been the worst to date.

The shave quality is OK. I don't get irritation, nicks, burn or bumps but I've been stopping my shave early and don't go for BBS with the Erasmic lather going south on me mid-shave. Given that, it is hard to do apples-to-apples comparison of its shave quality.

I have also recently tried Boots and Palmolive sticks. The Palmolive stick is vastly superior to the Erasmic. I still need a little more time with the Boots to accurately review it, but I would rate it better than the Erasmic but not as good as the Palmolive.

If you are looking for an English drugstore shave stick go with the Palmolive - it totally rocks, especially compared to Erasmic.

I picked one of these up recently from superlather.com for $3. Not the low-price bargain that others have mentioned, but then again, it's an imported (and rare) item over here in the States. So, still worth the price. The lather was fluffy, slick and very cushiony. It was however, very drying to my skin... more so than other English products that I've used.

The scent was very "old school" without smelling "old man" ... very clean and soapy and enjoyable without being overpowering.

The stick form would seem great for travel and it appears to be big enough to get a good number of shaves out of, even if used on a daily basis.

I'll buy more (plus the regular cream form) soon.