I preface this post with the following acknowledgement, price/value is probably the most personal,YMMV aspect of this or any hobby.
That being said, I felt compelled to write a few words about the What the Puck line from RR after this morning's shave.
I recently joined the leap year restraint and in preparation ordered another 100 of my blade of choice and wanted to grab some tri-milled soap just to make sure I could supplement my artisan croap stash if it started to look a little low in year 3. I decided on WTP as 400 grams for under $21 shipped of tri milled soap was just too good to pass up and as it was from RR I was certain at the very least it would be a passable and not horrible soap. RR states that the puck can be dropped in a cup and left open no worries which I like. I still have a really cool old coffee cup I used when I started wet shaving in my 'shave like grandpa did' early pre-artisan soap phase, so I grated and pressed the green label puck into the cup. Since it is a hard soap, I bloomed while in the shower,(NOTE:Never bloom a croap as in Stirling/BM/MM etc..., you are literally pouring money down the drain), loaded my brush for no more than 30 seconds with my cashmere synth and went to work on my face. I don't excel at descriptive writing but I will state that the lather was much easier to obtain than my croaps and the cushion, glide and even post shave was pretty close in quality than what I would get with my Stirling, BM or MM. In fact, in a blind test I would not be surprised if I didn't go for the WTP more times than not, it was that good. I have read people compare What the Puck to PdP. I do not find any resemblance between the two products (YMMV). I was not a fan of PdP, it had very little post shave and IMO left my face feeling pretty dry and I felt the lather to be weak and easily dissipated. I ended up gifting that soap about a year after I purchased it.
The only area WTP is lacking is in the scent and scent strength. Scent was pleasant and clean smelling but there really wasn't enough to notice even with a face full of it.
Look, I have no problem at all dropping $15-$30 on a quality soap/croap, this is a pretty cheap hobby all things considered so basking in the luxury of a well crafted shave soap in the morning is one of the simple pleasures in my life but I have to ask myself if a $10-$20 premium for croaps is worth it for me long term especially since the we really don't know the shelve life of croaps. Would I pay $60 vs $10 for the equivalent weight of MdC? I would be hard pressed to convince myself that the soap would be 6 times better than WTP or a croap would be 3-4 times better. When the 4 years is up, I will probably have WTP as my daily and just 1 or 2 of my favorite croaps/scents for weekends or special occasions.
That being said, I felt compelled to write a few words about the What the Puck line from RR after this morning's shave.
I recently joined the leap year restraint and in preparation ordered another 100 of my blade of choice and wanted to grab some tri-milled soap just to make sure I could supplement my artisan croap stash if it started to look a little low in year 3. I decided on WTP as 400 grams for under $21 shipped of tri milled soap was just too good to pass up and as it was from RR I was certain at the very least it would be a passable and not horrible soap. RR states that the puck can be dropped in a cup and left open no worries which I like. I still have a really cool old coffee cup I used when I started wet shaving in my 'shave like grandpa did' early pre-artisan soap phase, so I grated and pressed the green label puck into the cup. Since it is a hard soap, I bloomed while in the shower,(NOTE:Never bloom a croap as in Stirling/BM/MM etc..., you are literally pouring money down the drain), loaded my brush for no more than 30 seconds with my cashmere synth and went to work on my face. I don't excel at descriptive writing but I will state that the lather was much easier to obtain than my croaps and the cushion, glide and even post shave was pretty close in quality than what I would get with my Stirling, BM or MM. In fact, in a blind test I would not be surprised if I didn't go for the WTP more times than not, it was that good. I have read people compare What the Puck to PdP. I do not find any resemblance between the two products (YMMV). I was not a fan of PdP, it had very little post shave and IMO left my face feeling pretty dry and I felt the lather to be weak and easily dissipated. I ended up gifting that soap about a year after I purchased it.
The only area WTP is lacking is in the scent and scent strength. Scent was pleasant and clean smelling but there really wasn't enough to notice even with a face full of it.
Look, I have no problem at all dropping $15-$30 on a quality soap/croap, this is a pretty cheap hobby all things considered so basking in the luxury of a well crafted shave soap in the morning is one of the simple pleasures in my life but I have to ask myself if a $10-$20 premium for croaps is worth it for me long term especially since the we really don't know the shelve life of croaps. Would I pay $60 vs $10 for the equivalent weight of MdC? I would be hard pressed to convince myself that the soap would be 6 times better than WTP or a croap would be 3-4 times better. When the 4 years is up, I will probably have WTP as my daily and just 1 or 2 of my favorite croaps/scents for weekends or special occasions.