Thread: Greener Soaps?

Okay! A bit of an update. It seems Method shaving is probably not right for me. While it does put an emphasis on more organic and less artificial products, it requires even more products than not going with this particular method and besides, many of these products have palm oil and require one another... a shame, it looked promising. -_-;

I suppose I will just now pretend that I did not even consider Method shaving and continue learning stuff as you guys preach it. I guess now my goal in a soap is to A: Go sans Tallow, B: The closer/more convenient the better, C: More natural goodies, less artificial crap, and D: preferably decent packaging, no super thick plastic shrink wrap around a thick plastic bottle. I know I must sound kinda whiny about this but I'm just trying to make a good choice out of what seems to be an ocean of products.

You aren't being whiny, just particular about what you want. I actually started shaving with a straight for the same "green" reasons you posted.

I just got a little carried away with natural hones, razors etc. somehow or another.


Anyhow, I think there are some sellers in the Vendor's corner who make their own soap, and that's an idea.

My wife makes our soap for home use, no animal fats or anything. I can tell you this, it ain't a "green" process.

It is fun, but you have a LOT of plastic bottles full of oil, lye, etc sitting around and all those products need to be shipped... sigh

We live in a disposable society and it's a very difficult thing to work around if you want to minimize your impact on landfills or the environment in general.

Have you thought about using the Body Shop's Cream? It's very good stuff, and they are quite a green company. They also have a synthetic brush, but I don't know if it's any good. I hear the Omega Syntex is pretty good, though.

Apparently they say that this is a good synthetic. It seems to cost a decent amount so at least I know it probably isn't one of incredibly poor quality.

men-u Premier Shaving Brush and Stand, with FREE Shaving/Skin Travel Set.

Also I know that some stuff like hones cannot get very green so those in my opinion are not worth stressing over however some stuff that I will be repurchasing time and time again, it may be worth finding a slightly greener alternative.


Also about the Body Shop's cream... can that be applied with a brush? I tried another shaving 'cream' and it just would not lather up so I thought that it wasn't made with that in mind... don't want to have to buy a whole can of the stuff and find out that it renders my brush useless...

Originally Posted by LuckyCynic

{snip}

Also about the Body Shop's cream... can that be applied with a brush? I tried another shaving 'cream' and it just would not lather up so I thought that it wasn't made with that in mind... don't want to have to buy a whole can of the stuff and find out that it renders my brush useless...

The Body Shop Maca Root cream is an EXCELLENT brush cream. I would put it up with the top English creams in terms of quality.

Wood ash plus water = base
Rendered animal fat = oil

Mix together in the right proportions with heat till the fat sopinifies.

You could use the ashes from your wood fire for rendering the fat.

It does not get greener than that.

Charlie

So okay guys, a bit of an update. I managed to go to the mall which I am thankful that I have a huge one near by that has all kinds of exotic and nice stores.

I checked out Lush for soapy goodness and they hardly have anything appropriate for this type of shaving. However, the Body shop had what felt like a really good synthetic for $11 and it was really nice and soft and worth it I felt. Also it seems that their shaving cream would be a best bet because they do have one that actually lathers up. Then I checked out a Crabtree and evelyn store which hardly had stuff that appealed to me. Hardly anything in that store was green or all natural or organic or anything, though they did have their $35 "Best" badger hair brush but it wasn't particularly softer then the Body Shop's.

Trouble is, I have a whole bar of Williams to work through and also this new boar hair brush... $8 from a drug store but I fear that if I get my synthetic, then I doubt it would get much use... oh well. Maybe I can offer it to someone here if they want it.

Originally Posted by LuckyCynic

So okay guys, a bit of an update. I managed to go to the mall which I am thankful that I have a huge one near by that has all kinds of exotic and nice stores.

I checked out Lush for soapy goodness and they hardly have anything appropriate for this type of shaving. However, the Body shop had what felt like a really good synthetic for $11 and it was really nice and soft and worth it I felt. Also it seems that their shaving cream would be a best bet because they do have one that actually lathers up. Then I checked out a Crabtree and evelyn store which hardly had stuff that appealed to me. Hardly anything in that store was green or all natural or organic or anything, though they did have their $35 "Best" badger hair brush but it wasn't particularly softer then the Body Shop's.

Trouble is, I have a whole bar of Williams to work through and also this new boar hair brush... $8 from a drug store but I fear that if I get my synthetic, then I doubt it would get much use... oh well. Maybe I can offer it to someone here if they want it.

LuckyCynic, get the Body Shop cream (I put a link to my review in my previous post, but didn't make it obvious--looking back, that was a bad move, sorry. try clicking the word "cream"--I love that stuff, more than most people probably), and use the Williams in the shower or as a face wash or something (there's also no law against trading off between cream one day, and soap the next). Your face will thank you for it, and you won't be wasting anything. As for the boar brush--keep it for travel or give it to a newb in need if you'd rather use the synthetic. There are plenty of people who need a starter brush!

The C&E BBB is actually a very popular, and fairly high quality, brush. It's made by Edwin Jagger, a good old English Brand. It was too soft for me (I much prefer Boar to badger...but don't tell on me! ) but many people love it. If you catch one of C&E's frequent sales, you can often get it for less than $30, though if yoU7re worried about animal issues then I would certainy not recommend using badger--they are harvested in China, and no matter what anyone tells me about "humane harvesting" and "people eat them", I have no faith in Chinese animal husbandry and humane treatment.

Originally Posted by JimR

The Body Shop Maca Root cream is an EXCELLENT brush cream. I would put it up with the top English creams in terms of quality.

Okay guys I just came back from the mall. Thankfully I live like 9 miles away from a huge major mall and it has all sorts of really high end and nice stores. There's a Lush which carries a lot of green products but not much for shaving. There is also The Body Shop which I got to feel their nice synthetic brush which was good, especially for $11 and their cream looks good too. I also went to a crabtree and evalyn which frankly was nothing I was looking for. Hardly anything was natural or organic and everything was still pricey... still, I got to check out their brushes and I saw the "best" badger hair brush for $35 which seems quite popular but the synthetic from Body Shop seemed softer... more springy, but definitely comparable.


Now what sucks is that I am stuck with my $7 boar hair brush that I JUST bought. :P

Oh well, maybe I can move it or hand it off to someone here. But yeah, I think I would definitely like to work with a Body Shop line of soaps and products. They aren't 100% organic or natural, but they sure are better than other companies out there and they aren't "Bleeding from the eyes" expensive either!

Originally Posted by LuckyCynic

Apparently they say that this is a good synthetic. It seems to cost a decent amount so at least I know it probably isn't one of incredibly poor quality.

men-u Premier Shaving Brush and Stand, with FREE Shaving/Skin Travel Set.

I have a Men-U premier brush and do not like it much. It is very floppy. Plus, it is very crappily built. The handle it comes with is really cheap plastic. I just got a Jack Black brush and it is built like a tank. Very good quality. Plus it is a much denser brush and seems better with the triple-milled, non-tallow soaps I use. The brush is the biggest challenge I have found in wetshving without using animal products. For every other aspect there are great alternatives, but mimicking the performance and quality of a badger hair brush has left a lot to be desired. I have tried the Body Shop brush, too. But have not tried the Omegas. I have heard they are also pretty floppy.

Tony Miller -- wellshavedgentleman.com -- makes very high quality vegan strops. I have been using one for almost a year and it works very well. He takes making vegan alternatives very seriously, and will work with you to make whatever you want. He made a very nice cotton strop for me that I use for sharpening pastes, and it uses the same synthetic components where normally he would use leather. The two strops match perfectly and are high quality.