Anyone else have trouble with Geo F Trumper soap?

Hey all,

I tested Geo F Trumper Sandalwood this morning as a potential pairing with Safari cologne. I had a real problem getting a lasting lather and I had to work ridiculously to generate the lather I loaded in the brush. The lather also would not stay able to produce bubbles for any potential second pass (luckily I just usually do 1-pass and a targeted cleanup). Not only did the bubbles/foam dissipate quickly, but it dried way too easily forcing me to grab the brush and re-apply multiple times during my first pass. Most soaps I've used have protection even beyond that first/second stroke of the razor, allowing me to get in one quick direction reverse stroke without risk of irritation, but with this soap, if I wanted one quick counter-grain stroke, I instinctively knew I needed to apply another dab of soap to keep it safe.

Whenever I test a new soap, I always just use the soap itself and no pre-shave oil. This soap, however, seems to be a 'mandatory' pre-shave oil soap. There isn't a whole lot of moisturizing in there.

Perhaps I needed more time to load? (But I worked a lot for that initial load, so I'm thinking no.)

Has anyone else run into issues with Geo F Trumper's soap?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IB0G9Q/?tag=thshde-20


Nice packaging and really awesome looking bowl AND it smells like it is a great pairing for my Ralph Lauren Safari cologne. So I want to make this work out......but, the soap quality seems to be the worst I've encountered. Literally. The second worst was an Etsy soap from a maker named "The Village Soap Smith" that I'm currently using for Old Spice, but at least that one has nice slickness despite poor lather, this Geo F Trumpers is pretty much scoring low in EVERY category except the scent. The scent is exactly what I'm looking for.

I can simply do what I did with The Village Soap Smith soap and use a pre-shave oil and it will protect my skin from the quick "dry out" of the soap. I'm curious what other people's experience was with this and if you got a good experience.

 

some one else did
https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/the-horror-of-trumpers-sandalwood-soap.273247/

Do you have soft water? Try some de-ionized water.

From the other thread, they suggest
1. softer water
2. Get 20+ shaves out of it
3. Scrape off the top layer and then it will start working normally.

 

I'll keep trying to break it in then. This was the first time using it. I will try to let bloom it a bit longer and given it another 3 uses before coming to any firm conclusions.

 

You may want to try loading more soap, and slowly adding drops of water to work the lather to the right consistency for you. But GFT soaps and the other 3T's are known for having bad current soap formulas. Creams are much better from any of the 3T British brands.

So it may not be anything wrong with your technique but rather a bad soap recipe. Some people have no problems with these soaps, but many others have been disappointed with their lathering performance. Give it a few more tries or test lathers and hopefully you can get a decent lather with it. If not many shave soaps work great in the shower.

 

I've never been able to get a good lather with their soaps but then again, my water is very hard.

I get great results with their creams but my experience with their soaps mirrors yours.

 

The cream is good stuff but I'll pass on the soap. It's workable but when they reformulated it back in the day I believe they shot themselves in the foot.

 

That's one soap I have not tried.

 

Yes! I finally got so tired of messing around with the Rose scented soap I threw it away yesterday.
The Disappearing soap..

 

You nailed it. Disappearing soap.

 

I see what you're saying. You mean I could load my brush with the unscented TSD soap then lather into a lather bowl, then rinse the brush a little and load the Geo F Trumpers and then blend both in the lather bowl? I figure it could work provided that whatever ingredient that is in Geo F Trumpers causing the lather to breakdown doesn't also effect your soap too.

At some point down the road there is still the option to try to find an artisan vendor who is able to dupe Safari cologne. The Geo F Trumpers scent just happened to do a good job pairing with Safari, but soap still matters and even if it doesn't perform, I'll use the rest of the Geo F Trumpers and move on to a better soap at some point.

 

There's a good idea, use it as a super lather. Load from another soap/cream then load the GFT soap, this way you can still enjoy the scent and use the soap up so it doesn't go to waste. It doesn't hurt to experiment and see what works best for you.

 

Ok gotcha. That works as well. I mixed a bunch of soaps together as experiment, some worked well and others did not, it turned out to be a great way to use up unwanted soaps, although it would be best to mix with unscented, because the one I made has a strange scent from mixing too many unique scents.

 

I've done before, with blah soaps. I usually grate them with Arko, and add some essential oils, if needed. The wife loves them.

 

It seems they still don't do proper product testing. They still won't get my money.

Yes, I know they make good creams and aftershaves. But I refuse to sponsor a company that does not test products before throwing them on the market. Besides, they have had years now to improve their soaps, and it looks like they just don't care.

 

I am very likely going to give up on this soap and I ordered Ginger's Garden Argan Cream Shave Soap with Safari cologne scent duplication along with her aftershave. Had this Geo F Trumper Soap been at least 'decent' as a lather, I would be using it as the shave soap for Safari because it's a good scent pairing to my nose. But I just can't shave with a soap that has no lather, no protection and marginal slickness. It's the worst shave soap I've used yet, but it smells good. What a shame.

 

i watched a paul h films shave video on youtube about trumpers hard soaps .he wasn t very happy about the low quality for such a high price .it didnt work well.haven t used it myself.he praises the creams though.