For the last few days I was thinking how I threw away the wilki's soap away after just trying it two times on the beginning of my brush and lather journey. Maybe it was my faulty technique, maybe it would perform better now. Since it' s quite cheap i decided to give it another go. First I opted for my boar bristle soap lathering machine, and to my surprise it doesn't really work so good with this soap compared to my pure badger. So badger it is. Getting this soap to lather is a bit tricky, first of all it hungers for water. After some experimenting i found what works best, soaking the brush and just shaking off the excess water leaving the brush moist, soaking the puck and leaving some water on it before you start the ritual of the 10 000 swirls necessary to load the brush. And than the lathering in the bowl, using some elbow grease since it doesn't explode right away like Tabac and Palmolive. If you don't use enough water it does nothing, if you use too much it does nothing. But with the just right amount of water and hard work you can get decent looking lather (notice the use of words "decent looking"). The smell of the stuff is a chemical romance between citrus and antiseptic, not all unpleasant but overly synthetic. The lather...oh my god the lather. With enough of hard work u can get lather that looks good in the bowl, and feels OK when you squeeze it out of the brush. Looks nice and fluffy and even peaks But the average look and feel stops when you apply it on your face, it's so thin and weak it just seems impossible to get a nice layer of lather. You can hear the popping sound of the bubbles disappearing on your face as soon as you lather up. Consistency and longevity of the lather is as bad as...I don't know what to compare it to it's just bad. I even tried superlathering it with some brinel cream, which is usually thick and dense , but it didn't help much. The shave...as you may have noticed I liked more or less everything I tried, but this just doesn't do it. The lather seems to be slick, although thin and unstable, but it provides lousy glide and no cushioning. The shave was one of the worst I had since I started shaving "the right way" My skin is a bit sore, and irritated although no redness appeared. This time I'm not gonna throw it away, i'll use it as a pre shave, or just try experimenting with it a bit more, maybe give it away (although that doesn't seem fair to anyone). But lesson learned some stuff is just bad no matter how good You think you are (of course YMMV )
This is the first soap I ever tried and along With the wilkinson brush Walmart sells. I quickly found out you get what you pay for. That was the worst brush I have ever used in my life. The soap doesn't smell very good either.
I agree with you on this lousy soap. I don't think it's something I would ever want to buy again for myself. In my very honest opinion it's just one step ahead of Williams soap, (Williams soap at least smells nice and traditional) and two steps ahead of ordinary bathing soap when it comes to the ease of lathering. On the other hand the Wilkinson sticks are marvellous at lathering, and do they ever smell nice and give soothing care. Are those available in Croatia?
It turns out you can get it to lather I just shaved with it and you can get something resembling a nice dense layer of lather, but with face lathering and a lot of effort, and you have to reload the brush for every pass, because it goes flat in an instant...did a two pass shave but it still wasn't good. Thank god i had Ralon AS for the rescue...that stuff really feels great on the skin after a lousy shave
I liked the scent of it. Hated the lather (Or lack thereof), it can be done, but it takes so much more effort than it's worth and has the longevity of a dead mule. It makes Williams look like MdC, fortunately at least I can get THAT stuff to lather and last. I've heard countless times the sticks are nothing short of excellent, I hope too many people don't skip out on those due to experiences with this bowl of ***FAMILY FRIENDLY FORUM***
Hi Gens. I´m absolutely new here.My name is Thorsten,i am from Germany and i hope my English is good enough that everybody knows what i try to say. I own this cream myself and only had bad shaves with it.The smell of it is ok but like user "Monkeylord" wrote before,you have to lather up after each pass.It´s really tricky to get the "perfect" amount of water for this soap.My problem is,that i don´t know what to do with it?!Throw it in the garbage can,should i try to give it away to someone i don´t like or what? Nice regards Thorsten
Hello Thorsten, and first of all, welcome to the Den I ended up melting mine down and mixing it with a shaving cream I didn't like very much either, and some olive oil (i also added peppermint oil , but this one is easy to overdo ) and it ended up better than either of the starting products
Thanks for your words. So you pimped the soap with Olive and peppermint oil? I never had an Idea doing that... But when it works... Everything is fine. Do you made any experiences with Menthol crystals in your shaving cream or soap?
I will try to search for it.It´s very interesting to know what experiences people made with menthol crystals...So,i will try to pimp my Wilkinson soap as well as you did.Perhaps it´s a "good" soap in the end.
That´s my problem anyway.In Canada and USA there are some creams and soaps that are too expensive to by here in Germany.The delivery costs are horrible.I really would like to buy some soaps but not for that price.I don´t have any experiences with the Wilkinson sticks.Only heared that they should really create good lather.
Palmolive stick is dirt cheap anywhere and is a great little product, and Tabac isn't really cheap but isn't going to deplete your funds completely
With the palmolive Stick you are right. I have it in a Tube. Not as a stick. It's Not my best, but it's quit good. Tabac i haven't tried yet. The price is ok. Not too expensive. My Problem is that my skin is hyper sensitive, so... :mad: The Shave den soap sounds very very interesting, but i think the shipping costs will be horrible. USA to Germany... Then the customs clearence... Sad but true...
Thorsten, I've been using the Palmolive sticks and the Classic cream for a long time. I find that these are both fantastic, but what bothers me is they are almost impossible for us North American wetshavers to get over here. For this reason, I am obliged to trade stuff with Europeans to get them. I know that in countries like Germany, Austria, Holland, etc, they are very reasonable in price.
@Crackstar:That would be very fine...Trades should be no problem.Otherwise i don´t know about customs clearence...I have to look for this.Palmolive Sticks are very very cheap here in Germany.The cost under 1 Dollar here.
