New to soaps

[Beerhunter]

I am thinking of getting rid of the canned foam cream.
But not sure where to start. Other than buying a used shave mug as cheap as I can. Any suggestions on where to start?

 

[Niles]

There are lots of good soaps to choose from. A few popular brands are: D.R. Harris, Proraso, Cella, RazoRock, Mitchell's Wool Fat. You can purchase samples from Garry's Sample Shop. He is a B&B member and his page can be found here. http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...p-January-2013-Updates!?p=4818683#post4818683

 

[SliceOfLife]

You need a brush. The Semogue 1470 is a really good entry level boar brush. If you decide you like the process after a few weeks, I'd consider investing in a restored or custom handle with a "Finest" badger hair knot from TGN (The Golden Nib) as a second brush.

You'll want something to fill with water and soak the hairs of the brush in before use. This can be a shaving mug or a coffee mug or any small dish that holds a couple inches of water.

You'll want a soap or cream. Creams are easier to lather for most people, but many prefer the lather of soaps. My favorite cream is Proraso Red. (It's the only cream I use in fact). The next step towards soap are the "croaps" very soft soaps made with cream (or near cream) recipe's but not whipped up and instead allowed to dry a bit to give them a solid (rather than creamy/toothpaste-ish) texture. They are still soft, but are easier to load into the brush and lather than harder soaps. Favorites among these are Cella, Proraso (they make both creams and croaps), and several others. The final step (and what I mostly use) are harder soaps that typically come in round pucks or in their own bowls or dishes. These are a bit more work to load into the brush and can (depending on the particular soap) require a bit more work to properly lather, but don't take that to mean they are all hard to lather by any means. Many of the soaps people recommend as being easy to lather fall in here. Tabac is perhaps the best known one. These can also be had in "Shave sticks" which do away with the need to load the soap onto the brush, you just rub it right onto your beard and then begin to lather.

Then there are glycerin (the final variety but mixed with glycerin to make it softer easier to melt/scent and possibly gentler on the skin) soaps and handmade soaps also.



My recommendation would be start off with a coffee mug (an old one or pick one up from goodwill or walmart for <$1), a semogue 1470 (<$20 shipped online), a puck of tabac in the ceramic dish ($20-26) or a stick of Tabac (~$15)or Speick (~$8, my favorite commercial shave soap), and a tube of proraso shave cream(green or red, green is menthol, red is sandalwood).

For under $50, you've got a solid brush and a place to soak it, a good soap and a good cream and you can decide which you prefer.

 

[andrestole]

i agree that proraso is a good place to start, than you find out if you like menthol. And cheap to.

 

[Riverdog]

I too agree that Proraso is a good place to start. It's readily available in many areas and it is also excellent quality at a very good price. Higher priced soaps like D.R. Harris are very good too but the law of diminishing returns has set in. Buy an expensive one once you know more about what you want and how to lather properly. Mitchell's Wool fat has a very good reputation for quality but also a reputation for being difficult to lather. It's probably not the best place to start. Any way, good luck.

 

[oc_in_fw]

Euro Palmolive stick and Speick stick are great soaps. Do not be put up by the cost of a DR Harris puck ($16). It is a triple milled soap and will last a good long while. As to brush, Semogue and Omega make some great boars.

on edit: I find soaps to be slicker and they leave less film in the sink than creams.

 

[gash]

I think you should skip the middle-of-the-road stuff. The slicker, creamier stuff doesn't have to be much more expensive. Check out Valobra soft soap, RazoRock products, and Institut Karite soap. All are less than $20, I believe, and last quite a while.

 

[OldSaw]

Where do you live? U.S., Europe, etc.

Forget Proraso. I'm not sure why everyone always jumps in with the Proraso recommendations, but probably because you can get the C.O. Bigelow branded Proraso cream at Bath & Bodyworks.

Even though I'm not a Williams fan (I actually think it kind of sucks, but it is cheap shave soap that's not the worst and some guys really like it) you should be able to find it in many U.S. grocery stores for about a dollar. Any place that has Williams will probably also have Van der Hagen (VDH) soaps, so get the one or two varieties of those while you're there and get a cheap VDH brush. Now you are ready to start.

Play with those for a while and learn to make good lather. Then check out the online stores, like West Coast Shaving, and get some real shave soap, like DR Harris and Tabac. Soon you will be an addict like the rest of us. Welcome aboard.

 

[andrestole]

Forget Proraso. I'm not sure why everyone always jumps in with the Proraso recommendations, but probably because you can get the C.O. Bigelow branded Proraso cream at Bath & Bodyworks.

I think its because many actually think this is a really good soap, nothing else..

