Gotta give my nod to the soaps from Art of Shaving. Some of the best tallow soaps around. And you have not experienced shaving bliss until you have used Musgo Real shaving cream.....
I'm very into scent and I think so far as that is concerned, Trumper's Rose can't be beat. That said, an excellent inexpensive soap is Arko from Turkey. I know Dave loves Williams and I'm tempted to try it in spite of its lemon meringue smell.
Don't do it! Life is too short to shave with Williams Mug Soap. Okay, so maybe you can. If you don't like it, you are only out a couple of bucks. But there are so many other cheaper soaps that work SO much better, that it isn't worth it. If you want an excellent soap for a ridiculously cheap price, go with either Arko (scent is a bit of a put off), or the under-appreciated Palmolive shave stick. The Palmolive is going to blow your mind with how good it is and how cheap it is. And then for just a few dollars more, you can have the Speick shave stick as well.
Em's line of soaps are the best I have ever used. Clearly superior to the French and Italian soft soaps. Efficient lather with excellent skin care.
it takes a little more work than glycerine soaps to lather, but once I got the hang of it, Williams became a favorite soap.
I used Williams everyday for 20yrs. Then I ran into these guys and started spending money like a drunken sailor on Trumpers , Taylors and Castle Forbes. I make sure to use the Williams once a week now. It keeps me humble. Doc.
I hope your soaps don't go bad before your son is old enough to try them.. Any opinions on soap shelf life?
I just can't get into my Palmolive stick. Tabac and Irisch Moos shave sticks work so much better for me. I will try to grind the Palmolive stick down into a bowl and try it with my brush. I am somewhat surprised no one mentioned CO Bigelow/Proraso. They are creams but very good. I can only use them in the summer because the cooling affect is too much for me in Winter.
My advice is to come away from the concreet recommendations of the specific consumables to use (the blades, soap and after shaves). First answer the question fo you want your son having to go on-line everytime he needs more of the consumables for his shaving? Do you want him venturing out on-line with your credit card each time? Or would you preferr he take a $20 to the local drug store buy what he needs and walk home with it and be set for a month or so? My son is four and personally I would preferr that I hand him a $20 bill and show him to the local CVS and let him buy what he needs. No credit card involved no idenity to get stolen none of the online risks, simple cash and cary. I know very well what is available at the local CVS so I am trying those things first and you know they are really excellent items. My local CVS does a great job of getting me what consumables I need and what they can't provide a local beauty supply shop can get me. First you need to take stock of what the local drugstore can get you and only when the drugstore can only get you inferrior quality or can't get you anything do you want the son to venture on-line. My local CVS can get me the red wrapped personnas, Clubman-Pinaud after shave and Combe's Williams soap. Excellent stuff and more than capable of filling the needs and the beauty supply shop can get me a lot more clubman-pinaud lustray after shaves. My opinion is the answer to the question best of the best is not really important yet. Look at your local drugstore and see what they can get you first.
Homemade shaving soap/cream? has anyone tried to make their own saving soap/cream. and real what is the difference between the two. i am one of those people that believe that if someone else can make it so can i but if i try it and get good at it and find out that it is just worth it to just buy it, that is what i do. So if any one has tried it let me know if it is worth it or not.
Hiya, To keep things short, let's just say I've tried lots of soaps/creams in the last 2 1/2 years...heh. There's been a few soaps that have been unusually effective for me, although I found em relatively late in this journey. Well, at least I know by now when something is even more wonderful than other great products I use. Yeah, I have a good reference point by now. The Institut Karite soap can't be beat for both performance and face friendly results. The stuff is excellent. Floris soap is just as good in the skin care department.........both are superb. Oh, keep in mind I have no idea how the different scents will hit you, so I won't bother describing em. Heh, I will say I'm unable to use one of the 4 I'll mention because I don't care for the fragrance. Maybe just a very small notch below those two would be DR Harris and Mitchells Wool Fat soaps. Very similar excellent performance and skin care, and I use those and the IK (above) in my small 5-6 soap regular rotation. Anyway, opinions can actually be handy at times if you can see a pattern develop. We all talk about the YMMV thingy, but when a lot of people say the same thing, then maybe it's worth giving a bit more weight to. The few items I mentioned were brought up by others, so here's a few more marks on the black board for those.....heh. Hope that helps, Martin
I like this philosophy. CVS carries what you need, though Walmart is better. All the right splash ASs, Williams and VHD, and coated Personnas. The CVSs here only carry the non-coated, late 1950s-patented ASR blades at a very ridiculous price. Regarding Williams - give it a whirl. It's an excellent soap, so inexpensive, but I personally can't deal with its scent. So smell it first.
I should also name some of the TSD soaps I have from JoAnna & Bobby's great Store, because to shave with them is joy and delight.
Fortunately you have a wallmart, I do not. Rockville, MD has none and I would need to venture to the outer suburbs in order to get to a wallmart, an expensive proposition with gas prices the way they are. So sometimes I venture on-line when I can get it cheaper. Here is the way that I reduce the risk of venturing on-line: I get myself to the local shopping center where I can pickup a Visa gift card in what ever dollar amount I need. Since the gift card is a valid visa card and only for the dolar amount that I specify that limits the amount of dollars a theif can steel from me. In the case of a recent transaction on line that amounted to $.01 so I was not real woried about it. And what do I pay for this security $6, not too bad. I do this with the larger retailers such as Amazon and Paypal who are hacker targets and the first time I order from a company.
There's no Rite Aid, Walgreen's, CVS, or Mom and Pop pharmacies close by? I agree that sometimes you can find better on the internet, but, instill a sense of tradition and nostalgia in your son. One of my earliest memories is riding back home with my dad in his giant Plymouth, coming back from Kerr drugs, me holding the brown paper bad with the little green "K" all over. Me looking in the bag and seeing a white can of Noxzema shave cream, a little glass bottle of Hoyt's cologne, some Schick double edged blades, and a quart of Quaker State oil. I left from there when I was four, so I had to have been about 3 and a half years old at the oldest. I remember thinking that if I was to have pressed that button on the can of Noxzema the car would have probably exploded. I was too chicken to try it, though. You never know what your son will remember and look back on with fond memories. But I can guarantee, that by going out and being able to physically pick this stuff off the shelves, you're going to establish more of a connection for your boy than you would by sitting behind the ol' Dell and whipping out Mr. Visa. I applaud you for your efforts, whichever way you decide to go on this. :signs107
