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What kind of shaving soap or shaving cream has disappointed you and why?

The King

The King

Well-Known Member
Generally, we only read reviews of shaving soaps and shaving creams that make us happy because the scent and quality are excellent.

But in practice it turns out that we also make purchases that are very disappointing and of which we have great regrets afterwards.

And that makes me curious about what shaving soaps or shaving creams were a big disappointment for you after purchase.

To carefully open the ball and not to shoot all my gunpowder, I start my enumeration with the glycerine soap from Col Conk and the current formula shaving soaps from Crabtree & Evelyn, Treufitt & Hill and GF Trumper with which no standing lather can be produced.

Shaving soaps with a clear lack of care such as Kruitvat, the vergulde Hand and Wilkinson in the blue bowl.

Shaving creams that cannot be applied with a shaving brush like Rituals and Burt Bees that form a dirty greasy layer.

Then shaving soaps that have olive oil as the main ingredient so that there is no standing lather to make.

Shaving soaps whose base consists of nourishing saponified oils and where, for example, no sodium stearate is added so that you get lather that disappears immediately when applied to the face. Examples are the Werfzeep and Good Damn Soap

And although this of course has a high degree of YMMV I am still very curious by what shaving soaps or creams you are disappointed.
 
Most of the soaps I disregard are because of scent problems, take for example Speick, it is a good shaving soap, but i really dislike the scent, even to the extent that i gave it away after one go. I have heard folks say that they value the shaving quality of a soap above the scent, for me both must perform. A great soap with a bad of low scent is just not it for me.
My biggest disappointment? MdC Agrumes, great shaving soap, but the smell just was not for me, so i gave it away. Strange enough i like the smell of lemons, fresh ones, but in soap it tends to lean in the Cleaning liquid side of lemon scent. The Agrumes had less of this than the Speick, but it irritated my nose. Lets just say that YMMV is especially true for shaving soaps :)
Crème type shaving products i generally dislike, period.
Maybe as a pre-shave, but not for general use, i just do not like te feeling and consistency of it.
 
Soaps that are too dry - Golddachs, Vergulde Hand.
Soaps that I dislike the smell of - Arko (never even tried it because of the smell), ToBS Lemon & Lime
And Palmolive cream. Never got good lather from it. May mean I can't lather properly.
 
Hard shaving soap from T&H , TOBS etc it dries the skin

Soap with menthol Rosemary, peppermint, eucalyptus allergy

Le Pere Lucien all flavours: both reasons
 
How about Derby a soap that reminds me more of very cheap washing powder than shaving soap just brrrrrr. :p

Then the soap with the most chemical lavender smell in my opinion Monsavon , I think this soap lights up in the dark. :D

Besides that I'm allergic to very sweet smelling soaps so vanilla, anise, cinnamon and relatives don't appeal to me either.

But you can't punish me worse than shaving soaps with an almond or an amaretto liqueur scent I get (and that's the truth) when I use it I get an incredibly weak feeling from in my belly. :mad:
 
Truefitt and Hill Sandalwood Cream. For me a wonderfull nice Sandalwood scent. However, unfortunately I got an allergic reaction. My skin feelt very terrible after using the cream.

Therefore I gave the cream away to someone who did not have any problems with the cream.
 
Luckily that doesn't bother me with the creams but the Jermyn street shaving soap always gives me some excitement and that's crazy because I don't feel it on the skin when using the Sandalwood shaving soap.

To think that the Jermyn street is for sensitive skin. :confused

There is only one smell of TOBs that I detest and that is the Lemon & Lime that I think comes directly from a chemical factory so unnatural it smells. :sad
 
Soap must first lather well and lay a good cushion on my face. Next, it must have a good scent, one that is as the label says, that I can smell while shaving, that does not linger in my bathroom until the next day. Thirdly, it must leave my face feeling good after the shave. A lack of any of the three and it becomes my bath soap if I cannot coax it to work. The scent part is very important. Some I can smell if I put the puck to my face, but not during lathering. Some say it is something, but I smell the last scent first and no scent that it says it is.

