Thread: Recommended soaps/creams for hard water

I see many posts about hard water and issues it brings up with lathering. There are random recommendations in those threads about which products work best with the hard water but no one place to read what others have found out what works best.

If you had to use hard water because you live where it doesn't rain and you can't afford a softener or RO system. Meanwhile your truck broke down and your beard would be 2 inches long by the time you walked to town to buy some.

What cream or soap have you found works best with hard water?

baume.be worked best for me when I had hard water. works great with soft water too

Al's Softer soaps work well as do RazorRock's products. Vintage soaps, with no product code bars, from antique stores usually do well. I do recommend Eastern European tube creams. There are many. Nivea Shaving Cream is a winner in my book as also C.O. Bigelow/ Proraso. Colgate in a tube is fair. Nivea original and Nivea sensitive are only available in a few stores or on-line. The Pharmacy version is not what you want.
JMO
~Richard

Use distilled water and whatever soap you want.

Hirlau sent me a tube of bigelow.
Like Richard said, fantastic lather, even with hard water. Which I have here in Orangeville.

Off the top of my head, MdC, Castle Forbes, PannaCrema, Esbjerg, Baum.be, Eufros, Penhaligon's, and Alverez Gomez come to mind and all perform decently in hard water--some take a bit more trial and error but aren't impossible or too fussy with dialing in. I find a brush with good flow-through also helps.

My water is so hard, ya gotta chew it before ya swallow it.
I don't have much trouble creating a lather, with any soap, but these are my go too soaps of now, for easy lathering.

Creams/Croaps
Castle Forbes
Baume Be
Tabac
TOBS
Proraso
MdC

Soaps:

Fine
Handmade soap Co.
Vintage Williams Mug
Derby, stick
LaToja, stick
Arko, stick
VDH Luxury
Mama Bears
Dr. Jon's
SRD
And as said, a brush with good release/ flow through.
The right brush for the soap/ cream in use, made a big difference for me, but I'd have to try bottled water or such, to make a better presumption on all this, but all these work easily for me. YMMV

I've told the story about the chance conversation with the owner of Sudsy Soapery and he says that he hasn't had any complaints. While I live in an area with rather hard water I can't give first-hand testimony simply because I have a water softener. What I can say is that I get excellent lather production out of each Sudsy product that I own and that its legitimately good soap. I place it in the second tier simply because it could use a touch more glide.

I should also note that my favorite scent, Delor de Treget has recently been causing some burn from skin sensitivity. If you have had some skin sensitivity issues you may want to steer away from this limited run soap and instead try one of his other offerings. I also own tubs of Jonathan's Twice Mint and Lavender & Peppermint and have had absolutely no issues with either of them or his aftershaves and shave balms.

In rural Montana we have very hard water. I could only get a decent lather if I used distilled water until I tried a Fine Accoutrements soap. I happened to buy Fine's lathering bowl at the same time I purchased the soap, and I can attest that the bowl makes all the difference. My other soaps, mostly tallow with one vegetarian, all produce amazing lather with hard tap water and the Fine bowl. Better and faster than when using distilled water and an apothecary mug. The bowl is rather large but very easy to use and allows the brush to be laid horizontal on the handle so it does not slip into the suds. Highly recommend both Fine products.

Tim , really any well made soap will work with hard water. Some better than others it just takes getting the water ratio right and in my experience a great soap just makes hard water a non issue. The area in southeast New Mexico has some of the worst water I've ever dealt with, even some of the crap we had in the Middle East. I used bottled water in the beginning but I just threw all my soaps out and started using MDC. And Castle Forbes face lathered, no issues whatsoever. It's all in the soap. Tc