The long journey is over. I've finally settled for "my" shaving soaps

[shavefan]

Congrats @Polarbeard for finding your shaving nirvana. In your list, 3 of your picks are also my favorites (I've never tried Wickham) so I did not find it surprising at all. Enjoy your shaves!

 

[Twelvefret]

Excellent post, however, I’m a soap plebe. I have four soaps and two creams. For some reason, my face has turned sensitive as of late so I have gone low scent simple.

If that's true, why did you give me your Cella?

 

[steveclarkus]

If that's true, why did you give me your Cella?

Cella puts my face on fire.

 

[Polarbeard]

Congrats @Polarbeard for finding your shaving nirvana. In your list, 3 of your picks are also my favorites (I've never tried Wickham) so I did not find it surprising at all. Enjoy your shaves!

Thank you

 

[ksblazer]

I have about 15 different soaps. Some I haven't tried yet, as I want to finish what I have in my rotation first.

I haven't tried Wickhams or MdC yet. Don't have either of them. But I do have SV and Mike's.

I like them both a lot and will be re purchasing more when I run out. The ones that I've been waiting to use will have to wait a little longer.

My plan is to eventually cut back to a rotation of about 5-6 soaps and just stick with those brands.

 

[Sotiris_A]

Thanks for sharing your experience! Very detailed post. I really appreciate seeing other members, especially experienced ones, rationalizing choices and downsizing their collection.

I also went through an acquiring phase, but I now have some favorites and I am planning to stick with them while using up what I have. I prefer more cost effective soaps these days, but I do enjoy using my SV puck and MdC jar.

Happy shaves,

Sotiris

 

[Ad Astra]

After using MWF for more than a week straight - unheard of for me, I change soaps daily - I had an epiphany...

You don't get tired of an unscented soap.

These top tier soaps are so good, so competitive, choice comes down to scent. And one tires of ANY scent.

Think I am pushing two weeks with the Fat. Fascinated with keeping it wet enough to prevent cracks ... Pretty much, just don't stop using it daily.

AA

 

[mawashi]

Hey Arne

That's great to know and you have chosen some gems, expensive gems lol.

I'm a simpler and much cheaper guy, proraso, arko, WMS, TFS almond and maybe MWF are enough for my spare cat whiskers lol.

Perhaps when I have $ to burn ill give the guys here a go at making some unique soaps for me.

Happy shaves,

Mawashi

 

[Polarbeard]

Thank you all for your kind comments.

 

[mawashi]

Hey Arne

That's great to know and you have chosen some gems, expensive gems lol.

I'm a simpler and much cheaper guy, proraso, arko, WMS, TFS almond and maybe MWF are enough for my spare cat whiskers lol.

Perhaps when I have $ to burn ill give the guys here a go at making some unique soaps for me.

Happy shaves,

Mawashi

What the heck was I typing... Sigh reading glass are a must lol.

I'm a simpler and much cheaper guy, proraso, arko, WMS, TFS almond and maybe MWF are enough for my sparse cat whiskers lol.

Perhaps when I have $ to burn I'll give the guys here a go at making some unique soaps for me.

Happy shaves,

 

[johnwick]

Terrific post @Polarbeard ! Congratulations on finding the perfect soaps for YOU, and thanks for sharing your thoughts!

 

[nav]

Nice selection to settle on!

I have 120 in rotation and the total number of soaps I've used is over 200.

For me, MWF is the one and only soap that gives me a uniquely close shave and skin conditioning.

Every other soap is basically for scent variety.

I use RO water to build a lather so none of my soaps are ever subjected to water quality variations. I get great lather from every soap.

 

[Dzaw]

Excellent to see this happening for you Arne!

The tendency ‘round here (as I’m sure you know) is always towards more, more, more.

You’ve reached the enviable other side of the fence, where you’re happy and satisfied with your choices. That’s a real achievement in any hobby, but especially in one like ours where we can only test products so often before needing to wait for the next shave.

I am also impressed with the peanut gallery’s restraint in This thread! So many such threads devolve into “you should try <insert speakers favorite here>, it’s better!” Sorts of threads.

Congrats man, and well done!

 

[weston]

Hi, my name is Arne. I am a recovering shaving soap addict. It began more than ten years ago.

As many other I started out with a Proraso red shaving soap and immediately fell in love with its scent. The years past by, Proraso was forgotten, but there always were new soaps to be tried. Last year I counted the soaps and shaving creams in my inventory and came to 76. My soaps no longer were a source of joy but had become a burden. There’s no way I ever could use up so much soap. I had thrown some soaps that I had deemed as unusable or finished them as hand soaps, but among the 76 there still were soaps that I hardly ever used because I liked other soaps more. Something had to be done so I decided to shave with all of the unique (only one soap of every soap base) soaps/creams/croaps for one week each and weed out all but eight or ten of them. Then I did another longer round with the finalists to try to find the ones I really liked.

