Thread: Hard water? Slickness killer?

Originally Posted by Dieseld

I won’t argue that in any way. If it works for you, then go for it!!
There’s a lot of great stuff in that thread, so much it hurts the wallet

Wallet pain is what I am afraid of lol!

Well it only hurts when you spend it

Before I got a serious water softener installation I did find that hard water made things a little more difficult / less pleasant than it does now
When I came out of a shower my skin felt so dry and just bad overall, it wasn't pleasant to shave with either compared to now in all honesty, it's been a tremendously good investment, my area is known for it's notoriously hard water though

Glad to hear there is a brighter tomorrow! Unfortunately I live in a rental...I also think I just have really dry skin coming out of the show even when I am at a hotel with soft water

Possibly, I've had so much less "skin related issues" with a water softener installed, my entire body used to get a little dry and itchy when I got out of the shower before, since the installation I've had exactly 0 problems like I did before, there's something to be said about hard water, it made some creams and soaps a PITA to lather

I can't remember details since it's been a good while, but it definitely made a difference in my experience to where I also used bottled water to lather and shave.

Hard water affects many many things. The only good thing is you get a good supply of minerals for drinking even though it may not taste very good.

Hard water can definitely cause less glide when you shave. If you try shaving with just water and go from hard to soft, shaving with the hard is very difficult to do while with soft the water seems to have some built in lube to it.

By the way I disagree with the idea soaps for a DE might not be good for a straight. It's still a blade and you need the same qualities no matter the appliance you use.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

By the way I disagree with the idea soaps for a DE might not be good for a straight. It's still a blade and you need the same qualities no matter the appliance you use.

Even after years of shaving with straight razors almost daily, a straight shave still takes me longer than a shave with a safety razor.

If the lather has less staying power, either because of water hardness or the inherent quality of the soap, I found that some soaps that are adequate for a DE shave are clearly less suited for a straight shave.

Regarding water hardness, there also can be too much of a good thing:
In some locations I have experienced exceptionally soft water where it took an effort after the shave to wipe enough soapy slickness off my face and put the aftershave on - although this is admittedly less of an issue than extremely hard water.



B.

I live in a hard water city, and one trick is loading a lot more soap and then go slowly with adding water. It usually takes more water as well, but I've found going slow with adding the water, a bit at a time until you learn the soap, works generally better, otherwise, it's easy to blow out a soap if you do it all at once or in a couple big doses. And some soaps just don't play well--formulations just aren't there for hard water regardless of what you try.

I did have a few soaps that worked OK with DEs but not quite as well with straights when it came to the glide. I have to disagree to a degree with thebigspendur: Surface area of a DE is smaller than a SR and the weight distribution is also different as well, so that changes up things on the physics of how the two tools perform when it comes their friction and distribution of mass. At any rate, one of my criteria for a good soap is that is works well for either a DE or SR when it comes to glide. There are a few soaps that really hit that mark for me. One of my favorites is Castle Forbes--it's slick with either tool, lathers well in hard water, and it makes a nice, thick lather that doesn't break down quickly. Eufros is another good one as well, along with a few others. Obie's Top Tier Soap thread has a gold mine of info. in from a lot of users--use the thread search function if you want to check out a particular soap or cream.

I live in the desert and we have really hard water. Love it for showers! Not the best for lather.

Follow SemperFi's directions above and you will do well.

Originally Posted by SemperFi

I live in a hard water city, and one trick is loading a lot more soap and then go slowly with adding water. It usually takes more water as well, but I've found going slow with adding the water, a bit at a time until you learn the soap, works generally better, otherwise, it's easy to blow out a soap if you do it all at once or in a couple big doses. And some soaps just don't play well--formulations just aren't there for hard water regardless of what you try.

I did have a few soaps that worked OK with DEs but not quite as well with straights when it came to the glide. I have to disagree to a degree with thebigspendur: Surface area of a DE is smaller than a SR and the weight distribution is also different as well, so that changes up things on the physics of how the two tools perform when it comes their friction and distribution of mass. At any rate, one of my criteria for a good soap is that is works well for either a DE or SR when it comes to glide. There are a few soaps that really hit that mark for me. One of my favorites is Castle Forbes--it's slick with either tool, lathers well in hard water, and it makes a nice, thick lather that doesn't break down quickly. Eufros is another good one as well, along with a few others. Obie's Top Tier Soap thread has a gold mine of info. in from a lot of users--use the thread search function if you want to check out a particular soap or cream.

It's on a soap by soap basis.

With many soaps and hard water it almost doesn't matter how much soap you use you will never get good lather.

The old water softener salesmen trick is take some liquid green soap and put a drop into soft water and you get what almost looks like a glass of beer with clear water and a head of suds on it. Do the same with hard water and you get nothing and as you add more and more soap you just get a bluish scum in the water with practically no visible suds. They also take an old cloth you have that's been washed in your washer over and over and they put it in a bottle of soft water and shake it and you have all kinds of visible soap in the water.

As far as soft water goes soft water is soft with no hardness at all. Once you have more than a grain or so it's hard water. it's just a matter of how hard it is.

In my parts we have around 8 grains and that's really hard. We use evaporative coolers and we put a chunk of metal in the water reservoir in the bottom. It's about 4 inches long and an inch and a half thick (solid metal) and in 4 months it's totally gone dissolved by the water. That's to protect the cooler components from being dissolved.