Thread: English Shaving Soaps

I use Arlington, Marlborough and Almond Harris soap. I work a damp brush over the puck and develop the lather inside my scuttle bowl. The lather is rich and thick with little effort and no additional water. For the second and third pass I may add a droplet or two in the bowl to stimulate the lather but that's it.

Originally Posted by loueedacat

It's acutally a proprietary blend of the lard from ducks, chickens and turkeys, but at the end of the day Mr. Mitchell didn't have the nerve to call it Mitchell's Turducken Fat.

louee,

Don't dat be schmaltz, or would that be schmallow?

Yeah I tried it twice...it was better the second time...I think i may be starting with to dry a brush...i use a best or pure badger brush and squeeze it pretty dry...i will try a little damper brush next time....otherwise i like it so much more than my Glycerin ones i had been using. I know its english soap thread but I also got TABAC and that was really easy to lather and very nice to shave with.

Thanks.

With regards to the English Shaving Soaps, I've found the best to be Penhaligon's English Fern, followed closely by their BB (older tallow versions). Like many have mentioned previously, GFT was a bit underwhelming, although I've read that the old stock, i.e. tallow based, version was much better than the reformulation. I've also not had the opportunity to try Yardley yet as I know they no longer make ss so will have to search out on the bay if I want that.

With regards to the English soaps, my thoughts are the German Soaps ( Tabac, IM ) are the kings at this point.

Originally Posted by erictski

Yeah I tried it twice...it was better the second time...

This is typical of hard soaps. The surface of the soap absorbs a little water from the brush each day and if you keep the lid on the soap this holds over to the next day and it gets softer and easier lathering. After a few days it'll be lathering like a champ, and over the next few weeks this process of absorption will cause the puck to swell and fit the bowl tightly. The hard soaps really come into their own after about a month of continuous use.

Originally Posted by mparker762

This is typical of hard soaps. The surface of the soap absorbs a little water from the brush each day and if you keep the lid on the soap this holds over to the next day and it gets softer and easier lathering. After a few days it'll be lathering like a champ, and over the next few weeks this process of absorption will cause the puck to swell and fit the bowl tightly. The hard soaps really come into their own after about a month of continuous use.

Aha, good point.

I milled mine, which is probably why it lathered like a champ right out of the blocks.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Aha, good point.

I milled mine, which is probably why it lathered like a champ right out of the blocks.

That will do it. One other thing I forgot to mention is that the surface of a soap will develop a bit of a skin over time. You see this with hand and bath soaps as well, but since the lather there isn't as critical nobody thinks twice about it. But with shaving soaps you may need a few days just to get past the skin. Obviously grating the soap exposes the fresh easy-lathering innards of the puck.

I'm not really a fan of grating soaps though, because this winds up exposing too much of the surface of the soap to the water, so you lose aroma faster, and not all the compounds in the soap dissolve in water at the same rate. If you're slowly wearing downthe top of the puck this isn't a problem, but if you expose a high fraction of the soap to water then you could get into the situation where the performance of the soap drops very quickly. This is the reason the performance of soaps sometimes drops off so dramatically when you get down to the last thin sliver, especially if you lather on the soap. The first puck of Harris I ever tried was milled it into a cup, and within a few months it was terrible - no scent and poor lather. I chucked it and got a puck of Arlington with the wooden bowl and it was good until very near the end when it just wouldn't lather anymore and I tossed it.

CAMBRIDGE CHEMISTS RECEIPT
PRODUCT Czech & Speake No 88 Shaving Soap Refill (for Black Glass Dish)
SKUel2090
COLOR
SIZE
QUANTITY----1
PRICE$36.00
Subtotal:$36.00T
ax:$0.00
Shipping (a) Ground (Domestic US)):$8.95



Do I need to say any more?

Originally Posted by Seraphim

CAMBRIDGE CHEMISTS RECEIPT
PRODUCT Czech & Speake No 88 Shaving Soap Refill (for Black Glass Dish)
SKUel2090
COLOR
SIZE
QUANTITY----1
PRICE$36.00
Subtotal:$36.00T
ax:$0.00
Shipping (a) Ground (Domestic US)):$8.95



Do I need to say any more?

I can't wait to hear your thoughts. It wasn't until the last few months that I've actually enjoyed a rose scent, so I've always dismissed this soap.

Dave

Yeah, I'm interested in it as well. I'm a fan of Valobra shave stick, so my hopes are high for this as well.

I have SCS Savory Rose AS balm, which has a very strong rose scent, which I enjoy. So I figure I may as well head down the primrose path....

I also have sent out a request to a guy who says he found some old formulation tallow Trumpers Rose.....



Since this is the English shaving soaps thread, I'll mention here as well how pleased I am with the Penhaligon's EF!