Thread: Hard water friendly shaving soap suggestions?

Preemptive response first: Please no "get soft water" or "soaps will never reach their fullest potential unless you have soft water" or even "use soft water from a jug rather than your tap to make lather".

I have ultra hard water and it's staying that way. I don't have a ton of experience with a lot of soaps: Mama Bears, Bigelow/Proraso cream, Toms of Maine cream, TOBS cream, TGQ soaps and creams recently. Out of the soaps and creams I've tried, Mama Bears soap and Bigelow/Proraso cream are the most hard water friendly. This means, easy to make lather a ton of lather right out of the gate, lather that stays on the face and does not dry out and lather than stays lather in the shaving bowl until I'm done shaving.

What are some other suggestions for great soaps or creams that fit my criteria in red above?

Thanks guys.

Chris L

OK i have fairly hard water and i use a lot of Colleen's soaps and Floris. i also use the 3 T's... Colleen's and Floris work the best in my water. i use la little more water than i use when i shave in areas/ homes with good soft water. You also need to work the brush a little more but it works a charm.

Chris:
I have what we call Chip-a-Tooth water out of our own well... I have found that when I am traveling, I can make lather by just looking at the brush and the soap it is so easy comparatively speaking... I compensate at home two ways, one I use Uberlather, it does work.. Two, really, really hot water helps a ton, however if you use boiling water that for some reason hinders the lather (I don't know why) Using these two things I get great lather even at home...

Chris

Try Castle Forbes shaving cream. It costs a ton, but it lasts an age. And it makes lather like a rabid dog in water with a couple of flicks of the brush.

The problem here is that when you have really hard water (and I do too) soaps that contain mainly, well, soap will perform very poorly.So you need a soap thats full of chemicals. The more chemicals which counteract the offending minerals (magnesium and calcium) the better the soap will perform. Personally, I have a water softener but some say put a little borax in the water to create great lather. Really I think its easier to buy a jug of soft water for shaving and then you can use any soap you want rather than worry about what soap to buy.

Chris_L,

I haven't started shaving with a straight razor yet but here is my plan, bear with me with the knowledge I am a newbie.

If I'm correct with my thinking here, you mix a small amount of water with the soap to create the lather to apply to your face, right? It's not like you need it directly out of the sink, and in large quantities.

So, my idea is similar to thebigspendur's but more cost effective (no pun intended haha!), get a Brita Water Filter (jug). I'm at college and my dorm water is very hard and really annoying for my hair. My plan is to use my existing Brita Water Filter jug to just filter out the crap from the water, then proceed to put that water into something that will heat it ***I say this because you cannot put hot water through Brita filters, it supposedly won't work very well***

I found a thread today that really perfected my idea: http://straightrazorpalace.com/brush...c-scuttle.html -Using a miniature crock pot, I'll be able to heat my filtered, and therefore soft water!

Brita + Mini crock pot = Hot, filtered water!

Gentlemen, I use rain water which I collect in a 50 gallon barrell and then run through a britta filter . I then boil it in a small electric kettle, add a little cool filtered rain water and lather away. Florida has the hardest water in the US so my plumber tells me , however rainwater is soft and lathers fantastically with practically any soap.

I actually did a test and found that a variety of soaps lathered way much better with rainwater than withFlorida tap water.

I made Uberlather yesterday with hot/ filtered rainwater and a scentless cream and Mama bears British leather soap, a few drops of glycerin and a DB scuttle and shaving was a pure joy.

Best

Jeremy


Celebrate Manliness! It's great to be a man......

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I have seen miniature crock pots that I think the ladies use to steam potpourri in. Such a size would be perfect for heating up some small amount of soft water for me to dip my brush in. I may have to have my wife buy one of those. Thankfully she's not into scented candles or potpourri as I can't stand the smell of those things so I don't think we'd be fighting over such a thing.

Chris L

I was gonna say to try bottled water...

a gallon is like .99 cents. While a few minutes more of prep you can just pour a little in a pyrex mesuring cup and microwave it for maybe 30 seconds and your good to go ... BUT I have never tried it so I dont know that bottled water would be "softer".

The brita idea seems great as well...

If you're not against trying a cream, I recently came accross body shop's maca root. Houston's tap water is kind of hard, but it's not the hardest water I've ever seen. It seems to wrok well enough (it didn't dry out).