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

Originally Posted by evnpar

Use distilled water and whatever soap you want.

Tried that today, works a treat, thank you Richard!

Very good idea ! Sure you could also heat a little bowl of distilled water in a mic to get warm lather aswell!
I’m in a relatively hard water area but not come across any issues. I use TOOBS or currently am liking captains choice bay rum (good lather and smell is amazing) .
Not tried Castle forbes which a lot seem to be raving about - am I going to like it???

Most modern shaving soaps are designed to accommodate hard water. If your water is so hard that it won't work with modern soaps, I suspect that is may not be fit to drink, either.

While a whole-house water softener or RO unit may be beyond your budget, you can purchase a small RO unit designed to produce enough water for drinking purposes. They have a small pressure tank that holds around 1 gallon of RO water, but can make up to 50 gallons per day. Those units can be purchased for around $150. I have one of these units hooked up to the water/ice dispenser on my refrigerator. The water used for cooking, drinking, and making tea and coffee tastes much better that way. This type of unit would easily produce enough water for your daily shave as well.