Tabac soap not slick enough, no glide with shavette?

[Kitsunekuma]

Half of the lather seems to disappear inside natural hair brushes..... . You have to load a lot more to end up with less than when you use a good synthetic (and there are good ones for -$10)

Well that's an interesting info, I have noticed that I often had a lot of lather captured deep inside my boar brush.
I usually squeeze it out but then I often wondered if it was messing with my water ratio as part of the lather is in the bowl and another part is trapped in the brush...
Though I thought it was helping with face lathering to keep more lather at disposal inside the brush. I might try a synthetic brush when I get the chance to get a good one.

Maybe synthetic for bowl lathering and boar for face lathering could be an interesting combo.

 

[SterFry]

Synthetic brushes are much more efficient in that they require less time and less product to produce lather. They are also durable, don't need to be soaked, insanely soft and dry in hours rather than days... all for 10 or 15 bucks.

On the other hand some of them have a springy all or nothing kind of splay, sometimes fling lather and don't retain much heat.

 

[Timeclo]

I had a few recommendations for a synthetic brush but I still need to get more informations about why it would make a difference, also I thought that natural brushes were better?

High quality natural brushes often feel better than synthetics but lack in performance in my experience. They vary depending on the bristle, knot, loft, and is not very consistent. On the other hand, synthetics pretty much perform the same all around. They don't eat up any lather and just whips up lather easily. That's why whenever I test out soap, I always use a synthetic because they give me a consistent result.

 

[Kitsunekuma]

Hello everybody, a quick update on my Tabac soap journey:

I have been shaving regularly now with a Kai Captain shavette and many different soaps. The only one soap that gave me some trouble was Tabac. I was using a bowl for lather first, then tried face lathering and it was better but after a few OK shaves with it and a few bad ones, I was having pretty inconsistent results in term of slickness and comfort.

Sometimes my shavette was skipping a lot and it felt really wrong. I tried different amounts of water and it was still giving me hard times. I've read everywhere that for shaving with a straight or with shavettes you need to make a wet lather so I was aiming for that sort of wet "yogurt" consistency.

Finally after getting really annoyed with all the skipping and weird feel of the blade, I just tried to face lather using a minimum of water and that was it! I actually ended using a lather that was the opposite of what was usually advised! A thick almost dry lather with only a little water, enough to make a bit of foam. I found that it was much better, finally slick and with a good skin protection.

So if some of you are still having problems with Tabac soap being not slick, try to put less water when you dial your lather as I did.

I think it's the only soap in my den that is so different in term of water/soap ratio, I'm not sure why but I'm glad that I made it work for me.

 

[xiletero]

skipping=cut (eventually)

maybe it's a bad mix w your water. try filtered or bottle, and if still the same: get rid of it

 

[Kitsunekuma]

skipping=cut (eventually)

maybe it's a bad mix w your water. try filtered or bottle, and if still the same: get rid of it

Well first of all, I have made it work for me and I tried it during vacation too so it was not a problem with local water. Then why would I get rid of a perfectly good soap? By the way it's not the first time someone in this forum mentions throwing the whole puck of Tabac just cause I couldn't fine tune a good lather for myself.

It's like throwing a car cause you can't shift gears properly...

It looks like a lot of people around here just buy and throw when it doesn't work for them. They can't bother with learning how to shave properly and then spend their time and money buying and selling or throwing stuff never thinking it might be their poor technique that is the cause of their problems.

Anyway I should edit this thread as resolved, I just wanted to let other guys that have troubles with tabac know that they could try making a lather with less water even if it is not really the intuitive approach.

 

[xiletero]

Glad it you made it work for you.
Water is a very, very important factor and not often mentioned; and it is something that varies a lot (or you can get a water softener)
I think most people do not recommend throwing anything away, but if something doesn't work, here you can either sell it used, or if you are generous P I F to another fellow shaver who might make better use of it.
A soap is not a car......$20 vs thousands..... . You can get a decent soap for $5 and with that money you can't even get an Uber ride.