When you're shopping for a shaving soap, what ingredients are your "must haves"? How about any that make the soap a "no go" for you?
I don't concern myself with the ingredients; fortunately I don't have allergies or reactions. For me there are only two things - performance and scent. I can deal with a low performance soap, such as Woods of Windsor, because I like the scent. I simply add a squirt of unscented Kiss My Face cream to boost the lather. In my opinion, if a soap or cream doesn't lather, that soap/cream is classified as a non-performer. Burt's Bees comes to mind. The scent wasn't bad, but since it didn't lather, I tossed it after only two strokes of the razor. If I don't like the scent, I'm not getting it. If it doesn't lather at all, I'm not getting it.
The scent and performance. Performance is #1. I can deal with a soap or cream that has little to no scent, but it must perform. As far as mixing product to "help" a soap or cream perform, I know it's popular with some. Enjoy if you like that. Nothing wrong with it, but if the product cannot produce a decent lather on it's own, I don't want it. A good, slick, protective lather is a shaving soap's purpose. If it doesn't do that, it might as well be a nice smelling bath soap. I don't add anything to that so I can shave with it, either. MHO.
Shea butter, tallow (important, but not a necessity), Stearic acid: a soap containing a majority of these three ingredients prominently in the product will be a great shaving soap. A NO-GO are soaps with olive oil* or coconut oil* as the first and/or second ingredients. Poor lather generators. They can be great additions to the soap, but not necessarily alone as the primary. *unless blended with a tallow or tallow-like ingredient As far as attributes, and not ingredients: performance is most important—does it generate slick & thick lather that provides good lasting glide and protection. A nice scent is always a bonus (think Cella!), but not a necessity. I'll take a great performing un-scented soap over one that is wonderfully scented but has mediocre performance.
I almost have to agree with HolyRollah word for word. I really do not like Shaving Cream and or Shaving Soap that has any fragrence I have a couple that smell good but when they give off the aroma or fragrance when they are dry, some times it can be down right sickening.
I usually dont shave in the morning. But I have just started with DE shaving. Already hade a couple of soaps. I need to use them up a bit before purchasing new soap hahaha. Im thinking about buying cella or 3P and putting a pack of Polsilver super iridium blades in the order to try them before that guys offer ends. 100pc/25$ shipping with tracking included. But i just bought a blade sample and have a good couple of blades to try before jumping on offers like that=P
I like to see Potassium Stearate and Sodium Palmate or Cocoate or Tallowate (indicating that a mix of Potassium Hydroxide and Sodium Hydroxide were used in saponifying the soap) and either Kokum or Shea Butter. The rest of the ingredients don't matter much to me. I find whatever scent is in the soap is covered up by my aftershave so that doesn't matter either.
I don't look for any particular ingredients, just wide spread acceptance in the shave forums with good reviews. Modern Williams is the exception, since I knew that soap was awesome before I joined any shave forums.
Per my #6 post above, the ingredients for... the popular Cella are: Coconut palm Oil, Tallow, Stearic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, water, Potassium Carbonate, Parfum. the popular Tabac: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate (derived from Stearic acid) Potassium Tallowate, Potassium Cocoate, water, Sodium Tallowate, Parfum, Sodium Cocoate, Glycerin, Potassium Hydroxide, Tetrasodium EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Sodium Hydroxide, CI 77891, Limonene, Hydroxycitronellal, Linalool, Citronellol, Courmarin, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Geraniol, Evernia Prunastri (Oakmoss) Extract, Cinnamyl Alcohol, Isoeugenol, Benzyl Salicylate, Benzyl Alcohol, Eugenol, Citral, Evernia Furfuracea (Treemoss) Extract. the popular Williams: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Tallowate, Sodium Cocoate, Water, Glycerin, Fragrance, Sodium Chloride, Titanium Dioxide, Stearic Acid, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate; may also contain Sodium Palm Kernelate. the popular Stirling: Beef or Mutton Tallow or Lard, Castor Oil, Distilled Water, Stearic Acid, Lye, Vegetable Glycerin, Almond Oil, Shea Butter, Lanolin, Coconut Milk, Fragrance Oil or Essential Oil, Bentonite Clay and/or French Clay, and/or Kaolin Clay, Sodium Lactate. Three of the harder soaps above (exception the Cella) contain Glycerin.
I trust you guys, but I'm probably gonna wait for another offer to pop up later on, just because I wanna give my blade sample a chance first =)
Soap Mercury and plutonium. Anything else is fine. Seriously, I don't care what is in the soap and never did understand what all the fuss is about over certain ingredients. What I do care about is how well it works. Is it super slick? Is it protective? Does it come in some really nice scents? Does it lather readily? Does the later last a long time or dry out quickly after I apply the lather to my face. Those kinds of things.
Ahh, yes—but what if you do find a soap that really "delivers the goods"—slick, easy-to-lather with lasting thickness, smells great, good protection, and you wanted to find other soaps that performed similarly? You could simply take other's opinions and buy a puck of new soap and hope it match your 'dream' soap in performance; OR you could read the ingredients list on the wonder-puck you've fallen in love with, and find a similarly-based puck that may be less costly, may be better made, may be locally-made, may smell better…etc, etc. This is one reason many shavers go 'gaa-gaa' over tallow-based soaps, and refuse to any soap that is 'tallow less.' They have certain expectations and ONLY by those types of soaps. A bit extreme, I agree, as there are plenty of tallow-free shave soap that are exceptional products, such as my personal favorite, MdC. So obviously to many shavers, what goes IN is an important factor on whether or not a soap is purchased.
Then the ingredients list might point one in the right direction. Then again, it might not. If the delivers-the-goods soap and the other soap have identical ingredients and in roughly the same amounts, it is expected that they would work equally well. Vary the ingredients list or use different amounts of the same ingredients and the soap could perform quite differently. Your hypothesis that similar ingredients could yield similar results has merit IMHO, and is certainly worth investigating. Or I could take others opinions and see how well it matches my experiences with the same soap. How reliably my experiences match up with others' opinions will become more clear over time. Your mileage may vary, but it seems to vary more with some things (razors, blades, scents) then others (soaps, creams). The 7 Common Tallow Soap Myths on the Sharpologist blog blew that one out of the water some time ago. As you noted, the Martin de Candre soap is very highly regarded, yet contains no tallow. One of the very best shaving soaps I have used is Kell's Original, which also contains no tallow. The 'tallow only' mindset is the result of faulty logic. If one tallow soap is great, that does not mean that all tallow soaps are great or that all tallow soaps are better than all non-tallow soaps.
