Definitely can be. With PdP, it can become quicker & easier to load the soap if you use it more often. With Cella, the soap can become almost too soft. Some people say to load Cella with the container upside-down to avoid that happening, and also let it dry out after using it.
Pre de Provence -- a short review
- Thread starter Swistak
- Start date
Definitely can be. With PdP, it can become quicker & easier to load the soap if you use it more often. With Cella, the soap can become almost too soft. Some people say to load Cella with the container upside-down to avoid that happening, and also let it dry out after using it.
For me, PdP is a top-tier soap. It is a very hard, triple-milled soap, and as such, I typically bloom it pre-shave. It takes a little more work than a softer soap, but not that much. The result for me is a thick, rich lather, that provides a great post-shave feel, soft and moisturized. I have experienced no drying effect; just the opposite.
I don't bloom soaps. I load a damp brush, take it to wet face, and add water as needed.
- Thread starter
- #104
I gave this a try recently and it worked for me! Mug soaps are called mug soaps for a reason, and I suspect PDP works best as a mug soap for me.Hi Joe, Just for test purposes see if treating your PdP as a mug soap makes a difference. Place the puck in a mug or container with a few inches of vertical space and see if, starting with a really wet brush, you can build lather right on the puck possibly finishing development by face or (if just a test) palm lathering. Using this approach I was able to get great lather from new puck of the normally hard to lather Williams shave soap using a synthetic. Works even faster this way with a stiffer boar.
Photo of my Williams puck in its apothecary mug below. Link in my post #17 above to more details on what I did with Williams that may work with PdP #63.
WilliamsPuck.JPG
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Just now getting around to posting after @gpjoe inspired me to pull out the Bergamot & Thyme for a few days.
The longest I've gone with PdP is a week at a time because it irritated my skin too, @Swistak. It was a tingle or itchiness during the shave, primarily around the nose & lips. The slightest irritation can sometimes cause big problems, but I was getting through it okay so kept trying every few weeks hoping my skin would magically adjust. Nope.
The good: The tin is cool. The cost per shave. The scent - unsurprisingly, it smells like bergamot and thyme! A fancy hotel soap. Gender neutral, a pleasant spring scent that works year-round, inoffensive to most, short-lived, and unlikely to clash with much. I could use it daily if forced into a single soap.
Loading is fine in my hands considering the hardness. Boar brush and soft water undoubtedly help. Maybe someone out there can daily load this stuff in 10 seconds, but it sure isn't me. Let's say 30-60 seconds until the brush feels full and slides smooth.
The lather is pretty stable during a slow shave and has a reasonable (not brainless) hydration window, but the outright slickness has never blown my mind. It's a solid B, maybe a B+. Thin, thick...doesn't matter...it offers one level of slickness and that's what you get. I would never blame PdP for a bad shave though, and would finish it if it wasn't for the skin reaction.
Post shave? Depends on what you're looking for, but I'd say it's on the neutral to dry side. Not one I'd personally skip the aftershave on.
The longest I've gone with PdP is a week at a time because it irritated my skin too, @Swistak. It was a tingle or itchiness during the shave, primarily around the nose & lips. The slightest irritation can sometimes cause big problems, but I was getting through it okay so kept trying every few weeks hoping my skin would magically adjust. Nope.
The good: The tin is cool. The cost per shave. The scent - unsurprisingly, it smells like bergamot and thyme! A fancy hotel soap. Gender neutral, a pleasant spring scent that works year-round, inoffensive to most, short-lived, and unlikely to clash with much. I could use it daily if forced into a single soap.
Loading is fine in my hands considering the hardness. Boar brush and soft water undoubtedly help. Maybe someone out there can daily load this stuff in 10 seconds, but it sure isn't me. Let's say 30-60 seconds until the brush feels full and slides smooth.
The lather is pretty stable during a slow shave and has a reasonable (not brainless) hydration window, but the outright slickness has never blown my mind. It's a solid B, maybe a B+. Thin, thick...doesn't matter...it offers one level of slickness and that's what you get. I would never blame PdP for a bad shave though, and would finish it if it wasn't for the skin reaction.
Post shave? Depends on what you're looking for, but I'd say it's on the neutral to dry side. Not one I'd personally skip the aftershave on.
