April 2016 30 Day Rule/Focus Pix&Discussion Thread

I have only been wet shaving for just under a year and a half and had mainly used creams up until fairly recently. I decided that I needed to learn more about soaps and chose to do an April soap focus. I used the following soaps during the focus.
Arko stick
Palmolive stick
Irisch Moos stick
Mickey Lee Soapworks "The Drunken Goat"
Mike's Natural Soaps "Orange, Cedarwood, and Black Pepper"
Mystic Water "Lime"
Mitchell's Wool Fat
Route 66 (several favors)
I learned a lot about soaps this month and have become a big fan of some of them.
I use the sticks for travel and get excellent lather and performance from all of them. If I had to rank the three, I would rank them on fragrance and Irisch Moos would be first, with the Palmolive and Arko tying for second.
This focus really showed me the meaning of YMMV. My least favorites soap was the hugely popular MWF. It was finicky about the amount of water needed to get a good lather and proved to be too much work. I also was underwhelmed by the fragrance.
Mystic Waters also does not impress me that much as far as cushion and lubrication.
The Mickey Lee Soapworks, Mike's Natural Soap, and Route 66 all impressed me. All three lathered wonderfully, smelled good, and performed very well.
The standout soap for me was Route 66. I have a sampler pack and have been working my way through the sample pucks.

Lather

All of the Route 66 soaps just exploded with a wonderful thick lather. It doesn't take much soap when bowl lathering to get enough lather for three passes. In fact, I can easily get a week out of one of the sample pucks. The lather is both slick and provides a nice cushion. I do not get irritation when using this soap.

Face-Feel

The Route 66 stays moist throughout the shave and does not dry out my skin like some soaps do. I do not use a balm when using this soap.

Scent

This is where I found a little inconsistency with Route 66. I like to be able to smell the lather while I'm shaving. I found that there is a big difference between favors. The favorite soap in my Den is Sweeney Todd. It has a nice citrusy scent that not only smells wonderful when shaving, but sticks around afterwards without being overpowering. On the flip side, I was very excited to try Retro Spice and liked the smell when I stuck my nose in the puck. Unfortunately, that was the only time I could really smell it because it was so subtle. I have smelled every sample puck and there isn't a single one I didn't like. It remains to be seen if any one of them can top Sweeney Todd as my favorite.
Route 66 remains my favorite soap and I am not actively looking anymore for new soaps. It was a SAD killer
Have fun in Mayhem!
Let's end the month with a group hug!

 

I agree and you can count me in for "Derby Day".

 

I did shave with the DErby yesterday. It was a DFS with Arko and the veg. 2 pass in a Gillette tech.

I've been busy so my MAYhem will be postponed a day. I'll find the new thread in a few hours when I get off work.

 

My buddy's wife loves bunnies too. She has a room in their house full of bunnies. My buddy calls it The Bunny Room.

 

My wife doesn't have that many Bunnies, as far as I know. Better check.