My main problem, however, is that there are many soaps that fit all three requirements and I cannot use them up fast enough. I wish that soap makers would package soaps in smaller sizes (like 2-3 oz) so I can use them up faster and move on.
 
gvw755 said:
Soap must first lather well and lay a good cushion on my face. Next, it must have a good scent, one that is as the label says, that I can smell while shaving, that does not linger in my bathroom until the next day. Thirdly, it must leave my face feeling good after the shave. A lack of any of the three and it becomes my bath soap if I cannot coax it to work. The scent part is very important. Some I can smell if I put the puck to my face, but not during lathering. Some say it is something, but I smell the last scent first and no scent that it says it is.

My main problem, however, is that there are many soaps that fit all three requirements and I cannot use them up fast enough. I wish that soap makers would package soaps in smaller sizes (like 2-3 oz) so I can use them up faster and move on.
Click to expand...

There you say something interesting with which many will agree, namely a packaging unit of 75 grams.

When the Dutch razor brand "de Scheermonnik" wanted to start production, he asked the members of a shaving forum what they considered to be the ideal weight for a shaving soap packaging.

Most members chose 75 grams. The reasons for this were the same as your motivation that 75 grams of soap goes up faster.
This allows you to change soap more quickly and allows you to discover more soaps.
In addition, if you do a bad bargain in terms of smell or quality, the amount of money can be overlooked.
And if you like the shaving soap very much, you can buy a new one.

An example I had on hand the other day I bought the Mango shaving soap from new line of Kepkinh which has recently increased its prices from €17 to €28.

I found the smell too sweet and gave it away immediately, and then I would have preferred that there were only 75 grams in the pot because then I would have been a € 14 cheaper.
 
50 - 75 grams is a perfect size. Most samples are much smaller and more expensive per volume and does not suit the purpose. I have a friend that has a line of small batch shaving soap and I always request him to put my order into 2 oz tubs and so I order two different scents for the same price and everyone is happy.
 
The only thing I could recognize as a problem when switching to 2-3 oz packaging is that they are going to use too small jars which makes it difficult to load larger shaving brushes properly.

I have several 2 oz jars of Catie's Bubbles and there fits at most a shaving brush of 24 mm. in it. And yes I can remove the soap with a spoon but I prefer charging the brush on the soap surface.

However, if you proceed to (travel) pots such as TOBS and Proraso which are currently used where you can also load large brushes without problems, then they should not start me early enough to introduce this in general.

Would the necessary storage space for most shavers benefit ........... or just space to buy more soaps. :lol
 

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I would applaud this, it gives me wiggle room to fit in more soaps in the same space, and you get to finish soaps before the scent goes away.
The size of the Jar would be a consideration, as i also like to use it to load my brush, and prefer not to have to mess with the soap to transfer it elsewhere.
And cheaper, so (as said before) you can buy two scents for the (now) price of one. For me the MdC would be welcome in 1/4 of what he packages (with a 1/4 price also attainable for all users), and no glass container please, wet soapy hands and glass is asking for an impending disaster.
 
The only “soap” I wouldn’t recommend to anybody is also the Rituals “samurai secret”

I really think that the “secret” is how to use it properly.

There are a lot of soaps I wouldn’t buy anymore, but that is because there are ao many good soaps I like beter
Mama bears, Stirling, Simpsons S.V etc are setting the benchmark for me. A new soap has to be equal to them.
 
Personally I don't like palm based soaps. Or palm to substitute some other ingredient in some reformulations.
They don't perform well for me.
For example, La Toja stick (great clean scent), the new LEA stick, new Haslinger.

I was also disappointed with wickham's performance (but maybe I didn't try it enough before PIFing it).

For creams it was the Indian Old Spice in both scent and performance, even though it had a great silky feel when hand lathering.
 
Dr. Bronners shaving gel: bought it on holiday in Canada. Whatever the amount of gel: there comes no foam; it does not glide; I was wondered why it is still for sale (of maybe that is the reason)
 
Onno said:
Dr. Bronners shaving gel: bought it on holiday in Canada. Whatever the amount of gel: there comes no foam; it does not glide; I was wondered why it is still for sale (of maybe that is the reason)
Click to expand...
That's too bad! The bar soap gives a nice foam!
I like the peppermint!
 
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