Like @luvmysuper said, slick first.
Decent scent second.
And personally, a hard consistency preferred.
Decent scent second.
And personally, a hard consistency preferred.
Simple soaps vs complex soaps- which do you prefer and why?
- Thread starter Sethology
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The better the formulation, the better the product. Simple scents while fine get boring quickly. I like the more complicated products with better ingredients and sophisticated scents more than the simpler stuff. The price difference here in Australia is not big enough to care.
Absolutely. My #1 also. Amazing how much my shaves improved when I went to slicker and wetter lather with most of my soaps. Also helped with blade longevity. My second is lather stability followed by scent and ease of lathering. Lather stability is a gatekeeper criteria for me, all my shaving soaps have it or they would quickly be re-categorized as bath soap.
AimlessWanderer
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The only time I look at the ingredient list, is before first use to make sure there is no menthol (which burns my skin). After that, I judge on performance alone (slickness and post shave feel). So I have no idea how simple or complex my soaps are.
I do like Stirling Unscented Beeswax, the one soap I like from them and it is simple. I like Shannon's Chupacabra base, but it is getting more complex. In all honesty, some of the old soaps, such as Cella Red and Achilles Brito Lavanda are fabulous. They simply work. Cella is a good tallow soap and it isn't drying to my already dry skin. It must be the almond oil. I keep extra of this soap and La Toja stick, and no extras of anything else.
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Been using grooming deptbfor a few days plus their pre shave. Just went back to mdc and had a terrible shave. So I guess my thesis on simple soaps being superior has changed. Tho I still wonder...am I still getting a bad shave that is simply masked by Shea butter and xanthan gum? Who knows. Maybe it's best to just not over analyze certain elements of this process lol
I found out early on that my skin can't take the ingredients used to add fragrance to soaps, balms, after shaves, etc. I had a terrible skin reaction to a well loved soap that sent me to my dermatologist.... She was the one who pointed out the problem and prescribed "Metro Gel"... That fixed me up immediately.
As a result, most of my soaps, creams and croaps are unscented. That simplifies things immensely. I use Canada Shaving soap for around 80% of my shaves, as I've mentioned many times... I have a few others I use from time to time: all of them excellent. I don't read the ingredients, though I suppose I should. I like Mike's unscented, GD's Pura, Stirling with Beeswax to name just a few. I don't need many... Just enough for a bit of variety when I feel the urge.
Let me put it another way... I have more razors than varieties of soaps... You can guess which cost me more. <eg>
As a result, most of my soaps, creams and croaps are unscented. That simplifies things immensely. I use Canada Shaving soap for around 80% of my shaves, as I've mentioned many times... I have a few others I use from time to time: all of them excellent. I don't read the ingredients, though I suppose I should. I like Mike's unscented, GD's Pura, Stirling with Beeswax to name just a few. I don't need many... Just enough for a bit of variety when I feel the urge.
Let me put it another way... I have more razors than varieties of soaps... You can guess which cost me more. <eg>
Simple! I am currently mostly using Stirling Unscented with Beeswax and MdC.
That said, I recently found the remnants of a sample of Ariana & Evans Kaizen that a member gave me. Good stuff!
That said, I recently found the remnants of a sample of Ariana & Evans Kaizen that a member gave me. Good stuff!
I much prefer the "simple" soaps that have been around for a long time e.g. TOBS, Proraso etc.
The modern artisan stuff is very good (in a technical sense) but none of them blow my socks off. I also find that those ultra-slick, mega-dense lathers can be a pain in the arse to rinse off...
The modern artisan stuff is very good (in a technical sense) but none of them blow my socks off. I also find that those ultra-slick, mega-dense lathers can be a pain in the arse to rinse off...
Exactly, there's great simple soaps and great soaps with long ingredient lists. How it's all put together is what counts.
If the S tier soaps, I personally lean toward soaps with more ingredients. Kairos, Omnibus, k2E
I 100% agree. I guess their fans like having that oil fat slick to stay on their face. But then the fans I've talked to of these soaps also spend 30 minutes face lathering to get that perfect yogurt. Seems way excessive to me. I watched a video from B&M how he thinks his soap should be lathered. It was laborious and very time consuming. I don't get it.
Each to their own they say. However, for me, too long spent lathering just irritates my skin.
Honestly, I like trying different soaps. I appreciate both complex and simple ones. Some of the classics are just so none sense good. Simple and do what they are told. While some complex soaps are so good that you want to eat them.
If it's the video I'm thinking of them it was regarding his old reserve base. His modern one is very, very easy to lather.
I've also found that fancy shaving soaps aren't all they're cracked up to be. I've tried Stirling, B&M, Van Yulay, and a bunch of other high end stuff. Tallow bases, vegan bases, Mitchell's Wool Fat, so on and so forth. Never found anything that makes much of a difference in irritation at the end of the day. I spent years using the nice stuff. Recently I've found that my conditioner, lathered with a bit of warm water in my hands, gives me a perfectly good shave. Just as good as any of the other stuff, and it's a lot less temperamental than lathering soap with a brush.
I think that the coarseness of one's beard and skin sensitivity is the deciding factor.
I have copper wire growing out of my face, so I have always chased the thick protective products. The new oil formulations are a bonus for the most part, but some get gross and gooey.
I have copper wire growing out of my face, so I have always chased the thick protective products. The new oil formulations are a bonus for the most part, but some get gross and gooey.
Advantages of traditional shaving soaps are that they are dermatologically tested with much fewer ingredients than some artisans. And that they have much less perfume which could cause problems to some people. Also many high end artisans are loaded with lanoline which also could cause problems to some.
Price or the ingredient list is not guarantee that soap would be great by default - on contrary, there are some great cheap soaps that are as good as many artisans or pretty close but for the fraction of the price eg Tabac, Monsavon or Proraso.
Price or the ingredient list is not guarantee that soap would be great by default - on contrary, there are some great cheap soaps that are as good as many artisans or pretty close but for the fraction of the price eg Tabac, Monsavon or Proraso.
I think virtually all of the ingredients have been tested, even if not in soap form, given they're legal to use. At least the huge majority of the ingredients have been in assortments of skin and beauty products for decades and it's pretty well understood what they do. I don't think there's any reason to assume that artisan soap makers are more readily allowed to break health codes than, say, the new formulations of MWF, Haslinger, La Toja and Tabac, which are themselves far newer formulations than most "artisan" offerings with no more or less opportunity to experiment with their ingredient lists changes. Also, just about every artisan offers fragrance free offerings, with the huge majority of even their scented offerings having way, way less fragrance than Tabac does.
