when I had the problem with soap drying out I found that I just needed to add a little more water and spend more time building a lather. I'm not familiar with either of those brands though, my main soap is Van Der Hagen glycerin based soap. before giveing up on a soap you might try picking up a puck of VDH and practice your technique with it. I've seen a lot of good things said about VDH and its fairly cheap to learn/practice with.