Out of curiosity, I bought a puck of Bloc Osma shaving soap. Its not that expensive at ~$12 without a case. This is the soap with alum in it that is well known for being super finicky, in the company of MWF and others. Loving a challenge, I thought what the heck.
I throw it in a ramkin and try loading. I've tried every level of brush dampness from dripping like crazy to bone dry to even no water. I've tried tons of soap and just a little soap. I've tried the MWF method of slowly adding bits of water. I've tried both bowl and face lathering. With all of these, I found that the margin for error is incredibly thin. It was very difficult to build a nice lather, but when I could it was pretty nice. You feel no roughness. Its very very very good for those 3 pass shaves (my face usually hates me on the 3rd pass for any other soap).
But, I finally discovered the secret. Wet your face. Hold the puck in your hand, and just rub it in your face like a shaving stick. From here you can build lather on your face with a brush at varying levels of dampness and the results are ALWAYS good, if not great. I don't really understand why this works, but it seems to work like gangbusters. I should also add that there is no need to presoak the puck, just wet it before rubbing on your face.
Once I discovered this, the quality of shaves is very good. VERY GOOD. Your razor just glides over your skin. The downside to Osma is that your face is very dry afterwards, akin to using an alum block and leaving it to dry on your face rather than rinsing. I typically do two applications of ASB after and the results work grandly.
Cheers,
Michael.
I throw it in a ramkin and try loading. I've tried every level of brush dampness from dripping like crazy to bone dry to even no water. I've tried tons of soap and just a little soap. I've tried the MWF method of slowly adding bits of water. I've tried both bowl and face lathering. With all of these, I found that the margin for error is incredibly thin. It was very difficult to build a nice lather, but when I could it was pretty nice. You feel no roughness. Its very very very good for those 3 pass shaves (my face usually hates me on the 3rd pass for any other soap).
But, I finally discovered the secret. Wet your face. Hold the puck in your hand, and just rub it in your face like a shaving stick. From here you can build lather on your face with a brush at varying levels of dampness and the results are ALWAYS good, if not great. I don't really understand why this works, but it seems to work like gangbusters. I should also add that there is no need to presoak the puck, just wet it before rubbing on your face.
Once I discovered this, the quality of shaves is very good. VERY GOOD. Your razor just glides over your skin. The downside to Osma is that your face is very dry afterwards, akin to using an alum block and leaving it to dry on your face rather than rinsing. I typically do two applications of ASB after and the results work grandly.
Cheers,
Michael.
