Thread: Can some soaps or creams actually be too slick for a close shave?

Aloha!

Hey, I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I've been shaving quite a bit with Cremo tube cream. Their trademark is "Impossibly Slick Formula". I believe that. For my straight razors, this is an unbelievably slick and comfortable product. But for my DE shaves, even with a new Feather blade, I find that the ultra-slick Cremo actually seems to inhibit a BBS shave. Meaning I really have to really work on it with multiple passes to even come close to a BBS shave with Cremo.

OK, so I've lost my mind, right? How can that possibly be? How can anyone possibly have too much cushion and slick protection from a soap or cream? I thought the same. But with Cremo, I truly do have to shave with multiple good passes to get anything near a BBS shave. Even with a new Feather blade. Recently, I experimented with that theory and used Lucky Tiger liquid soap, Proraso, and a variety of puck soaps and tube products comparing them directly to Cremo. I got a much closer shave in less passes with those other products than I did with Cremo with my DE razor and a new Feather blade installed every time for good comparison. The best was actually Lucky Tiger liquid soap. One pass with a new Feather blade and I was 90 percent close to BBS. One more quick touch-up pass it I was done.

Yes, I realize you can thin out products or thicken them up. I'm talking a "normal" abount of face suds here. What most would consider a standard pre-shave lather.

So to me, it seems possible that a soap or cream can give you too much cushion and be too slick for a close shave.

Mahalo!

-Zip

No, it's not like eating cake every day where you can have too much of a good thing. You could put motor oil on your face and still get a top notch shave just that it might gum things up.

All the requisite qualities of a soap can never be too much. Maybe because of the slickness you are using the razor in a slightly different fashion without realizing it.

Cremo is a brushless shave cream and really does not lather the same as ones designed to use with a brush. Could be it is more viscous and clogs a DE more easily?

Bob

Originally Posted by BobH

Cremo is a brushless shave cream and really does not lather the same as ones designed to use with a brush. Could be it is more viscous and clogs a DE more easily?

Bob

Cremo is my go to shave cream for travel (not a lot of that recently). Although it is designed to work brushless, it works just as well with a brush. So I take a synthetic brush, grab a coffee cup from the hotel room, and whip up a lather. It does not lather like a real shave soap, but adding the water keeps it from being too thick and clogging the razor.

Originally Posted by RayClem

Cremo is my go to shave cream for travel (not a lot of that recently). Although it is designed to work brushless, it works just as well with a brush. So I take a synthetic brush, grab a coffee cup from the hotel room, and whip up a lather. It does not lather like a real shave soap, but adding the water keeps it from being too thick and clogging the razor.

Yup, it will work with a brush but I was wondering if the OP was using it as a brushless leading to problems with a DE.

Bob

Good points gentlemen. Thanks.

Two things I am now thinking about thanks to the points here.

1.) I am using a Merkur 34c or a Jagger DE89 because these razors have a very mild fixed blade reveal so that I do not end up with razor burn from my favorite Feather bleades. If I use a razor with agressive blade reveal or an adjustable razor like the Merkur Futur (even with the mildest blade reveal dialed-in), I wind up with the razor burn from hell if I am not excessivley careful when using a Feather blade. This may be part of the issue. The Cremo is clogging the mild blade reveal of these razors quickly, even though I am rinsing the razor frequenty. Hmmm. With my frequent rinses, that does not seem likely, but it may be happening immediately. I also end up shaving over shaved surfaces by only applying water to what's left on the skin cream wise. Yet your points are valid, so this may be the issue.

2.) Like @rayclem, I more or less "discovered" Cremo for traveling. That's where I started using it. It was simply easier to quickly shave in the hotel bathroom with Cremo vs other products. The last few years, I've been ridiculously busy with my career, so I started using Cremo in my shave den every morning by hand (no brush) with plenty of water because I needed to get shaved and done wihtout luxuriating with soaps, brushes, etc. That's why I've not been posting lately. Too busy. I did notice over the last few years that Cremo required multiple passes over and over again to come close to BBS shaves even with frequent rinsing. But with the mild blade reveal I mentioned above plus the hand lathering (even with a lot of water), this may indeed be the issue.

When I tested Cremo VS other lather from tube creames and soaps, I did use a synthetic brush on all tests and got the same results as I did with hand lathering, but that does not mean Cremo would not still clog a mild blade reveal razor much faster than other creames because of the way it's formulated - even with brush lathering.

Thanks for the input.

I have found that OC DES with a wide blade gap are less likely to clog followed by SB DEs with a wide blade gap.

Bob