If you are a newbie to straight shaving (like me), let me just encourage you to try Mama Bear's Soaps. You will seldom to never find me plugging someone's product, but I just have to share my experience with these soaps.

While I am new to straight razor shaving, I am not new to brush shaving; I gave up on gels and cans some years ago. For a long time I have been using the quality shaving creams from The Art of Shaving. They are nice, a bit pricey, but last a long time.

As I plan on shaving when I travel, I decided I might want to try some soaps - they seem more portable and smaller containers. I looked at quite a bunch of different ones, and am even considering possibly making my own. There was much talk on cold versus hot process soaps, lather quality, and much more. From what I was reading, it sounded like a lye based soap was the best way to go for best lather, and that glycerin soaps would not be quite as nice (I have found this to not be true, but more on that in a second).

I looked at a lot of brands, how they were made, what they cost, and narrowed it down to two choices to try. the new soap cakes from Classic Shaving or the Glycerin shaving soaps from Mama Bear's Soaps (MBS). I was skeptical of MBS because there was not a volume (ounces) listed for the soaps and the prices were slightly more than the cakes from classic shaving. However, I realized that MBS included the container with the soap, which I considered a viable risk, and if anything I could reuse the containers once the soap was gone.

So, I ordered a couple scents ( a Lime Oil and a Bergamot - choices made by my girlfriend). I shaved this morning with the Lime Oil, and all I can say is WOO HOO! It was awesome! The lather was great and stayed lathery through each shave. The shave cream I have been using seems to fade by the time I reach the end of a shave (before reapplying). The razor burn was greatly minimized and the result was an awesome shave.

So, if you are a bit curious about what soaps to buy, I suggest at least trying one of Mama Bear's. If you are still using the gels and cream in a can, I recommend ditching those and trying this out. I am definitely sold on her products and and very impressed!


All this to say, Thanks Mama Bear. You do an awesome job.