I received two bars of Aleppo soap yesterday. Made in Syria, travelled from there to Lebanon, Sheffield (UK) and Bulawayo (Zimbabwe). I bought the soap from Neil at www.alepposoap.uk (yes .uk not .co.uk) in my search for the best natural, body soap I could get. I do have a specific Aleppo shaving soap from Tadé on its way too... For those who are not in the knowing, Aleppo soap contains only 4 ingredients, namely olive oil, laurel oil, lye and water and is made using a hot process before a 9 month long maturing process. The Kesabella Aleppo soap is a 50/50 soap, seemingly the highest percentage of laurel oil on the market. The label that Neil put on the back suggests glycerine as an extra ingredient? So why not trying it out for a shave?
My weapons and ammunition are in the picture.
Since two weeks now I'm feeling much more confident with the Mühle R41 and my Fatip Originale is on (temporary?) retirement. I don't consider myself a very experienced wet shaver (1 year experience) but don't have any problem with the R41. Under the chin my first pass is always a straight against-the-grain pass. For me this works better (=less irritation) than with-the-grain and then against-the-grain. A limit myself to a two pass shave with very short strokes
and maybe a touch-up here and there if necessary.
The shave: little and quite unstable lather, light beige in colour. I put the bar of soap next to my sink and reloaded every now and then. In the end it all resulted in the same BBS shave as usual, no irritation, no weepers, no nothing.
So in the end your choice of shaving soap seems to be only a matter of smell??? Another thing that I noticed is the little to no difference I experience using different brands of DE blades. Some maybe last a shave longer than the other? I must admit I haven't experimented with the lowest cost segment of blades...
The only thing that makes a shave really different imho is the razor you use. For me closed combs simply don't work. I tried the Fatip Gentile, the Mühle R89, the Supply single edge and the Razorock Hawk. The Hawk is OK-ish but the others are either straight disasters (Supply) to I-know-there-s-something-that-works-better. I'd say the Fatip and Mühle R41 give very similar results but the Mühle is maybe slightly more comfortable to handle due to it's thicker handle. (I do need the R41GS now!)
My weapons and ammunition are in the picture.
The shave: little and quite unstable lather, light beige in colour. I put the bar of soap next to my sink and reloaded every now and then. In the end it all resulted in the same BBS shave as usual, no irritation, no weepers, no nothing.
So in the end your choice of shaving soap seems to be only a matter of smell??? Another thing that I noticed is the little to no difference I experience using different brands of DE blades. Some maybe last a shave longer than the other? I must admit I haven't experimented with the lowest cost segment of blades...
The only thing that makes a shave really different imho is the razor you use. For me closed combs simply don't work. I tried the Fatip Gentile, the Mühle R89, the Supply single edge and the Razorock Hawk. The Hawk is OK-ish but the others are either straight disasters (Supply) to I-know-there-s-something-that-works-better. I'd say the Fatip and Mühle R41 give very similar results but the Mühle is maybe slightly more comfortable to handle due to it's thicker handle. (I do need the R41GS now!)
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