Shaving Soap in a bowl, or cream in a jar?

I use a Proraso cream/soft soap and alternate this with a Palmolive soap stick, which I have squashed into my soap bowl. Both are really easy to load the brush with and either face lather or bowl lather, in my separate bowl. Perhaps your soap is a hard soap. Have you tried soaking the soap in warm water just before you use it?

 

I haven't - I'll give that a try next time I use hard soap. But isn't the water absorbed into your brush enough to make the soap lather?

 

I would have thought so, but I have seen videos of guys putting their soap bowl, with the soap in it, in the water. I think it was for Mitchell's wool fat soap.

 

The only time I use a bowl is when using samples, for the most part I face lather.

If you are storing cream make sure the container has a lid, otherwise the cream will condense and turns into a croap or hard cream, and could loose scent.

Some people around here like to use scuttles and bowl lather, others face lather. Try both and use whatever method you are more comfortable with.

 

I personally like to use soaps most of the time because I like the nostalgia of swirling a brush on a puck of soap. Im not prejudice and will use creams sometimes, mostly depends on scents, or wrather soap or cream sound good that day.

It's part of the fun of wet shaving, variety, IMO it makes the experience more exciting and having fun figuring out what to use. Samples is a great way to try a good number of products for less money.

 

If you switch to using shaving cream in a jar, you could always use the bowl as a lathering bowl. Even if you don't use it as a lathering bowl or to hold soap, it does no harm. It looks great and is always there in case you ever need it. Besides, cool looking razors and shaving accouterments are one of the best reasons for taking up traditional wetshaving. So no, you did not waste your money.

Just a thought, but have you ever tried any of the semi-soft Italian shaving soaps such as Valobra Crema Di Sapone Purissima, Cella or Vitos Extra Super All'olio di Cocco (with coconut oil)? They are very easy to lather in my experience.

 

Go to CVS or Walgreens or Walmart by the van der Hagen luxury soap by 2 pucks. nuke it in the microwave( make sure you use a microwavable bowl) in 15 second intervals until its liquid pour in your stainless steel bowl and load up your brush with that soap it doesn't have to be covered its a great soap and that should work perfectly for you. I forgot to say make sure you put it in the refrigerator to make it hard again that is the soap I mean

 

Shaver X- I'll give those semi-soft soaps a try, if I can find them in Australia where I live. They sound interesting.
gregkw1 - If you don't want the soap to be hard again, will it stay liquid if don't refrigerate it? Is the van der Hagen luxury soap made for shaving? (I think regular hand soap wouldn't be good for shaving).

 

Here is one source Down Under:

http://www.mensbiz.com.au/valobra-almond-shaving-soap-150g.html

You can just press it into the bowl, cutting a piece off the soap bar if the whole thing won't fit. Here is a review I did of it, in case it helps:

http://theshaveden.com/forums/threads/valobra-crema-di-sapone-purissima-shaving-soap-review.37560/

 

I use both creams and soaps. I use TOBS original and Sandalwood creams and lather in a stainless steel bowl. I have two soaps I use right now; one is Pre de Provence, a triple milled production soap, and Phoenix Artisans Acountrments Sangre de Drago soap with the after shave/cologne. I load the brush in the container and develop the lather in a bowl. Since Minnesota winters can be quite drying. Alex. Ore sense for me to use creams, although I use soaps or creams based on what I want to use that day, as I like to use the same balms, aftershaves, and colognes as the soaps or creams I select.

 

+1

 

Because I can. And buying both feeds my AD's.