Quote Originally Posted by Utopian View Post
Sadly, I don't. I've never understood the appeal of Stirling soaps. Maybe the newer stuff got better but the several that I've tried from years ago were not very good, to put it charitably.
Your comments don't surprise me at all. As with so many things in shaving, soaps can be highly subjective. What works for one may not work for another, and that's what makes experimenting educational and fun.

Tallow in Stirling vs Glycerin in Conk is one big differentiator for me. Artisan quality is another - Conk being more mass produced. But to each their own. Some would prefer the Conk simply because it's glycerin based. I personally have to add a bit of glycerin to Conk to get it to perform up to the standards of a good artisan soap. I happen to prefer tallow so I lean toward a soap like Stirling, but I'm not a Vegan. A Vegan would shun Tallow soap like the plague. If you can get by with Conk or other lower cost soaps, then good for you. My grandfather shaved with Ivory bar soap. Probably saved him some money in his 60 years or so of straight razor shaving, and quite frankly, that was no doubt his goal. From his perspective, when you have a perfectly good hand soap already in the bathroom, why pay extra for a shaving soap? He'd probably flip his lid if he saw my soap collection. "Terrible waste of money" would be the first thing he'd say.

-Zip