As a gift I received 3 shaving soaps from The Men's Soap Shop. I've tried everything to get these to lather, but to no avail. I have tried using a wet brush, a dry brush, the Marco Method, and even the MWF upside down loading method, but cannot get it to produce a stable lather. I can get it to form a lather with small bubbles, but it breaks down very quickly. On a postivie note, it is slick! I think these soaps would be better suited for shaving with cartridge razors. In any event, I used the 3 soaps as bath soaps and they performed very well in that regard.
This soap sounds quite similar to several artisan 'hand-made' soaps I have tried in the past that simply refuse to yield good, lasting lather—despite my best efforts. All these dud shaving soaps contained natural, good-for-the-skin ingredients—many of which can be found in popular 'well-lathering' soaps—but the proportions of key ingredients are critical for good lather production. Many of these soaps had either olive oil or coconut oil as their primary (majority) or secondary ingredient, and while both of those oils have inherent beneficial skin properties, they can make for some lousy lathering soaps. Decent body/shower soaps, however.
Kevin You could not have put it any way better. I have to agree,and I think I know which soaps your talking about. X2
I have a friend whose son just graduated barber school. I stopped into the shop he is working at thinking they did straight razor shaves. Bummer, they don't although it is an old timey shop. They use Pinaud Clubman and sell 16 oz bottles of it, Merkur 3 piece razors, and this soap. Picked up a puck, and also could not get it to lather no matter what I did. I guess it is headed for the shower.
