Does hard=slick?
- Thread starter mars
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Most (but not all) of my favorites for slickness are ‘tallow’ soaps, including some of the Italian croaps. YMMV for sure!
Sickness & hardness are totally unrelated.
Yes, Sir!
Quoted for truth!
There are a lot of good hard soaps, but I had some Badger Balm shaving soap. It's a hard puck, but I do not recommend it for shaving. Not a terrible bath soap.
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- #7
. Doesn’t mean hard = good. But I’ve yet to find a really hard soap that isn’t slick and few softer soaps that are real slick. I’m sure water plays a part. If you don’t agree, that’s fine.
It all boils down to what are in the ingredients lists! The ingredients in the U.S. must follow the F.D.A. rules and be listed from largest amount to smallest amounts and anything below 1% can be listed in whatever order you wish. That being said, it doesn't give you the exact percentages of each of the ingredients which does make a difference if some of them are quite small lower on the list, but it does give you a picture of what is in the soap and looking up each ingredient can tell you what it adds to the formulation so that will make it easier for you to compare individual products with each other.
As said previously, the two are totally unrelated. Ironically the noticeably lesser slick soaps are hard soaps I feel. The lone exception being Saponificio Varesino. Although SV's residual slickness is not elite level but that's splitting hairs
I am currently using a M&M soap that is softer than a cream but is very slick.
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- #12
MdC.
Ok, so in my experience I'm not a fan of the harder triple milled soaps. I don't dislike them but I find that there are plenty of artisan soap makers making what I'd consider to be far superior products.
That being said I suspect that you're having a better experience with hard soaps solely because you are picking up less soap from them. They load quite a bit more slowly being a harder soap than a softer soap would. So you're getting a bit more water and a bit less soap when you use the harder soaps. More water can equate to a soap feeling more slick.
If you switch to a softer artisan soap, like Grooming Dept for example, and use a bit more water than you've been using in the past you might find that it will far surpass the performance of the harder soaps.
That being said I suspect that you're having a better experience with hard soaps solely because you are picking up less soap from them. They load quite a bit more slowly being a harder soap than a softer soap would. So you're getting a bit more water and a bit less soap when you use the harder soaps. More water can equate to a soap feeling more slick.
If you switch to a softer artisan soap, like Grooming Dept for example, and use a bit more water than you've been using in the past you might find that it will far surpass the performance of the harder soaps.
shavefan
I’m not a fan
The slickest soaps I've used are glycerine loaded. Very soft.
Most hard soaps are tallow based. Most tallow based soaps are slick. Therefore, most hard soaps are slick. True.
However, that does not mean that other soaps are not slick. There are very few shaving soaps, tallow or vegan, hard or soft, that are not slick. If shaving soaps are not slick, nobody would purchase them and they would soon disappear from the marketplace.
Producing a slick lather depends on getting the right ratio of water to soap in your lather. Sometimes with softer soaps, you can get so much soap loaded into your brush that it become difficult to add enough water to properly hydrate the soap. That may be why you find it easier to get a slick lather from hard soaps.
If your water is soft, you can usually get both hard soaps and soft soaps to lather. If your water is very hard, then you might have difficulty lathering hard soaps, but there are ways around that such as soaking the soap in water to allow it to soften.
However, that does not mean that other soaps are not slick. There are very few shaving soaps, tallow or vegan, hard or soft, that are not slick. If shaving soaps are not slick, nobody would purchase them and they would soon disappear from the marketplace.
Producing a slick lather depends on getting the right ratio of water to soap in your lather. Sometimes with softer soaps, you can get so much soap loaded into your brush that it become difficult to add enough water to properly hydrate the soap. That may be why you find it easier to get a slick lather from hard soaps.
If your water is soft, you can usually get both hard soaps and soft soaps to lather. If your water is very hard, then you might have difficulty lathering hard soaps, but there are ways around that such as soaking the soap in water to allow it to soften.
I don't find slick and hard to be directly correlated, but it normally sure seems like others do based on most threads.
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- #18
FWIW, my best performing soaps (not necessarily smelling) are SV 70th anniversary, pre de provence, and la toja. None have tallow. I don't have trouble lathering any soaps, but the softer ones just seem less slick in general. No big deal. We all have our own experiences. And, I had always heard that Williams was very hard and slick so I was just looking for a pattern.
This is a logical explanation and great advice!
Yep, that’s been my experience too
