Thread: SWK soap lid

So I was wondering if anyone else has tried using these little things?

I just got mine from Mama Bear Soaps (great soaps, great service and great prices too!). And I decided to load it up yesterday with a new puck of MWF soap that I had around.

See, the thing that always gets me a little peeved about leaving my soap in the soap mug is that the puck of soap gets worn away by the water faster than I can use it. I try to pour all of the water out of the mug after I'm done lathering, but even so, the next day you can see how much of the soap is just getting dissolved and wasted with each use. So then I thought that I would just stick to soaps that come in their own, separate containers, but that gets to be kind of a waste too, because those soaps are always like three times as expensive as just the plain pucks of soap that you can buy. Of course, there's always the Mama Bear Soaps, which come in nice plastic containers and at a reasonable price, but other than that, there didn't seem to be any easy way to handle this. So that's what brought me to the point of trying out one of these soap lids.

As for actually using the lid, the process of grinding up the soap and then pressing it into the soap "lid" is not difficult, but it does take a fair amount of time -- at least a half hour for a novice like me. The problem seems to be that pressing the ground-up soap into the lid is not quite as easy as it looks, and actually you have to grind up a lot more soap than you'd think you'd need to fill up the lid.

Once the lid was full of soap, however, using the lid was a great experience. Swirling the wet brush around on the surface of the soap leaves a nice thick layer of soap on the bristles, which you can then transfer over to your mug or scuttle and add water and make whatever lather you need. No need to have your soap sitting in water and dissolving away to nothing while you shave.

Anyway, I'm not sure if anyone else even cares about soap waste the way that I do, but even if you don't, these little things are a nice solution to a problem you may not even be aware of!

Actually, I had the exact same feeling with soaps... Waste not, want not.

And the soap lids are cool!

They do, however, take a smaller brush, or a stiffer brush (I use boars with soaps anyways) since you can't swirl as much with the smaller face of the lid.

They are fantastic though

Yea, I was actually wondering about that. I don't have a very large brush to begin with, but I can see what you mean -- there's not too much room on the face of the "lid" to wipe the brush around. Instead you just end up spinning it around a few times.

So here's the good part. If you haven't bought one yet, Mama Bear has them for an excellent price -- $15!! If you try to by direct from Ansgar (which I tried first), it turns out that the price is 15 Euros AND he charges like 20 Euros for shipping AND he has a minimum order of 50 Euros!! And I just wanted to try out the lid, not make an entire investment in SWK pottery for my entire bathroom.

Anyway, if you get a chance, ask for Vicki at Mama Bear and she'll send one out to you right away. Great place to order from.

I'm the same. So you grind the soap and mold it to this and it's in there for good?

I actually bought one of Mr. Tolksdorf's scuttles... it came with the soap lid and dish... I love the scuttle.. THe price was about 5 bucks less to get it straight from him than to go through Mama Bear.

But, yea... I pretty much exclusively use boar with soap, so it's not a problem for me... Even a 25 knot in boar fits fine on the surface of that

Originally Posted by burns420

I'm the same. So you grind the soap and mold it to this and it's in there for good?

It's not molding so much... You cheese grate it, then use your thumb or a spoon, or pen cap, or whatever, and pack/press it in... If you pack it tight enough, it reforms the soap inside of the lid. Works great... I've been grating soap to fit it into containers ever since... Much easier than double boiler

The system looks to be very good. I have one of his scuttles and it came with a soap bowl. In my case I already have my soaps in their own bowls so I lather right there and then transfer the brush to the scuttle to keep warm. Next time I get more soap I'll try it though. It looks like its more for milled soaps which are very hard. It would seem a glycerin soap is too soft to grate though you could melt one right into the soap bowl.

All good questions about the molding. My experience is just limited to MWF soap, which I was able to grate into a whole pile of little shavings and then press into the lid. The problem seems to be that the more you press on one side of the soap, the more it seems to force the soap chips to fracture on the other side of the soap. Finally, I actually ended up just heating the whole mess in the microwave for about 45 seconds, and that little bit of melting seems to have solidified what was in the lid.

I've also used the soap lid a few times, and it now seems like the more you use it, the more the soap chips get cemented into the lid, like somehow the water and brushing action also end up pressing the soap into the ceramic better.

Anyway, question for Shave Zombie -- I looked at the price of buying direct from Ansgar, but it seemed like the price of shipping (20 euros) AND the minimum order for shipping (50 euros) made ordering just a soap lid from him unfeasible. How did you get him to ship just the soap lid for less than Mama Bear?

Oh, JeffE, No, I bought the S Scuttle. It CAME with the soap lid

Originally Posted by burns420

I'm the same. So you grind the soap and mold it to this and it's in there for good?

Experiment with a bar of cheep hard tipple milled soap but if you spray
it lightly with a bit of water it will pack and stick better. And no
it is not there for good. It can dry out and come loose.
If it does wet it, let the surface soften and push it back home
again. Shaving soap is soap....

For those that 'tinker' after a spritz of water you can also
spray a bit of glycerin or even a little bit of the oil that folk use
for a preshave at the same time (just a little).