What's so bad about Wilkinson Sword shaving soap?

[Bill Wood]

Smell is great. Lather is not good, and it’s not that slick. You’d be better off with a bar of Dove.

 

[RayClem]

You'll notice people who have high end lust worthy soaps by the truck load sometimes still use the humble oldschool software like Wilkinson, Arko, Williams, Palmolive, Cella, Proraso, Tabac etc. There's pleasure in paying respect to the tradition and the working man ritual we saw our fathers and grandfathers practice before us.

After a time you can get desensitized by using only higher quality stuff, so you lose your ground reference and it's good to come back to your beginnings and close the circle, contemplate your journey.

To some people it's all about getting a good shave, it's not a hobby, there's no chasing an ideal BBS, or post shave feel, or collecting things. The basic kit will get you good shaves without the CNC milled titanium handles or shea butters. Good technique and practice is the most important variable. To quote the Stallion, "Everything works".

I am one of the folks who has a den full of high end soaps. I have about 180 soaps and consider about 75 of them to be high-end soaps. I have intentionally top-loaded the distribution. However, I still keep a number of lesser soaps like Arko, Williams, Van der Hagen and others in my den as reference points for my soap evaluation system. Using them once a year reminds me what I love so much about high-end soaps.

Although Tabac is a traditional soap, its performance almost earned it a place in the group of high-end soaps. It
almost made the cut. It is one of the few traditional soaps that I recommend.

For those who tend to use one soap every day, Mitchell's Wool Fat is also a good choice, but it is too hard to load and lather if you use it as part of a soap rotation like I do. It needs to be kept from drying out.

 

[GR5233]

Ones water makes a difference. Soft water and a fair soap can work. A really good soap can be challenging if the water is very hard. My experience, at least.

A bit off topic but I can remember visiting my grandparents house in eastern Kentucky and they had well water for all but the last 4-5 years they were alive. You could smell all the dissolved minerals in the water there. Wasn’t using shaving soap and a brush at the time but I’d hate to try to lather some soaps with their water

 

[Vacumatic]

Has anyone tried the Wilkinson Shaving Soap in the black bowl? I understand that the formula has changed slightly.

 

[Guitar10]

To be honest i don’t find anything wrong whit it! Not the best shaving soap but it satisfied me. The lather is slick enough the scent is ok and i get good results whit it. I also have some left over blue tub and i found it good enough to. On a scale of 1 to 10 i would give a 5,5 for the all over result on both soap, i do prefer the scent of the black tub.