Are Shave Sticks the best way to make lather?

[Wal59]

RazorRock sticks are very good. Not very strong scents but nice lather. I use them at home together with soaps and the occasional cream.

I use LaToja while travelling because it has a plastic cover avoiding a mess in the travel kit. I have the old formula. It lathers well. Not sure about the new formula.

 

[Lord NSIC]

sticks make travel so much easier -- Arko and a synthetic brush (just because it dries quicker). To not have to deal with the paper around the Arko stick (getting/staying wet) I picked up a metal shave stick tube in an antique store and "loaded" the Arko into it--the Arko stick was larger than the tube, but Arko is soft so I was able to push the tube over the soap and the excess was peeled away on the outside of the tube. Container loaded, I stripped the leftover soap from the outside and put it in my Old Spice mug that I put all my leftover soap in (a mix of Williams, VDH, vintage SeaForth and now Arko). Also, a hard puck used as a stick--I think some of my best modern Williams lathers were by using it as a stick.

 

[musicman1951]

No. There is no best way to make lather. But I'm glad you found your best way to make lather.

All the methods to make lather work exceedingly well if your technique is up to the task. For the longest time I thought the scuttle was the best way to make lather (and still think it has some advantages). On the rare occasion I tried face lathering my suspicions were reinforced - clearly not as good. Then I face lathered every day for a while and, lo and behold, face lathering magically made the same great lather. Technique is king.

I do happily use a La Toja stick when traveling.

 

[blethenstrom]

I face lather exclusively. I load from the tub or rub a stick on my face. I like both methods. The stick method certainly makes sure you have plenty of product on your face. There are several reasons why I like face lathering, but especially one that is not talked much about. Since all the lather for all the passes are contained in the brush and if you rinse the face between each pass you end up with a bit thinner, but very slick, lather for each pass. I find this to help me especially for the ATG pass and get a truly close shave. If I have too thick of a lather on my ATG pass and the razor is on the milder side I do not end up with a satisfactory close shave.

 

[shave/brush]

All methods work for making lather, but they are different and will work in different ways for different people. I find that using a shave stick you get consistently good lather.
As someone mentioned above, some brushes don't work with a stick as well as others. I can never get a boar brush to work with a stick. I can only get enough lather for one pass if I'm lucky.

This is my favorite set-up. Nivea soap, Thorn razor, and Muhle 25mm brush.

 

[vtmax]

Sticks are great. I always get wonderful lathers from sticks. Favorite is the wide body Tallow Tabac by far.

Another advantage of sticks is they can be cut in two or three or grated right into Tabac’s ceramic jar or whatever brand one is using.

 

[Brutus]

I see the convenience of shaving sticks when travelling, but for me shaving sticks are a distant third after shaving soaps and shaving creams.

I shave with straight razors most of the time and find that rubbing shaving soap (either as stick or as puck) directly on my face does not make for a very comfortable shave.

Among the sticks, I prefer the Tabac ones as they have a larger surface area than most sticks, which makes for a more comfortable shave than smaller sticks.

La Toja is out for me, when La Toja dropped the shaving creams, they effectively removed themselves from my den, shaving sticks included.
Lea sticks are not that great IMO, and Palmolive went out of production a long time ago.

That effectively leaves Tabac, unless I grab a small Haslinger shaving puck that actually works quite well as stick.
But they come in these handy metal tins with screw cap that are easy to carry, so I might as well use them as shaving soap, like they are intended to be used.


If I were not shaving with straight razors as much I might like sticks better, but as it is, I rarely use them.



B.

 

[Ratso]

I’ve been away for the last month. I brought an Arko stick, a Nivea stick, and a tub of white Proraso. They all performed well. When using a stick I rub it on my face and swirl a fairly dry brush around. I end up with more of paste than lather. I transfer as much as I can from the brush to a bowl and wet the brush and lather my face again. I’ll do the transfer one more time, wet the brush again and get a nice lather on my face. I do the first pass and rinse. Now I dribble some water into the bowl and work up a nice lather. I load up lather from the bowl for my last two passes. I get tons of great lather doing this.

 

[shave/brush]

I’ve been away for the last month. I brought an Arko stick, a Nivea stick, and a tub of white Proraso. They all performed well. When using a stick I rub it on my face and swirl a fairly dry brush around. I end up with more of paste than lather.** I get tons of great lather doing this.

It seems we do a similar method, but I use less steps. I apply the soap and then use a fairly wet brush but still end up with more paste than lather. **What I do then is, add a few drops of water to my brush and work the lather on my face again.
This produces the best lather I ever saw.

 

[KW Driver]

I wouldn't consider them "the best" way to make lather, but they certainly are convenient. Speick stick is one of my automatically replace soaps.

The quality of the soap is more important to me than the form factor. That's why I rate Speick. If it came in a hard puck, I'd buy that.

