You soap doesn't knot the water is "clean" but first it tries to remove impurities. Suspended calcium has to be precipitated out before the foamy lather happens. The good news is there's an easy solution - use more product. Have you experimented with distilled water? Pick up a gallon and try it, it could make your best lather yet.
I have to get on a plane for work early tomorrow morning, so I shaved tonight with a Stirling sample, as I won't have time for a morning shave. First, let me say I have TONS of Stirling in my den now. It is my go-to soap, has tons of great scents, and performance is excellent. Having said that, Ben Franklin is, to me, a really peculiar scent. Hard to nail it down, but I get "dusty pickle juice". It's not off-putting to me, just weird. Having said that, I've yet to find a citrus or fruit scent made by Stirling that I didn't love. Just not crazy about "dusty pickle juice". By the way is anyone other than me, @PLAla and @RyX still reading this thread? Seems like the reviews and comments have stopped.
No worries, I've just got some samples left to review and wanted to make sure the reviews were worth doing.
I'm reading the posts. I still haven't tried any soaps from the box. I feel bad about that. It's been very busy for me the past few weeks. There are a few pulled out that I'll be trying.
As folks get to work through their samples I can see the thread eventually fading. The important part of getting hands on soaps and creams we hadn't yet tried happened. I still have +/- 30 little tubs of products between The Box, The Shavey's, and trades with folks. Plenty chances to discover more Good Stuff! Sometimes I get weak and use the full tubs and tubes of products I already know I like. Recently I got busy, and didn't even post one report, no photo was taken. It's a Lost Shave... My normal every other day pattern has been interrupted too.
Just a quick review. I had shaved yesterday at about 5pm so I had enough growth to be bothersome but not enough to really do a full shave. Had just a tiny bit left of Electric Sheep and got 3 passes - WTG and ATG with just enough for a moisturizer pass. I currently have over 24 Stirling soaps and have pretty much dialed it in well that this sub 1 gr amount, maybe even less than 0.5, was easily dialed in perfectly. This is a love - hate soap. You either love it or hate it . I Love it! Great scent and awesome slickness and cushion. Always makes a nice moisturizing dense lather.
Back at home and time for the first shave with the newly replated Aristocrat. Used the Crown and Crane Tobacco and Amber sample from the Pass-around. This is a great smelling soap, although, like most soaps, the scent wasn't strong enough for me. (I have allergies so on a scale of 1 to 10 I prefer my scents around a 12). I was able to make the lather thick and dense or thinner and slicker with extra water. It's a good soap, but, to me, not quite on the level of Stirling, B&M, and Catie's Bubbles. Followed up with B&M Latha Oceana AS - one of my absolute favorites!
Yes, it's over. We ran through the list and the box made it's way back to me. I don't have plans to do another pass-around, but the two we did were good successes.
It was a great experience! Got to try soaps I'd only heard about. Traded bunch of mine for a couple out of the box, adding to the selection for the folks after me. @topcattcw - these pass around are member sponsored events. You can start one if you want to. Tapatalk Via Kyocera
I must say that I love - hate the box experience. I love the fact that I got to try so many. I hate the fact that, when I got the box, I only had about 12 or so soaps. It caused me to go out and buy many more!! Including 1 oz Stirling sample pucks, I think I am now over 80 and I just turned one year today in the wet shaving/safety razor hobby!!! It makes it so hard to pick a soap each morning. At least it is always a good one. Thanks Perry for a great experience and really getting me into this daily hobby (after all, I am Italian!).
Not dead yet! I feel happy! Put a pair of Palmolive shave sticks in my cart. They won't be here next Thursday, but it was free shipping from Great Brittan. This was one of the samples from the pass around that I did enjoy enough to remember!
The barrister and Mann Latham line is highly underrated. They still have that high barrister quality nut the scents aren't as complex.
I have several samples left, so I am guilty of not returning to this thread to talk about the samples. I got caught up in life again, and lamenting that there are online friends that have disappeared from TSD for one reason or another. I shall return to this thread and report my shaves with the samples I have left. P.S. I have a boat load of Palmolive and Arko shave sticks in a box, if y'all need one .
Too late for me, I ordered a pair of sticks. It's almost like mailing Arko - the cost of the product is less than the postage!
