I bough Arko soap sticks and am on the fence after my first shave with a stick. First of all, I have been face lathering for a while, so I thought I would like it more. Thing is I went to rub it on my two days growth beard like a wet crayon and it tugged and felt dry. it felt like I would imagine dragging a cartridge razor with 70 shaves would it rugged so much. Lather quality was superb though after taking a wet brush to the face! Smell was potent but good though the sent itself could have been better. It smells a bit like Ivory soap. Any suggestions? I am thinking I should soak the stick and let it bloom in a shave bowl for 15 minutes to soften. What do you do with it?
Mash the stick into a bowl. Lather up as with other soaps. Nope. Not a fan of the sick or face lathering. But that's me. It's your shave. Enjoy it your way!
I'm finding that my tap water is very hard. I've been using distilled water to shave with. This seems to make whatever soap I use better. I do use a bowl or mix my lather in the container the soap comes in. Good luck.
I think I would try loading a wet shave brush by swirling it around on the exposed end of the soap stick for, say, 10 seconds. Then, I'd face-lather with that.
I have hard water too. When I use the arko stick, I get it wet and then load using the long edge of the soap. It loads the face pretty quickly and works well. In the past I have also mushed it into a mug or pretended I was washing my hands and loaded my face from my hands. Used a ton of Arko over the years.
I wet my face really well and then wet the end of the stick before applying to my face. The stick may drag a bit, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m a face latherer for the most part.
Well I found the trick. I ordered a lather bowl that is textured on the bottom. I scrape the stick a bit on the bottom leaving small amounts of Akro soap in the later bowl and then I make a bowl lather. Works great. Now that said, I still think the smell is a bit like Ivory and that Paraso smells better and is a bit more slick (maybe it was just the blade). Long story short, Akro is very good, but I feel that Paraso and Talyor of old Bonde Strett is better... I still like it a lot.
I have a sink full of water when I use an Arko stick and just dip it in the water when it tugs. I mainly grate the stick up and mash it into a mug and load my brush from there then either face or bowl lather. I still have about an inch long Derby stick in my Dopp kit for travel.
I get a stick of Arko break it up a in a bowl then put it in the microwave for up to a minute it softens it up then I mould it to the shape of the bowl if the weather is to hot I just put it in the fridge for a while Magic!
I just slice a stick up and bowl press it and make my lather on the puck. I alway have bad luck with Tallow based soap if I put it in the microwave