I’ve grated two Speick sticks into a container for the house for years. And grate plenty of pucks into sticks to travel with.

As for the OP, sticks are nice and I travel exclusively with them. I’d rate sticks and face lathering the hardest to dial in the ratios when learning to build lather with a technique. Not that hard, and anyone can figure it out.

 

[Tha Baron]

Shave sticks are tops. I like doing a pass with a shave stick before the hot towel, then reapply the stick AGAIN!

 

[SalS]

Seems like a lot of fuss just to destroy and dry out your face. We have evolved to modern, non-lathering methods gentlemen

 

[WThomas0814]

Arko stick as are great, but, I limit them to travel. I'd rather load my brush with a croap or puck than load my face with a stick.

 

[Tha Baron]

Seems like a lot of fuss just to destroy and dry out your face. We have evolved to modern, non-lathering methods gentlemen

Well… you still use a brush on your face to face lather the soap that you scraped over your face with the stick…

 

[SalS]

Well… you still use a brush on your face to face lather the soap that you scraped over your face with the stick…

Not me, I uses a lather less, brushless oil based cream. You only have one face, take care of it. Using soap with all kinds of fragrance and brushing it in for only a mediocre shave, actually you guys shave two or threes times, so even worse.

 

[velocityboy]

Believe it or not, this is actually a very short, wide shave stick...

View attachment 1803552

Yes, the often overlooked large bore short stroke shave sticks make excellent lather and better horsepower as an added bonus.

 

[Robbie7]

Not me, I uses a lather less, brushless oil based cream. You only have one face, take care of it. Using soap with all kinds of fragrance and brushing it in for only a mediocre shave, actually you guys shave two or threes times, so even worse.

Brushes exfoliate, and many soaps contain extremely skin friendly ingredients, so I'd reckon it's a healthy process for your skin. What partially confirms this theory to me is how often people comment on how nice my skin/complexion is, but the only thing I do that's skin care related is shave.

Also, I know many old timers who have shaved every day for 50 years, and most of that time was with traditional shave soaps, and they seem to have aged very well because of it


YMMV however

 

[Tha Baron]

Not me, I uses a lather less, brushless oil based cream. You only have one face, take care of it. Using soap with all kinds of fragrance and brushing it in for only a mediocre shave, actually you guys shave two or threes times, so even worse.

… And your go to jack black cream includes all this junk it? Got it!

Water (Aqua), Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate, Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Palmitic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Lauric Acid, Glycerin, Macadamia Ternifolia (Macadamia) Nut Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Oil, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil, Peucedanum Ostruthium Leaf Extract*, Buddleja Davidii Leaf Extract*, Artemisia Umbelliformis Extract*, Leontopodium Alpinum (Edelweiss) Extract*, Calendula Officinalis (Calendula) Flower Extract, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Oil, Pelargonium Graveolens Flower Oil, Anthemis Nobilis Flower Oil, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Cetyl PEG/PPG-10/1 Dimethicone, Perfluorononyl Dimethicone, Phenoxyethanol, Disodium EDTA, Butylene Glycol, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate, Xanthan Gum

ETA: half your posts on this board are plugging jack black cream, LOL… you a shareholder or work for them or something?

 

[FullyLoaded]

Brushes exfoliate, and many soaps contain extremely skin friendly ingredients, so I'd reckon it's a healthy process for your skin. What partially confirms this theory to me is how often people comment on how nice my skin/complexion is, but the only thing I do that's skin care related is shave.

Whenever I go a few days without shaving, I get dry skin and acne on my chin. I’m not sure whether the brush or the blade is more responsible for the exfoliation, but it certainly seems to help my skin.

… And your go to jack black cream includes all this junk it? Got it!

Water (Aqua), Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate, Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Palmitic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Lauric Acid, Glycerin, Macadamia Ternifolia (Macadamia) Nut Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Oil, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil, Peucedanum Ostruthium Leaf Extract*, Buddleja Davidii Leaf Extract*, Artemisia Umbelliformis Extract*, Leontopodium Alpinum (Edelweiss) Extract*, Calendula Officinalis (Calendula) Flower Extract, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Oil, Pelargonium Graveolens Flower Oil, Anthemis Nobilis Flower Oil, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Cetyl PEG/PPG-10/1 Dimethicone, Perfluorononyl Dimethicone, Phenoxyethanol, Disodium EDTA, Butylene Glycol, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate, Xanthan Gum

Meh, a long ingredient list isn’t necessarily worse than a short one.

 

[Roy]

I HATE STICKS! Face never seems to be wet enough to dissolve some soap and compared to loading a brush fir face or bowl lathering, lather is nowhere near as good. Plus a wet stick at the end to dry out.
I have arko stick and scrape a bit off for bowl lather.