All my adult life, I’ve used a brush and soap to shave. (Why, you may ask? Dunno. I like old-fashioned things, I guess.) I’ve never been loyal to any particular brand.
But recently I bought a new bar, and it failed miserably – it would build up a nice lather on the brush, and I’d apply it to my face … but by the time I raised my razor it would start to fade, and before I finished one cheek the lather had disappeared. Nothing but a transparent film on my face, which makes it hard to tell where one’s been. I tried a different brand, with the same results. For the moment, I’ve switched to shaving cream in an aerosol can.
What’s going on?? Is it my water? Is there a particular make of shaving soap that works better?
(Tangentially…is there any difference between shaving soap, hand soap, bath soap?)
Have you tried shaving cream from a tube? I don’t know if this is available where you live, but that’s what I have been using without any issues my whole adult life. With a brush, of course.
I do also. Hot water, brush, shaving soap. Very nice. Soaps I have used and liked- Rocky Mountain Barber Company, Burn The Ships, and Tonhauness. all from Amazon.
Hard water, with lots of dissolved minerals, will prevent soap from lathering. However it’s hard to imagine how the hardness of your water could have suddenly changed. You could try using distilled water for one shave and see if that makes a difference. That would at least tell you whether the water is the culprit.
A few years ago, I decided my liquid hand soap was superior to shaving cream. The blade never clogged, and I was getting several extra shaves out of the same blade.
I don’t have factual evidence, and I don’t know about shaving soap, but my sense is that liquid bath soap may be a little soapier than liquid hand soap (more surfactants etc.). The kind of bath soap that is also usable as shampoo probably has a different formulation from regular bath soap. My opinion is that both are probably too wet to be good for shaving, but I’ve never actually tried it.
My father used bar hand soap for shaving, his entire life; he had slightly oily skin even when he got older, so he didn’t have to worry about it drying out. I gave him a can of gel shaving foam once, that’s what I use, but he didn’t like it. He definitely didn’t like the big foamy canned shaving cream either.
My advice for any kind of personal hygiene, not merely shaving, especially if you are having trouble with ultra-processed products (“milled”, deodorant, whatever) would be to try using a normal bar of soap with no more than two or three ingredients, like regular Aleppo soap or its ilk. It should lather up well (especially if you use a brush on your face) and of course it works on your hair, skin, etc. IE:
Nah. I mean, as long as we are talking about basic soap without a dozen added ingredients.
I have’t used “shaving” soap in years. I’ve been buying blocks of artisan milled soap and putting it in a square glass I bought at a thrift store, and it works great. I’m currently using an olive oil soap formed into an almost cubic block. I rinse the shaving brush under the hot water tap turned up full, and make a lather in the square cup, and it stays foamy and moist until I shave it off.
I suspect that proper “shaving” soap contains a bit more il, and possibly something to retain the foam (root beer contains yucca sap for that reason – does anyone put it in shaving soap?). But, heck, my olive oil soap is already doing that.
Oddly enough I’ve been wanting to ask this same question. I’ve been using the same soap for years, and then they changed the size of the soap and it doesn’t lather up all that much. Half the time the soap disappears by the time I start shaving. I’m guessing they changed what they put in the soap a bit.