Before the final round I set up my criteria for a good shaving soap:

1. It has to have top skin protection. If it dries out the skin or if it doesn’t allow the straight razor to glide over the skin like butter in a frying pan it’s not worth my attention.
2. It has to behave in a consistent manner. I do know how to lather and I refuse to have anything to do with soaps that don’t perform as expected shave after shave, soap after soap and year after year. Soaps often reformulated are out.
3. I love scents and I have a bathroom cabinet filled with intoxicating perfumes that often have cost a pretty penny. I don’t want the scent of my shaving soap to linger and mix with my EdT. I don’t know how much time I’ve spent trying to match a perfume with the best matching soap. I’m tired of it, but there are exceptions when I find the scent of a soap to be worth breaking the general rule.
4. I set the rules for my journey and I have the right to bend the rules.

I want to keep the number of soaps down to a minimum. No mountain of soaps no more.

This week, after a perhaps a year of testing I finally had set the list of shaving soaps that I know I’ll be happy with without having to lust for other soaps. Among the soaps that I’ve excluded there are very many top of the line soaps and creams that objectively might be better than some these, but shaving soap preferences are subjective and, given a certain level of soap quality, it’s up to each to choose. Here is however my choice in no particular order:

• Mike’s Natural Soaps. This American soap performs as few other soaps. Some scents are nice but a bit stronger than I would like them to be and not very refined, but once again the shaving performance can’t be beaten. I don’t mind at all paying the shipping costs and European VAT and USA VAT and import charges. This soap is worth the cost to me.
• Wickham Soap Company. Another soap maker that makes fantastic soaps. It’s a British version of Mike’s, perhaps not with quite the same slickness but very close. Wickham has the upper hand when it comes to scents though. The scents of these soaps are truly great, better than the scents profile of most perfumes. So even if I want my soaps to have mild scents I’m not totally consequential. I don’t have to be and I don’t have to answer to anyone.
• Martin de Candre. A great soap that only miss out in one aspect; the slickness could be a notch better, but the total marks are hard to beat.
• Saponifico Varesino. What can I say? If you ever find a better shaving soap please let me know. The scents are mild and fantastic the performance is unbeatable.

I guess that this list wasn’t much of a surprise to most of you. It is a list of the usual suspects, but then again there’s a reason as to why these shaving soaps always are present in this forum. Admittedly Wickham aren’t up for discussion here too often, but it’s a very appreciated shaving soap in Europe. What can be debated is that none of the soaps are low cost soaps, but then again to some extent you get what you pay for. Even if you shave with MdC or SV the daily soap cost will be minimal. To me it’s worth it.

I’ll keep the rest of my soaps a few more years this due to that many of them are really good and variety is the spice of life and pretty soon my very young son will need to start his shaving journey aided by his unfortunately old father.

Thank you all for reading. I wish you a very good day.

So glad you shared - looking forward to checking a few of these out!

Regarding SV, it's an amazing product, hits two totally different pitches. First, it's a functional exemplar: lather and lubrication are as good as any product I've tried. Perhaps I could split hairs on that front with one other producer, but I'd rather shave hairs ;-) Second, the scents are (in my subjective opinion) so beautifully balanced and unique. The SV70 was my first 'holy cow' moment with how sublime a scent can be. There are several I like, but only one other that I love to the degree I love SV70.

That a single soap registers so high on both categories is stunning.

Thanks again for sharing!

 

[Polarbeard]

Thank you all for your kindness.

 

[carm10]

Thanks for this post. After the third soap to which I said "this is nice, but why is the scent so strong?" I've realized that I prefer mild scents. I haven't tried these makers you listed, so I will check them out in the future.

 

[dmshaver]

Great post & great list! Enjoy!!!

 

[Polarbeard]

Great post & great list! Enjoy!!!

Thank you

 

[Namkcakram]

I’ve always seen you put a lot of deep thought behind your posts, so this may put me over the edge of ordering Mikes and MdC next round.

I’ve been shaving this way for my whole professional life, but I’m still in the sampling phase on soaps.

 

[Polarbeard]

I’ve always seen you put a lot of deep thought behind your posts, so this may put me over the edge of ordering Mikes and MdC next round.

I’ve been shaving this way for my whole professional life, but I’m still in the sampling phase on soaps.

Thank you for your very kind words, but don't overestimate me. Polar bears are rather simple creatures that tend to divide the everything into two categories: edible and not of interest.