Great scent, not so great performance

[MyOldKentuckyHome]

I grabbed Sir Hare Barbershop off Amazon early in my wet shaving journey and IMMEDIATELY fell in love with the scent.

The lather on the other hand...

It's not AWFUL, but it's not good either. It's just meh.

So much so that I often start by loading my brush with some Stirling unscented, wipe the brush into my bowl, then load my brush in the Sir Hare. I get the scent with the better performance of the Stirling underneath.

I tried it without the Stirling today again just to see if maybe my technique had improved and while it was slightly better than I remember, it's still just disappointing lather compared to so many other soaps.

I'll definitely finish this container of soap but alas, will not be replacing it when it's done (though I'll find some use for the container because I love the graphics as well).

I tried Stirling's barbershop and while its ok scent wise, it's just different and more vanilla scented to me. Fortunately I found WSP Rustic Barbershop and the scent is VERY similar to the Sir Hare but lathers up easily (I've been tempted to buy the bath soap bar they have in this scent!).

Anyway - it got me thinking - in your experience what are soaps you have tried that you enjoyed the scent but wouldn't repurchase due to the performance not being as nice as the scent?

 

[Ivo4u2]

Van yulay great scent and that is it for me.

 

[Ad Astra]

Van yulay great scent and that is it for me.

Was going to say - the Van Yulay chocolate one smells fantastic, but. Is lather challenged.

I fixed by mixing it with unscented Haslingers - now it's very much a lathering chocolate soap! Bit like chocolate marshmallows.

In defense of VY, their gingerbread soap smells great and lathers just fine. It may be, as perhaps in OP's case, some scent oils and additives wreck a soaps abilities?


AA

 

[nav]

That's quite interesting...
I have Sir H barbershop and find it gives a creamy, slick and stable lather.

Maybe not MWF, SV level but still nothing I would complain about.

 

[FarmerTan]

Strange. I sometimes think people are more different in their opinions of soap performance than they are in scents. Truly I am finally beginning to understand "YMMV" after all these years!

 

[AZBronco]

I think they pay a lot to be a sponsored product in Amazon. If I search any shaving soap Sir Hare shows up.

 

[FarmerTan]

I think they pay a lot to be a sponsored product in Amazon. If I search any shaving soap Sir Hare shows up.

Dude! I see from your avatar that it was YOU that stole my car!

 

[JackJ]

I LOVE the scent of Muhle Buckthorn. The hard soap performance, however, is lackluster. Not outright bad; just: meh. Fortunately in also comes as a cream which does better. (There's a stick form, too, which I haven't tried and I'm assuming is the same as the puck.)

Conversely, the one Pre de Provence cream I've tried, 63, is a terrible performer. Some say it's intended for brushless use, but for me it fails there too. Fortunately it's hard puck version is fantastic. Both smell great.

 

[MNshaver71]

I have a sample of WSP Gaelic Tweed that has not worked for me performance-wise. Love the scent, but I can't get a good lather from it.

 

[Racquet]

I think they pay a lot to be a sponsored product in Amazon. If I search any shaving soap Sir Hare shows up.

I'm not a regular Amazon shopper for various reasons but I purchased an Amazon firestick last week and searched the shaving soaps and found the selection lacking and it did seem that items were "sponsored". Sir Hare among them. I like to get most items that I order directly from the manufacturer, Amazon is just wanky to me, and I'm not even sure what "wanky" means. On the plus side, after my order I did receive spam emails and phone calls concerning my order.

 

[Ivo4u2]

Was going to say - the Van Yulay chocolate one smells fantastic, but. Is lather challenged.

I fixed by mixing it with unscented Haslingers - now it's very much a lathering chocolate soap! Bit like chocolate marshmallows.

In defense of VY, their gingerbread soap smells great and lathers just fine. It may be, as perhaps in OP's case, some scent oils and additives wreck a soaps abilities?


AA

No idea I had a dozen samples and none of them lathered well not even in a van yulay bowl. So I left them open in the bathroom for some time partly used them as hand soap and binned the remains. A shame scent is super.

 

[Scaramouche]

One thing we always lack in lather descriptions is water hardness (probably 90%+ by weight of lather) and pH. Mine is less than 1 gpg (17ppm) with a pH of 7.0, and almost any soap I use lathers just fine. Comparison of soaps with the same water is valid; random samples across the planet, probably not. Doesn't negate whether a particular soap works for a particular individual in a particular place, just difficult to compare. It's also relevant to praise a soap that lathers well in hard water (the condition of the bulk of ground water around the globe), and the fact that many soaps discussed lather well, or acceptably, regardless of the water condition, is a tribute to modern makers.

 

[hairless wonder]

I have a sample of WSP Gaelic Tweed that has not worked for me performance-wise. Love the scent, but I can't get a good lather from it.

I won a tin of WSP Gaelic Tweed and have used it several times, now. I found that blooming the soap while I showered then pouring off the water* and aggressively loading the soap for half a minute with a damp (soaked and gently squeezed) 3-band badger hair brush helped to make a pretty good lather.

While I'm normally a face latherer, I've been building the lather in a repurposed yogurt cup. When I need to add more water to the lather, I use the bloom water that I poured into a separate container. I also use the bloom water as a bit of a preshave by rubbing it on before applying the lather with my brush.

I'm not sure if this same routine will work for you, but it might help.

*FWIW, I have hard water from my tap. That said, I've never had it tested so I don't know the particulars about it.

 

[Steve_in_CT]

I'm inclined to believe that @Scaramouche is correct about the water characteristics playing a large role in how we perceive the performance of a shaving soap. I say that particularly with regard to WSP soaps. I have used several different scents over a couple of years and have never had one that did not perform wonderfully. In fact just yesterday as I lathered up with WSP barbershop I was wondering to myself how Lee at WSP manages to get such great performance out of so few ingredients. Perhaps I should do an experiment by bypassing my water softener and acid neutralizer to see if my naturally hard and acidic water ruins the performance of WSP soaps (and perhaps many others).

 

[MyOldKentuckyHome]

My WSP Rustic is what I actually favor over the Sir Hare now. Very similar and amazing barbershop scent but the WSP whips up a nice easy lather with no fuss.

 

[altruistguy]

I absolutely LOVE the smell of Sir Hare "Alpha". While I'm not very experienced, the lathering seems good to me.

 

[Vespasian]

I love different scents, but performance is the top metric for my soaps. And as I age, I think my powers of sniffing are decreasing. MdC Agrumes has for me only the faintest citrus aroma, but it works so well that I keep it in my rotation.