I know there are tons of shave soaps on the market to try and they usually have oils and such for a pleasant, smooth, protected shave. Right now I have 3 tubes of shave cream that I want to use down before I add too much more to my medicine cabinet. On to the point.... I have seen where some people use regular bar soap. I was telling the wife about getting a good lather out of soap for shaving and she mentioned that her favorite soap, Kirk's Castile, produces a really good lather. I'm a shower gel guy and haven't used bar soap in a long time... Point being, I was just wondering if anyone has used Kirks for shaving? I know I could just try it myself but figured this may spur conversation away from specialty shave soaps and pros/con's to bar soap. If nothing else for noob knowledge.
Regular bath / shower soaps have high cleansing properties which will dry out your face. Shave soaps on the other hand have low cleansing properties and thick slick rich lather.
If i had to recomend a bar soap that would work good, it would be Pig Trail from Stirling Soap Co. That particular bar soap that they sell is based in pig lard, if i remember correctly, and is super slippery and all natural. Hope this helps
I tried Kirk's Castile as a shaving soap once. It was three or four years ago, and it did not work terribly well if I recall correctly. Pretty much any soap can lather, but that does not mean the lather is necessarily good for shaving. That also holds true for many of the artisan soaps sold nowadays as shaving soaps. That being said, there are also some very good artisan shaving soaps. By the same token, there are some bath soaps that work quite well as shaving soaps. Savon de Marseille olive oil soap worked well for me as a shaving soap. Not outstandingly well, but still quite good. I only used it as such three or four times, though. As one would expect from Savon de Marseille, the skincare was pretty good. Dove soap supposedly makes a good shaving soap. I tried it out and found both it and its CVS store brand counterpart to work well. Dove soap review CVS Sensitive Skin Beauty Bar (Unscented) soap review Other folks have had good luck with Dove and a few other bath soaps: Dove for shave soap Never buy shaving cream again One fellow of modest means wrote here: That mindset and reality is what motivates many people to take up traditional wetshaving. You will often see "Why use a bath soap for shaving when there are shaving soaps available?" responses to questions such as yours. My take on that is: What difference does it make if it is a commercially made shaving soap, an artisan shaving soap, or a bath soap, as long as it works well for shaving and is a good value for the money? Just like a safety razor and double edge blades.
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Ive heard of people using old formulation ivory soap. Its tallow based. I still think it would be an airy lather.
