I have some wonderfully scented Sandalwood soap bars I got yesterday. I know they'd be useless to shave with, but then I started thinking ( big mistake I know ). I have a few pucks of VDH shave soap. It's good soap, but I rarely use it because I like the scents of my other products more. Could I grate up a puck of VDH, and some portion of one of the Sandalwood soap bars and mix the shavings together and repack them into a soap dish. Would I get a sandalwood scented VDH ? Or would I end up with a non-lathering mess ? And if this worked I'm about to buy up all the Yardley lavender and VDH in town.
On the forums its called making Frankensoap. Some guys have small amounts of different soaps and grate them together to make a new soap. Only you can tell if it will work for you, does it smell like you want it to ? Does it perform adequately? Here your personal standard for soap is best as a judge. Its worth experimenting to see what you come up with. I have tried making frankensoap in the past , the performance is fine , I have gotten good lathering soap , the scents have been nothing special though. If the VDH is glycerin or deluxe variety you can melt and pour them around a solid portion of your soap in a mug and your brush will catch both soaps as you load it.
Yep. I frankensoaped all my Col. Conk samples I got together in one mug. I had just never seen any info on combining a non-shaving soap with a shaving soap. I've also melted VDH pucks and added Aqua Velva to rescent them ... which is another project I'm considering on trying with Barbasol Pacific Rush aftershave and another VDH puck. I'm gonna try it tomorrow either way, but was curious if anyone else had tried it. At worse I figure I can superlather it with my KMF unscented cream.
Well I tried out a test run. I grated up about half a puck of VDH, and about a fourth of a bar of Yardley Lavender. I pressed the combo into a glass container,and then hit it with a boar brush. The result ? Plenty of VDH lather with a subtle lavender scent. I gave it a quick test on the face using a Trac II cart razor, and it was fine. I will try the sandalwood bar next. I may also look for a better grater
Interesting, I wouldn't have guessed it would work that well. I know non-shave soaps don't work well by themselves.
"Frankensoap" lol. What a name, but it sounds like something worth trying. Olive oil soap, the one that comes in a big block, worked well for me all by itself. Although not the very best shave soap I ever tried, it was noticeably better than average. I have heard that, unlike most bath soaps, Dove also works reasonably well as a shave soap. Maybe one of these would work well as part of a frankensoap?
If you've got extra pucks laying around you don't mind wasting, then go for it. I graded yardley london lavender soap with vdh deluxe and it would NOT hold a lather. Was a waste of $4 and 20min of my life.
Perhaps you should try Dr. Bronner's lavender soap bars. They have a nice lavender scent, and they produce a good deal of lather. Not shave quantities, but for a hand soap it lathers quite well. I used it for a while when I ran out of other shaving supplies. When mixed with a shave soap it might be able to amplify the already decent lathering properties of the hand soap. Edit: Sorry Gents, got the name mixed up and fixed.
I was also considering mixing a daphne soap(best smell in the world as far as I can tell) with a arko shave soap(crushed stick). Will try it!
Today I tried to melt some Marvey's soap with 10 second bursts in the micro wave but it did not work, just bubbled up and started to smell really bad. Bummer. SO my questions is can a grate up some soap that does not like to be melted then loosely put that in a mug and then melt some VDH and pour it over that to make a solid puck again???
I would imagine that would work. :think002 I have read where one gent put a new puck of Williams in a bowl, then poured a puck of melted VDH around it to combine the two for his shaves.
I grated a puck of Mitchel's wool fat to go with a puck of Kent shave soap. I mixed the grating's of both on the worktop then pressed them into the Denby container. I used a strong glass to press the gratings down. The green container is the one with the wool fat and Kent soap. I like using these big pots to help lather with hard water. I guess One could grate anything then mix and use force to press into the container of your choosing.