So we all know the trends that have captured the wetshaving industry in the last half a decade or so. Gone are the days where modern artisans make a basic 5-8 ingredient soap and call it good. Most modern soaps and artisans trying to break into the soap making industry are releasing products with sometimes upwards of 20 ingredients. These ingredients range from duck fat and bison tallow all the way to snail mucin and marshmallow extract. These soaps are more soap/moisturizer hybrids. And when they are applied to your face feel very dense, creamy, fatty, and skin nourishing. One cannot doubt the satisfaction of such a sensation upon your face. But the question is; does it make for a better shave or even an equal shave to simpler soaps such as MDC, MWF, Proraso, etc?
When I first started wetshaving in the traditional fashion I was chasing all the latest bases. I thought the perfect shave was in reach so long as I climbed that mountain littered with the husks of old soap bases. I was buying declaration grooming, barrister and mann, ariana and evans and so forth. And don't get me wrong...the dedication to the hobby, the interesting scents, the sheer mastery of the alchemy that is soap making is commendable. Barrister and mann especially I have a soft spot for. But as the bases have developed I find myself wondering if the pursuit of density and creaminess isn't somewhat counter intuitive.
Take Omnibus for instance. This soap is amazing, truly. I get great shaves out of it. Not to mention I adore many of Wills scents. But the soap is so dense, so creamy, that even if I hydrate it to the cusp of the lather breaking I cannot feel what the blade is doing on my face unless it is doing something absolutely catastrophic to my hair or skin. I feel I could almost shave with broken glass with this soap. And therein lies the problem for me. Sometimes with these dense and hydrating soaps I get irritation after the fact because I can't get a sense of how well the blade is cutting or if it's cutting cleanly or not. For this reason I find myself gravitating towards very slick but minimal Ingredient soaps that allow me to feel everything that's going on on my face. Which is a bummer because I like the ethos of many of the brands of artisans.
Anyways, all of this is to ask, what kind of soaps do you prefer? Moisturizing fatty soaps that you could comfortably use to mask the tugging and irritation of shaving with a rusty butter knife or slick thin basic lathers like Mikes/tobs/proraso/mdc that really do not provide any cushion at all but ample slickness to get the job done?
When I first started wetshaving in the traditional fashion I was chasing all the latest bases. I thought the perfect shave was in reach so long as I climbed that mountain littered with the husks of old soap bases. I was buying declaration grooming, barrister and mann, ariana and evans and so forth. And don't get me wrong...the dedication to the hobby, the interesting scents, the sheer mastery of the alchemy that is soap making is commendable. Barrister and mann especially I have a soft spot for. But as the bases have developed I find myself wondering if the pursuit of density and creaminess isn't somewhat counter intuitive.
Take Omnibus for instance. This soap is amazing, truly. I get great shaves out of it. Not to mention I adore many of Wills scents. But the soap is so dense, so creamy, that even if I hydrate it to the cusp of the lather breaking I cannot feel what the blade is doing on my face unless it is doing something absolutely catastrophic to my hair or skin. I feel I could almost shave with broken glass with this soap. And therein lies the problem for me. Sometimes with these dense and hydrating soaps I get irritation after the fact because I can't get a sense of how well the blade is cutting or if it's cutting cleanly or not. For this reason I find myself gravitating towards very slick but minimal Ingredient soaps that allow me to feel everything that's going on on my face. Which is a bummer because I like the ethos of many of the brands of artisans.
Anyways, all of this is to ask, what kind of soaps do you prefer? Moisturizing fatty soaps that you could comfortably use to mask the tugging and irritation of shaving with a rusty butter knife or slick thin basic lathers like Mikes/tobs/proraso/mdc that really do not provide any cushion at all but ample slickness to get the job done?
