Does anyone who has settled on synthetic bristle brushes have a favorite soap or cream to recommend? I would prefer a soap, but I'll gratefully take whatever information comes. Thanks.
If you have a good synthetic brush, your choice of soap/cream won't matter. Now if you are using a wimpy nylon brush without backbone then you may have trouble with harder soaps. However, most of the good modern synthetic (not the Body Shop brush) have no problem with soaps and creams.
I received a sample of the BlueBeard Revenge shave cream and use it together with my Men Ü Premiere synth. bruh and it works great. So great that I just ordered 2 cans of the BlueBeard shave cream. Great cream in my view and a great synthetic brush. The brush did cost me $60, so it's up there in price for a synthetic brush, but I like it a lot and even more than my $125 badger brush from Pils
On my Frank Synthetic, I have not had to change the creams or the soaps that I have used. I have used C.O. Bigelow, Spieck, and a combination (C.O. Bigelow and Barbasol Brushless) creams, and used a artisan soap that I cannot remember the name of and I have had no issues with lather from any of them. The ones that are made to mimic Badger brushes seem to perform better lathering than the nylon synthetics.
This TGN Synthetic knot resides in two different handles here in our den and lathers creams and soaps equally well.
TGN's Nylon will hold a nice amount of water, even though it doesn't absorb any water. It does so because the surface tension between each fiber is very high. TGN's nylon is the knot I exclusively use when manufacturing custom shave brushes with synthetic bristles. I have had no problem getting them to lather any of my shave creams or soaps. They do however, seem to lather shave creams a wee-bit quicker than shave soaps. Don't really have a favorite soap or cream to speak of when using these synthetic knots, as they all perform well.
I don't believe there are any soaps or creams out there that say, "For synthetic use only" on the label. Translation - use what you want and enjoy it!
I have an Omega syntex I use for quick shaves and an Omega synthetic badger. I get INCREDIBLE lather from either brush (esp the Syntex, oddly enough) with Kiss My Face creams on top of RazoRock XXX. The best lathers I've ever produced were from a squirt of KMF cool mint into a tub of RazoRock, then lathered with a synthetic brush. Takes all of about 20 seconds---a perfect combo for a fast but luxurious shower shave.