I don't know "which team you play on" , but I'll tell you this: for a man who's interested, the female body has to be "figured out" and there's a lot of fun in that.
For me there's more reward when there's more work.
Otherwise, we'd be like those fat people in the techno-chairs from the movie Wall-E.
My 2¢.
/Acey
Pretty offensive. I'm just going to ignore you.
I shaved with PdP this morning and in my opinion it's a very good soap. Very similar to MdC. Almost like a French sibling or cousin.
There's definitely wisdom in this (I guess unless someone's easily offended). Stirling is one of my favorite soaps now, but at first I just couldn't get it to work for me at all, as strange as that may seem. I usually have no problem even with soaps that many other people can't figure out. I kept at it until it clicked, and now I can't really understand how I ever had a problem getting it to work. I didn't keep at it because it was the only thing available to me and I had to make do (I had plenty of other excellent soaps by that time), it was mostly because of the challenge of figuring it out, and because I wanted it to work. Just like when I first learned to build a lather and use a DE in the first place, as I assume is the case for many if not most on here.
Frankly, if I just stuck with what works and had no interest in the fun of learning or figuring anything out, I'd still be using Barbasol or an electric.
@Swistak , Courtesy or a generous PIF from @Steve56 I've been able to put my theory on how to effectively lather PdP into practice on a brand new puck of their Bergamot and Thyme shaving soap. To lather the soap I used the mug soap technique with a really wet brush discussed in my posts above with great results. I took the soap out of its tin and placed it in a plastic container I use for MWF. Again the key to this is sufficient vertical container space to allow lather building directly on the puck. Swistak, glad this method also worked for you.
The result was excellent creamy and slick lather that delivered a BBS 10/10 shave. The lather was as slick as my best tallow soaps and slicker than any of my other vegan shaving soaps - very impressive. Added bonus was the enjoyable scent.
Details and a photo of the container set up available via the post #81302 in the thread linked below.
Edit, P.S. PdP Bergamot and Thyme is available from Amazon for a $12.40 Black Friday sale price today.
What did you use today? +Rate the shave 1-10 (10 best) - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/what-did-you-use-today-rate-the-shave-1-10-10-best.568241/page-4066#post-12912764
The result was excellent creamy and slick lather that delivered a BBS 10/10 shave. The lather was as slick as my best tallow soaps and slicker than any of my other vegan shaving soaps - very impressive. Added bonus was the enjoyable scent.
Details and a photo of the container set up available via the post #81302 in the thread linked below.
Edit, P.S. PdP Bergamot and Thyme is available from Amazon for a $12.40 Black Friday sale price today.
What did you use today? +Rate the shave 1-10 (10 best) - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/what-did-you-use-today-rate-the-shave-1-10-10-best.568241/page-4066#post-12912764
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This is a great thread, thank you for starting it.
This discussion on PdP actually follows a pattern we've seen a lot for many really hard triple-milled (quad in this case) shaving soaps like Mitchell's Wool Fat (MWF) or the now discontinued Williams. For these soaps there is a wide range of reported YMMV results and opinions. I suspect that in many cases the core issue (1) is that it takes some effort to effectively lather these soaps compared to the softer artisan products, croaps and creams that users don't understand or prefer not to do.
For example former B&B member Rayclem, who had over 200 shaving soaps, had a very well structured soap evaluation method that, due to his personal preferences, significantly downgraded any soap that took more than 15 seconds to load. As a result, while he found MWF as able to produce good lather for example, he rated it poorly. We've a number of members who will only prefer soaps that work with their preferred loading and lathering methods and we need to respect that.
For me building lather is my favorite part of the shaving process as how often today do we get to create own custom consumer product? I started with Williams shaving soap from which I've gone on to use a variety of different commercial shaving soaps, croaps and creams. During this journey I've found that great lather can be generated from almost all of these with the right technique that is tailored to each shaving product's characteristics. Figuring this out has been an enjoyable shaving journey for me.
See the thread linked below for more details.
Can Great Lather be Generated from Any Reasonable Quality Shaving Soap or Cream? - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/can-great-lather-be-generated-from-any-reasonable-quality-shaving-soap-or-cream.653913/#post-12723691
(1) For some it's possible that water quality/hardness may also be an issue.
