Thread: An experiment gone wrong

I am the first to admit I am a tight ass. If I can avoid spending I will. That is after all why I started straight razor shaving. So recently I started to run out of shaving soap. As I live in Thailand the only way I can buy shaving soap is either to go back to Australia or buy it online.
Now, my mother-in-law (yes, I live with my in-laws) likes to buy good quallity soap for hand washing. I noticed that it works up a good lather when I wash my hands with it, so I started to wonder how it would perform as a shaving soap.
Anyway, this morning, as I am running out of shaving soap, I decided to give it a try. It lathered up well, but wasn't very lubricating. As a result I ended up with a number of small nicks and one three inch long gash.
So, good quallity hand washing soap doesn't make for good shaving soap.
I guess I will just have to shell out for some shaving soap.
I've heard nothing but good things from the guys at classic shaving, so I'll give them a try.
Cheers.

I started using a shaving brush back in the '70s because I thought it was cool and I wasn't fond of any of the canned goo. I gave it a try with the Old Spice and the Williams that were readily available then. At some point I was in your situation and ran out of true shaving soap and grabbed the bar of Dove bath soap to lather up.

I used Dove and a Gillette "Good News" for a couple of decades before I discovered true wet shaving and disposed of the disposables for good. Now, like you, I am using the real deal when I lather up and loving it.

Are there no stores that carry a decent shave soap in all of Bangkok? One would think that in such a large city with a history of contact with Europeans that some shave soap would get there. Just curious.

Jordan

1 shot is not a good experiment. Get your razor fine tuned and try again.

I am cutting back on my expenditures so I have been using pretty ordinary soap lately

I've pretty much always used a high-glycerin hand soap from "Sappo Hill." It's not a delight, because I have to touch the lathery brush to my face regularly to keep it from drying out. But, it's way cheap and lubricates well. Studying the tricks posted here for properly lather-building helps me get the most out of it.

I'm gonna get me some of Mama Bear's soap as a treat sometime soon, and then we'll see if I ever go back to Sappo Hill. But, no one can say it hasn't worked so far! And the scents are many and pleasing.

For what it's worth I really like Coleen's cavendish and oak&moss soaps... they lather very well for me. You can get them HERE

Most brands of hand soap don't usually give a very good shave. They dry out too fast and give the razor a "sticky" feel as they don't have much lubricant.

If you absolutely have to use a normal bath product give shampoo a try...maybe even with a small dash of conditioner.

In a pinch I have gotten a few pretty decent shaves using shampoo.

If you want to stay on the cheaper end, Proraso is the way to go. I believe it's superlather.com (one of the vendors in the vendors' section) that sells the giant tubs and tubes. I don't remember the exact price, but I know it's hard to beat.

(I did manage to beat it though. At Bath & Body works they had an insane sale where you could buy anything in the store and get any item under $10 free. Turns out they sell gift bags for $1 and tubes of Proraso for $9.something. I was only able to get two, since it was a one-per-person and I was with one other person.)

One of my workmates is a Thai in his mid twenties. He only needs to shave every couple of weeks.He says that's normal for Thai males. Maybe that's why there isn't much of a choice in shaving products.His father in Thailand works as a mechanic earning about fifty times less per month than his son in the UK doing the same job. I suppose that in Thailand there isn't a huge market for high end products, for shaving or anything else. Mind you, the way the UK economy is going maybe that'll be the same here soon.

I have used it many times and still do in a pinch: toothpaste. It is not cream by a long shot but it works better than hand soap.