I have a Derby shave stick that I would like to break down and use it like a puck inside a mug. What is the best way to do so? The soap is harder than Arko and cannot be smooshed
I dont have a grater but would it be okay if I chop it into small cubes and then crush it down into the bowl? Will it compact down if its chopped into small cubes?
If you have a knife to cut it, then why not shave off thin strips along the length like you would peeling a carrot. Then chop up the strips. That would approximate the chips that you get from a grater.
That sounds like a good idea, very straightforward. Thanks guys I will try it as a stick on the face first and then convert it to a bowl if the performance is not what I am expecting from stick-rubbed-to-face
It seems like over 80% of members (on a different thread) all keep saying that performance is best if I just rub the stick on my wet face so that is probably what I will end up doing but I wanted to know if the stick can be manipulated or if a "Strong Man from the Circus" could squash down the stick into a mug using just his bare hands. Like those guys that rip a telephone book in half on those infomercials at 3am. Oh wait, that was back in 1987 with the telephone book ripping and they where religious guys I remember
For the face lathering crowd, dampening you face provides enough water to soften up the surface of the stick to load your face. I guess. If they are a bunch of face latherers that's just the kind of thing they would say. I have mushed a stick of Arko, and a stick of Palmolive into containers. Why? I'm a bowl latherer. I can dribble a little water on the surface of my tubbed sticks to soften them up. Doesn't take a minute to load a brush and off to my bowl I go! Being able to see as I incorporate water into the mix gives me the control I don't have while trying to make lather on my face.
I dont doubt that you can load the brush faster from a bowl but I worry that more of the surface area of the soap is getting wet if you use a bowl and I think that its the water that "wears away" at the soap. So I was thinking if less of the soap is getting wet everyday that it will last longer (maybe an extra month or 2 in total). But I will come back to this thread and update after I get the soap in the mail and have a chance to use it.
I put mine in one of those push up containers and taped the wrapper on the outside. I'm a face latherer, so I just wet my face and rub it on my face and begin lathering.
Thats a great idea, it looks really nice with the label. How do you feel the Derby performs compared to Arko? Feel free to chime in anybody else who has used both soaps and can compare them.
I think I prefer Arko to Derby. I have used Arko for a few years, and I just got the Derby because I have never used it. It is harder, but I was able to get a good lather out of it. They are about the same in performance. I like the softer Arko better though.
I was suspicious that the Arko would not last as long since its a softer soap. Im going to do a thread about it after I get it to run the experiment. I will try to beat that other guy that got 158 shaves with Arko stick. We shall see.
They have actually gone up in price now to 16.71 for a 12 pack on Amazon $1.40 each and thats assuming you are a member of Amazon Prime for 99$ per year That is a 40% increase in only 1 year. Or is it 140% increase? I forget how to calculate it I would wager price will go up to over 3 dollars per stick (even when bought by the dozen) within the next 2 years. Because as soon as mainstream society finds out about Arko its going to blow up.