Is Speick a premium shaving soap?
- Thread starter gofastman
- Start date
OMG...! Proraso is pure CRUD IMO against Speick Stick & yes I have used both.
The smell works for me and I went through whole stick eventually. Great shaves with good slickness and a great base to experiment off of with other razors or blades. Have another in my den, but it might end up getting traded honestly. I wouldn't put it near the top of my best list, but would be perfectly content if I ended up with a stash of it on a deserted island.
Speick to me is up there and definitely much better than proraso which gives me the same post shave feel as the OP feels. Is Speick a haslinger or a MWF - definitely not - but its not bad quality soap. The Proraso creams are a different story. I have both the stick as well as the Speick active soap and their aftershaves and they give some very good shave. The stick needs to be rubbed in to the stubble fairly well rather than just a few strokes and it gives a great shave lather. I love it and keep re-ordering it !
Haha. I didn’t mean to start a Proraso vs speick thread. Maybe I’m just found of Proraso red croap. I guess this means I’ll just have to revisit speick. (It’s definitely not in same league as haslinger, mwf, and wholly kaw to me though).
Such strong defenders of it.[emoji16]. You guys must really like it.
Such strong defenders of it.[emoji16]. You guys must really like it.
I was not trying to Attack your opinion on Proraso but, I used to use it frequently & found out the Speick offers way more neck protection for me. If the soaps you use give you good protection there is no need to toss them IMO.
Ha it’s okay - I didn’t take it that way . I like the wet shaving passion on this forum.
I used to use Speick as my go-to travel soap, but these days its place has been usurped by a Palmolive stick I got in Belgium last year.
That being said, I find Speick is a fine soap that lathers well. It's a hard stick--much harder than Tabac or Arko, for instance--and it takes a little more work to apply enough product to your face to generate a good lather. (It's like Palmolive in that respect.) I'd begin by wetting the stick and your face, rubbing the stick in until you get a light but visible coating on your stubble, and then working up your lather starting with a fairly dry brush and adding water as you go. Sounds like work, but it really isn't, and the lather is, again, really nice once you get it dialed in.
That being said, I find Speick is a fine soap that lathers well. It's a hard stick--much harder than Tabac or Arko, for instance--and it takes a little more work to apply enough product to your face to generate a good lather. (It's like Palmolive in that respect.) I'd begin by wetting the stick and your face, rubbing the stick in until you get a light but visible coating on your stubble, and then working up your lather starting with a fairly dry brush and adding water as you go. Sounds like work, but it really isn't, and the lather is, again, really nice once you get it dialed in.
The opinion of others is useful when making purchasing decisions on what you might like or not like, whether it is a soap, brush, razor, etc. In the end, however, there is only one opinion that counts and that is yours. Others might love it, but it you hate it, then it is not for you. The opposite applies as well. Others might hate it, but if it works well for you, then it is top tier in your shave den.
I recently had that experience with Mitchell's Wool Fat, a soap that many consider to be one of the best classic formulations. It took me three shaves to come anywhere close to the lather I get from most artisan soaps on the first try. For me, it is not worth the effort needed to build a great lather with that soap. Thus, I will PIF the soap to a friend who loves it and won't consider using anything else.
I recently had that experience with Mitchell's Wool Fat, a soap that many consider to be one of the best classic formulations. It took me three shaves to come anywhere close to the lather I get from most artisan soaps on the first try. For me, it is not worth the effort needed to build a great lather with that soap. Thus, I will PIF the soap to a friend who loves it and won't consider using anything else.
I really like the cream
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- #33
I tried it again yesterday. I think the issue was I didn't apply enough. This time I more or less did what you said in this post and really worked it in to my stubble, got much better results.
I still can't say it's my favorite but this time it was quite slick. The lather is a little odd. I find it has very little "cushion", the bubbles are very small and it's fairly thin, both viscosity and the layers thickness. Post shave feel was much better this time. All in all, I don't think I'll buy it again because there are a lot of others out there to try and ones I already really like, but I don't strongly dislike it anymore.
I get plenty of cushion from Speick & the post shave is not drying to the skin for me at least. Try mixing it again in a bowl & I bet you get better results. Face lathering can be tricky at times. I think PaulH on the tube lathers right from the stick but, he used a Wilkie Stick & not Speick.
I agree about not applying enough but that is probably true about any shave soap. Speick stick is not very thirsty as a soap but it is little tricky with slickness. If you don't load enough soap and start with a wetter brush; the final result can be tricky to dial and in my view even few extra drops on brush can be the difference between wispy thin and chushioned foam on Speick. Needless to say when there isn't enough cushion, slickness also goes south.
"Premium" is very a much open to a YMMV interpretation. It could be cost, ingredients, latherabilty, post-shave feel, etc....
For me, I would class the stick and cream as top-shelf products; A have not used the "active" line. The fact that it is not uber-priced (the $/g for the stick isn't exactly Arko-range either
) just makes it even more of a great purchase.
For me, I would class the stick and cream as top-shelf products; A have not used the "active" line. The fact that it is not uber-priced (the $/g for the stick isn't exactly Arko-range either
) just makes it even more of a great purchase.
