Thread: Soap Vs. Cream

I use GF Trumper's Sandalwood soap 6 days a week. Works great, lasts a long time, although I wish the scent was more persistent.

Sundays, I treat myself to 3 passes with Queen Charlotte's Key Lime shaving cream.

At first I preferred creams with TOBS and Castle Forbes being favourites. Now I find myself using soaps more and more. There is nothing more gratifying than building a great lather straight from the soap puck.
If you havent tried MWF yet get it. Its awesome!

I personally enjoy soap over cream. I find making a lather for cream to be more annoying for me. That's probably because I spent longer lathering soap and my technique is pretty nice with that. I also find that a good soap lather lasts longer than a shaving cream lather. Obviously, my preference. I just got Trumper's Eucris hard soap and was great. Though I would have preferred if they had the spanish leather in soap *sigh*. I haven't tried too many brands (a little over 4 different brands), but out of all of the ones I tried (VDH, Pro,Trumper, T&H, natural) I enjoyed Trumper the most.

I go back and forth between the soap and cream. I'll always have the following:

creams: Art of shaving lemon, lavender and proraso in the green tube.
soaps: Tabac, MWF, Palmolive soap stick.

MDC...Italian Barber RazoRockXXX Special edition ( Only 100 made ).......

I haven't really been able to get into soaps for the year that I've been really using different soaps and creams (i.e. start of SR shaving). I much prefer creams so far, though, to be honest, I haven't tried a lot of soaps.

I REALLY like O Melhor cream. Also, very much on par is Body Shop Macca Root. T&H Trafalgar is really easy to lather and has a strong smell, so I like that too. Top Secret cream is excellent for the price and I liked Speick when I used it. I also used to like Musgo Real cream.

. . . Also, very much on par is Body Shop Macca Root. . .

I got really nice lather with the Body Shop shaving cream. Unfortunately, I don't like the smell -- but you might.

I haven't found anything that's better than Tabac soap, but I haven't started playing in the "high end".

Charles

This topic has been brought up many times before, and you always see the same soaps over and over. That's a hint. There are so many choices in this hobby, you'll never get bored, that's for sure. I like both soaps and creams, Each has it's own character, and benefits. For Shave Creams, Domenico Caraceni 1913 was hard to beat. Too bad it's no longer made.
So, the same company makes Xpec. Also a top notch cream. Those are both high end (expensive) shave creams. Castle Forbes, Truefitt and Hill, TOBS, GFT, and AOS to name a few.

Soaps, You'll always see MWF, Tabac, and Proraso. These are staples, like Williams and VDH. I recently picked up a puck of DR Harris Marlborogh, and was blown away by it's performance. I also grabbed a tube of the Arlington shave cream. Tubes are great if you haven't tried a product, they're less expensive.
Anyway, Soap....La'Occtaine, Martin De Candre, Any triple milled soap. There's quite a few artisan offerings as well. SRD makes great soap. I really liked their Rose Otto. Good stuff. There's a vendor called Queen Charlotte that makes good shave soap, and shave creams.

We used to have "Prairie Creations" The owner "Krissy" made Tallow based shave soaps. Good stuff, but I believe she's on hiatus or something. She always seemed to have a lot going on. Same as The Gentleman's Quarter. Colleen made good soaps. P160, C and S 88 (if u can afford it) and Ogalla to name a few more, and the list goes on and on....

In my particular case I use both. In regards soaps the one that I love even thou I use many of them is the D.R. Harris Marlborough sent as well as their version in cream also the P160 and the MWF. In regards the creams I have to say that I have 3 options Trafalgar Truefitt & Hill, D.R. Harris Marlborough, Trumper Sandalwood. In the other hand going back to the soaps in the sandalwood version of trumper (for me) is a compleate desaster, the scent is not the same as the cream.

thanks
K

Ive used both creams and soaps for the past 3 months.

Soaps:
MWF
Tabac
Dr Harris
TOBS

Creams:
Cella
Razorock King Louis
Pacific Shaving Company
AOS


They are all fantastic and its choosing between 1A and 1B. There isn't a single one i wish i did not buy, and they are all part of the rotation, and they all performance spectacularly. One things for sure, far cry from the canned goo.