Thread: Foundation Soaps

When all the other soaps are gone, I will have:

Martin de Candre
Castle Forbes
Tabac
Czech & Speake

Martin de Candre original and Fougere would be my soap must haves if only two were allowed. I would add castle Forbes Lime and Taylor of Old Bond Eton if creams were included. I could shave quite comfortably with these.

Originally Posted by JBHoren

• TGQ Desert Ironwood
• QED Anise & Lavender (sadly, no longer in production)
• TGQ Unscented (you have to have an unscented cake of good shaving soap -- some afterscents don't need to "stand on the shoulders of giants")

This is one of those "religious" discussions: Can we accept that Castle Forbes shaving creams are also "soft[er] soaps"? I vote "Yes", so let me add their Cedarwood and Sandalwood.

In my mind, cream, croap and soap fall into the same category. I'm not quite sure why some folks upgrade, or downgrade a formulation because it is not a traditional puck of soap.

Originally Posted by Midway

In my mind, cream, croap and soap fall into the same category. I'm not quite sure why some folks upgrade, or downgrade a formulation because it is not a traditional puck of soap.

I don't think people up or down grade based on whether it is a cream, croap or hard puck. Those are just indicators of the consistency of the product. If you look at this thread http://straightrazorpalace.com/soaps...ps-creams.html there are some of each variety in the top tier.

Bob

I think soaps and creams accomplish their goals. I don’t really distinguish between them when selecting product to use for a shave. I have never bought in to the brush that is better for one than the other. They are just different loading and in bubble structure. Different, not better or worse.

There are too many outstanding soaps available today to limit oneself to just a few foundation soaps. If I had to only list a few it would be:

1. Czech & Speak/Valobra/AOS vintage soaps (all made by Valobra)
2. Klar Seifen
3. Mike's Natural Soaps
4. La Savonnière du Moulin

However, recently I've discovered three soaps that perform as well as any other soap that I've used:

1. Wholly Kaw LE donkey milk soaps
2. Oleo Soapworks
3. Grooming Dept

It's funny but the idea of "foundation" or "baseline" soaps crossed my mind recently as well. For me the baseline is good 'ol Mitchell's Wool Fat. This isn't to say that MWF is my favorite soap but that it offers a well-rounded set of attributes against which any other soap I buy tends to be measured.

That said, if I have more than a few soaps that I love (D.R. Harris, Stirling, Fine and Sudsy Soapery come to mind) but if I were told that I could only shave with one soap from here on out I would likely choose The Fat.

These kinds of posts - top 10, 5, 3, the only one - appear very often across the forums and if you look at the replies collectively, you will see all soaps and creams. I believe there's a reason why, it's because people have different experience levels and also have 'artificial' boundaries that they don't tell you in their replies.

For example, a number of people have said they'd never pay more than $15 for a soap, so when they tell you their top 3, whatever, they're telling you their top 3 under $15, but they don't post that bit of relevant information. Others are just beginning to experiment and if you creep your way up the soap ladder, a particular answer might include only tier 2 soaps because they have not tried a tier 1 soap yet. Others may give a technically good answer for a DE/SE but maybe not as technically good for a straight (and visa versa) and you don't know what they shave with. Not to mention beard and skin types.

I shave with a straight razor and have experience across the price spectrum. My three favorite soaps and creams are:

Valobra tallow/AoS/Czech and Speake
Martin de Candre
Savonnerie du Moulin

Castle Forbes
ABC
D. R. Harris

ABC is in my list despite it's price because my skin likes it, versus other creams. ABC is very concentrated so if you 'dole it out' you'll be surprised how long it will last. Everything else is at least a moderate buy in terms of price per shave. But if my skin did not love it, it would not be in my list because of the price.

There are no North American artisans in my list because even though a very few perform as well, they're typically softer and they go fast as has been mentioned above. It would be easy to spend much more in a year on artisan soaps than ABC with its $60-80 price tag. Most of the artisan scents also seem strange to me though some are quite pleasant, but you'd never mistake any of them them for a Floris or Penhaligon's scent.

SNM is not there either, not because it's not good, but because I am not a menthol/eucalyptus person. This bit of information does make a difference when someone else reads the reply!

Cheers, Steve

Gents,

After Obie's FTS thread, I got exposed to several good soaps and creams.
My foundation creams/soaps are Martin de Candre and Castle Forbes.
From the above listed, my favorite scents are: "Original", "Fougere" and "Lavender"
For my skin, climate and water conditions, I have not found anything that works that consistently well.

Cheers.

Originally Posted by Steve56

These kinds of posts - top 10, 5, 3, the only one - appear very often across the forums and if you look at the replies collectively, you will see all soaps and creams. I believe there's a reason why, it's because people have different experience levels and also have 'artificial' boundaries that they don't tell you in their replies.

For example, a number of people have said they'd never pay more than $15 for a soap, so when they tell you their top 3, whatever, they're telling you their top 3 under $15, but they don't post that bit of relevant information. Others are just beginning to experiment and if you creep your way up the soap ladder, a particular answer might include only tier 2 soaps because they have not tried a tier 1 soap yet. Others may give a technically good answer for a DE/SE but maybe not as technically good for a straight (and visa versa) and you don't know what they shave with. Not to mention beard and skin types.

I shave with a straight razor and have experience across the price spectrum. My three favorite soaps and creams are:

Valobra tallow/AoS/Czech and Speake
Martin de Candre
Savonnerie du Moulin

Castle Forbes
ABC
D. R. Harris

ABC is in my list despite it's price because my skin likes it, versus other creams. ABC is very concentrated so if you 'dole it out' you'll be surprised how long it will last. Everything else is at least a moderate buy in terms of price per shave. But if my skin did not love it, it would not be in my list because of the price.

There are no North American artisans in my list because even though a very few perform as well, they're typically softer and they go fast as has been mentioned above. It would be easy to spend much more in a year on artisan soaps than ABC with its $60-80 price tag. Most of the artisan scents also seem strange to me though some are quite pleasant, but you'd never mistake any of them them for a Floris or Penhaligon's scent.

SNM is not there either, not because it's not good, but because I am not a menthol/eucalyptus person. This bit of information does make a difference when someone else reads the reply!

Cheers, Steve

I pretty much agree with everything you've said here and it's echo's my experience.

Your list wouldn't be much different than mine in that the artisan soaps are fun, but IMO, in the end, very, very few hold up against the old school soaps you mention in both quality and longevity, which I thought was an excellent point.

The artisan soaps can be fun to play with, but I find the vast majority of them end up getting used once, twice, occasionally three times and then get forgotten about...

Great post....