 

[Beerhunter]

Choices, choices, choices. Thanks guys for all your helpful insight.I think i would like the puck type route along w/ brush & mug especially if it is longer lasting. After all grand dad did it this way. What could go wrong? Next up will having to wade through all the pre & post shave and finding what I like (or what my better half likes).
Thanks again for all your help.
Cheers
PS @oldsaw I am in the USA

 

[OldSaw]

Choices, choices, choices. Thanks guys for all your helpful insight.I think i would like the puck type route along w/ brush & mug especially if it is longer lasting. After all grand dad did it this way. What could go wrong? Next up will having to wade through all the pre & post shave and finding what I like (or what my better half likes).
Thanks again for all your help.
Cheers
PS @oldsaw I am in the USA

OK, then your choices are limited for in store finds. Online shopping will be your best friend. I would not waste much time playing with cheap products (like Williams and VDH) but it's good to know what's in your neighborhood. You will probably get a puck of Tabac anyway, so you might as well get one right away, as it is one of the most widely agreed upon premium shave soaps on the planet. Maybe a shave stick or two, Speick is a good one.

You might also want a cream or two to try out. If you have a Rite-Aid near you they have The Real Shaving Company shave cream. But there are many more available back at the online stores.

For the money, I would say that Tabac is my most used soap over the years. It is probably the best workhorse of shave soaps.

If you absolutely feel you must be part of the Proraso crowd, then you could throw away about $10 and see what all the fuss is about, as it is probably the most popular lathering shave cream.

Remember, there is no single product that works for everyone, but Tabac (soap) and Proraso (cream) are probably the two most popular lathering products available. From there the choices are nearly endless.

I must warn you. You are at the beginning of what could be a lifelong obsession. You don't need to try every product in your first few months or even in your first year. I've been doing this for years and still have many products that I want to try for the first time.

 

[chilliman64]

for a super cheap option for a lathering bowl, or soap bowl, I went to a discount store and bought three 12cm bowls for $1.50 each - they are the same size as my Muhle shaving bowl I paid $30 for.

 

[petr]

italianbarber has some good starter sets.

 

[Beerhunter]

Made up my mind tabac will be my first soap compared prices between italian barber and another giant online store bad news was, italian barber had a sale on a puck for 14.00 usd it's either move up to the tabac bowl and puck for 27. & change. So I decided to look at other interesting options. found dreadnought shaving soap it looks cool/gimmicky to me, I don't know if its good.PS Then there is something that is making me rethink William's soap and a vdh brush to be found at my local CVS. P. 160 I do believe this is what Marvin the Martian needed go find for his Q-36 space modulator..... Uh there's supposed to be a Ka-boom ( ka-boom was when my jaw hit the floor) I could have swore I temporally went stark raving mad. Or the price was a typo.

 

[oc_in_fw]

Made up my mind tabac will be my first soap compared prices between italian barber and another giant online store bad news was, italian barber had a sale on a puck for 14.00 usd it's either move up to the tabac bowl and puck for 27. & change. So I decided to look at other interesting options. found dreadnought shaving soap it looks cool/gimmicky to me, I don't know if its good.PS Then there is something that is making me rethink William's soap and a vdh brush to be found at my local CVS. P. 160 I do believe this is what Marvin the Martian needed go find for his Q-36 space modulator..... Uh there's supposed to be a Ka-boom ( ka-boom was when my jaw hit the floor) I could have swore I temporally went stark raving mad. Or the price was a typo.

Tabac is a great soap. The scent can be polarizing, but it grows on you quickly.

 

[OldSaw]

Made up my mind tabac will be my first soap compared prices between italian barber and another giant online store bad news was, italian barber had a sale on a puck for 14.00 usd it's either move up to the tabac bowl and puck for 27. & change. So I decided to look at other interesting options. found dreadnought shaving soap it looks cool/gimmicky to me, I don't know if its good.PS Then there is something that is making me rethink William's soap and a vdh brush to be found at my local CVS. P. 160 I do believe this is what Marvin the Martian needed go find for his Q-36 space modulator..... Uh there's supposed to be a Ka-boom ( ka-boom was when my jaw hit the floor) I could have swore I temporally went stark raving mad. Or the price was a typo.

Good man!

The VDH brush will be just fine for a first brush and it is dirt cheap. It will be stiff and possibly stinky the first few times that you use it. Shampoo it a few times to get some of the funky smell out of it. Over time the tips will split and soften. Quality control with VDH brushes is all over the place, so it might shed just a few hairs or it might shed a lot. Hopefully you don't get a really bad one (loses tons of bristles). Then after a while you can decide on a better one and hopefully not waste a lot of money on a bunch of "in between" brushes.