Soap Vs. Cream

As I start to develop more confidence in my shaving ability I am playing around more with the different soaps/creams I've collected over the years before taking the plunge and getting the razor.

Right now I have Williams (not yet tried), Prorazo for soap and Derby (menthol) and some body shop brand for cream. I must say so far the Prorazo shave soap is my favorite I find it holds it's moisture longer and is really smooth and I love the smell.

Wondering what other member's opinions are on soap vs cream and what their absolute favorite (if that's possible cause I think I've switched a few times in the short time I've been into this). I have a healthy supply of creams and soaps so it'll be some time before I get to experiment with something new but I am always curious.

Every one has their own opinion, but Proaso is generally considered a pretty good soap. A few of the more popular ones would be: Cella, Castle Forbes (creams), Tabac, DR Harris (soaps and creams), TOBS (soaps and Creams), MWF. In shave sticks, Arko, Palmolive, and Valobra have a lot of fans.

There are plenty of other great ( and popular) soaps and creams, and they tend to be a very personal sort of preference.

P.S. try a superlather with the Williams and Derby ( loading the brush with Williams, then adding the derby to a bowl and lathering, so that your lather has some of each), the two go together well, and the whole is more than the sum of the parts.

I am still pretty new to this, but I have some SRD unscented soap, and some C.O. Bigelow cream. At first, I liked the SRD soap better, because I could get a thicker fluffier lather, and the C.O. Bigelow seemed to dry out more quickly and make my face a little sticky. Now that I have my moisture contents down, I prefer the C.O. Bigelow. slick shave, great smell, and I love the cooling eucalyptus.

I've tried to pick a favourite. Repeatedly. Failed every time; the bottom line is I just love so many different ones in both soap or cream variety, I'm doomed to have drawers full of them both for decades to come. I do very much like the new Proraso, I have yet to try the White and Green varieties in the new formula but have a feeling they will be quality products. Sadly, I'll miss the Aloe & Green Tea :(

I find it hard to pick a fav soap or cream as I use both equally but some of my favs are
Soap: Martin de candre , la toja, Palmolive , Arko, razorock xxx,mikes natural soap, mwf
Creams; Spencer and Devon, lavanda, arko cream, fitjar, acca kappa

Just to get ya started ;)

Becoming more of a cream fan. Started off with MWF and TABAC, but the creams TO ME are easier get the consistancy I prefer. I tried pretty hard not to like Proraso (green tub)...the menthol blast really set me off at first. But I confess, it's grown on me quite a bit, and with warmer temps coming, it's the choice de' jour more often than not, even over some fabulous T&H offerings. The Trumpers Spanish Leather last night was outstanding as well... in fact I've not heard one bad comment about Trumpers line.

Sample packs are your friend.

The only soap I have is Williams the rest are creams. I second Sargon's suggestion to use Williams as part of making a superlather. I do that every day and it works well with all the creams that I have.

Bob

I have so many different soaps and creams. I have tried many and have sold many. I have to choose soap for my favourite over creams. I am not sure why this is, A few things that come to mind is that soap pucks last months longer than tubes of creams. And I like the consistency of soaps better than creams. I started out with soaps and will stick with them for the rest of my life most likely :) great thread though, I love reading everyones opinions..:)

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Originally Posted by BobH

The only soap I have is Williams the rest are creams. I second Sargon's suggestion to use Williams as part of making a superlather. I do that every day and it works well with all the creams that I have.

Bob

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I tried this today and WOW!!! I only wished I had more time as I was doing a 1 pass shave before work but I wanted to venture and try a 2 or 3 pass (not yet attempted) the shave felt so good. You got me hooked sir, well done.

Glad it worked for you. I have the advantage of being retired so a 3 pass shave is my everyday routine. I also add a few drops of glycerine and a drop of lanolin to the mix. There usually is more than enough lather for the 3 passes. I am going to try using an Arko shave stick in place of the Williams and see what happens. Just got the Arko today.

Bob

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 ).......:mexwave:

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.

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

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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.

I'm still new to the entire process, so I still qualify as learning even for making a lather, but I tend to find creams more forgiving. At this point that alone has earned them a preference at the moment. It may change.

I find Proraso soap is more of a mixture of soap & cream. I love it, but it's also the only soap I've used. Maybe the reason I like it is because it has a softer "cream" property. P.S. I'm assuming you mean Proraso, as opposed to "Prorazo"? As for creams, I also like Proraso, and The Body Shop Maca Root. ;)

I fall into the camp of having an easier time creating the proper lather using creams. However, I do like the scent of many of the soap pucks, and don't want to give up on them. So I sort of use them both - and sometimes the soap in an unconventional way:

After stepping out of the shower, I wet one side of the puck, and begin swirling the puck directly onto my face [wet side to face]. The whiskers act like a shaving brush, peeling some material from the puck, and creating a pseudo lather on the face. What this does for me is to get the whiskers hydrating and lubricating immediately upon exiting the shower. Now, I can make my "real" lather in my mixing bowl using a cream. One can consider the soap application as a pre-shave or pre-cream prep step.

Since I have this lubricating layer of shaving soap already on my face, it helps the skin from drying out while I whip up the lather - especially important during winter. I don't feel rushed in making the lather, because my skin remains hydrated. The other benefit is that during my lather making operation - I can enjoy the scent of whatever soap is sitting on my face.

Just before applying the cream-created lather to my face, I lightly rinse off to insure the soap hasn't filmed-up on me.

I'm going to have to try this out. Thanks, nvpliers!

nvpliers

Sounds like a new twist on making uberlather, using the soap puck as a shave stick.

Bob