Thread: Poll: soap or cream - what do you prefer?

Originally Posted by klingenmeister

Hi everyone! I prefer the cream filling for the reason of not having to wait to hydrate a puck.

Why do you like either or?

Cream filling? That's what you find in an eau claire (sp?), not a lathering bowl! Hydrate a puck? That's weird.. the only puck I've actually applied a literal interpretation of "hydrate a puck" to is j.b. williams mug soap. despite it's long-held slogan of a "famous for its long-lasting lather", due to its many degraded reformulations it's really "Infamous for it's crappy lather!" I immersed it in water once, in an air-tight screw top lid container overnight, then refreshed it a few times with a little water (not immersed) and kept it sealed after use with residual water and gooey goodness on the surface of the puck. All soaps I keep either sealed with whatever moisture they may accrue from use or allowed to air dry for the day (if I didn't bother to close them).

Creams are better for sharing with others (even the softer vegetable oil soaps (glycerin soaps) needed to be melted and in a container that allows for brush loading).

Pucks win hand down for practicality because with less water they are less microbe-friendly and need less preservatives (though parabens are great as skin cell endocrine disruptors if you have a tough beard). They are a heck of a lot more bang for the buck, too. Less microbes and chemical preservatives that go with that problem, more economical/lasts longer. And let's face it: if you're a real man you won't have a problem with simply loading a brush from a puck of soap, especially if you have enough of a mind to use a str8 or DE. Besides, most of us seem to have some wait time moistening the whiskers which we can do while cleaning off the protective oil on the blade and stropping. Splash on some water and/or gentle hand soap, load up brush and develop the shaving lather gives us a head start on the softening prep game.

Gentlemen,
I voted for soap, because soap is what I mostly use. Not that soap is better than cream. No, of course not. There are some exquisite creams out there. Soaps, rather, represent to me more of a tradition, of the way things were, and wet shaving is quilted in tradition. The weekends are reserved for cream and a sweet silver tip badger brush. I have concluded that the shave den is a neighborhood in paradise, whether I use soap or cream.

Originally Posted by AxelH

Cream filling? That's what you find in an eau claire (sp?), not a lathering bowl! Hydrate a puck? That's weird.. the only puck I've actually applied a literal interpretation of "hydrate a puck" to is j.b. williams mug soap. despite it's long-held slogan of a "famous for its long-lasting lather", due to its many degraded reformulations it's really "Infamous for it's crappy lather!" I immersed it in water once, in an air-tight screw top lid container overnight, then refreshed it a few times with a little water (not immersed) and kept it sealed after use with residual water and gooey goodness on the surface of the puck. All soaps I keep either sealed with whatever moisture they may accrue from use or allowed to air dry for the day (if I didn't bother to close them).

Creams are better for sharing with others (even the softer vegetable oil soaps (glycerin soaps) needed to be melted and in a container that allows for brush loading).

Pucks win hand down for practicality because with less water they are less microbe-friendly and need less preservatives (though parabens are great as skin cell endocrine disruptors if you have a tough beard). They are a heck of a lot more bang for the buck, too. Less microbes and chemical preservatives that go with that problem, more economical/lasts longer. And let's face it: if you're a real man you won't have a problem with simply loading a brush from a puck of soap, especially if you have enough of a mind to use a str8 or DE. Besides, most of us seem to have some wait time moistening the whiskers which we can do while cleaning off the protective oil on the blade and stropping. Splash on some water and/or gentle hand soap, load up brush and develop the shaving lather gives us a head start on the softening prep game.

I'm not discounting soap, but at this point in my early SR shaving career, it already takes long enough to shave - I may move back to soap once I can shave in less than 30 minutes. lol

You can't tell me that the TOBS cream doesn't looking like twinkie filling

Wow I never really thought about this until I saw this post, I prefer the puck for the variety you can choose from, However I did pick a really nice muck from the Art of Shaving in LasVegas.

Originally Posted by klingenmeister

I'm not discounting soap, but at this point in my early SR shaving career, it already takes long enough to shave - I may move back to soap once I can shave in less than 30 minutes. lol

You can't tell me that the TOBS cream doesn't looking like twinkie filling

Yeah, those whipped creams really look like.. well.. whipped cream!

I almost always UBER.. not always but usually. I love trying to combine and make something different.
Paul