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And now for the third head of this hydra, the Do Not Buy thread https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1232832735124738048
And now for the third head of this hydra, the Do Not Buy thread https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1232832735124738048
Taylor of Old Bond Street
https://www.reddit.com/r/Wetshaving/wiki/tobs this thread is accurate to my entire experience with the brand, the stuff has been absolutely godawful for my face except for Jermyn Street
https://www.reddit.com/r/Wetshaving/wiki/tobs this thread is accurate to my entire experience with the brand, the stuff has been absolutely godawful for my face except for Jermyn Street
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1232831842614530048?s=20 I miss these goobers
The old green box VDH was way better than TOBS, Proraso, and the new "luxury" VDH, and better than most soaps and creams at the time, for all of two bucks. Real Shave Co was actual top tier for $4.
The old green box VDH was way better than TOBS, Proraso, and the new "luxury" VDH, and better than most soaps and creams at the time, for all of two bucks. Real Shave Co was actual top tier for $4.
This entire shit. TOBS is the most popular brush and cream on Amazon because of years of being "totally comparable to $30 Truefitt & Hill shaves!" for like ten bucks. It was $15 when I bought my tub of sandalwood and it's up to over $20 by now.
I suppose if the reformulation brought the base line up to par with Jermyn St then it might justify a price increase? But not to $20. Jermyn St brought it up from "eldritch parasite devouring your skin alive" to "barely acceptable, but still below $2 VDH par".
One of the more cursed things about trying to get into brush and soap shaving was the immortal reverence for Proraso green, and especially the old formula with parabens. That shit tore my skin apart just like old formula TOBS.
Proraso red was the one acceptable one, and even just made it over into 9/10 tier. Below real shave co, but just barely. If you find one for five bucks at a Marshall's or Burlington then it might be worth a bite.
https://dailylather.com/hashtags/creamweek?page=1 but nah if you absolutely must use a popular beginner cream it's better to go with other stuff. Spieck and Nivea are highly regarded, and Musgo is as good as the hype.
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1231786056594251776?s=20 if you can dip your toe just a little bit deeper you can get rebranded Truefitt & Hill level cream for $17.
Mitchell's Wool Fat anti propaganda gang
This fucking shit was all over community meta forever and only just got knocked off its high horse by current high tier artisan culture
This fucking shit was all over community meta forever and only just got knocked off its high horse by current high tier artisan culture
It's notoriously hard to lather and has tutorials all over on how to make it work. But you know what, I'm fine with that, I managed to get a legitimately better lather out of crappy modern formula Williams mug soap than 95% of all lather ever
The bullshit is
1. It burns everyone's faces. It's notoriously bad for sensitive or even moderate skin with a long and ongoing track record of fucking up shavers' skin. The popular assumption is that it's an allergic reaction to the titular wool fat, which I call bullshit on
1. It burns everyone's faces. It's notoriously bad for sensitive or even moderate skin with a long and ongoing track record of fucking up shavers' skin. The popular assumption is that it's an allergic reaction to the titular wool fat, which I call bullshit on
I've used tons of lanolin infused soaps and creams and alongside shea butter, lanolin is the very best skin food for my face.
But the allergic reaction explanation is also bullshit because...
But the allergic reaction explanation is also bullshit because...
2. https://sharpologist.com/mitchells-wool-fat/ THIS MOTHERFUCKER ISN'T EVEN A WOOL FAT SOAP. IT'S A VEGETABLE SOAP WITH A DASH OF LANOLIN. The more likely culprit is the ambiguously named "parfum" seventh in the ingredients list. MWF scorched the hell out of my face in a way that's precisely and
Specifically more like the way that cheap fragrances and Old Navy body wash rips my skin than it is like the allergies I don't have.
https://www.maggardrazors.com/product/haslinger-sheeps-milk-schafmilch-shaving-soap-60g-puck/ the better wool fat cheap and skin caring hard soap is Haslinger anyway
https://www.maggardrazors.com/product/cella-crema-da-barba-shave-soap-150g/ Cella
This one is a little more of an ambivalent placement. It's as good as its hype as a higher shelf entry level cream but like, that's it, entry level. It's a solid b tier at best.
This one is a little more of an ambivalent placement. It's as good as its hype as a higher shelf entry level cream but like, that's it, entry level. It's a solid b tier at best.
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1232835057972236289?s=20 especially by this point in time you have way more options to buy superlatively better soaps, including this one at the same price point
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1232856780255854593?s=20 and this one below
https://www.maggardrazors.com/product-category/soaps-creams/valobra/ if you want a traditional Italian shaving soap, there are plenty others like Valobra. Their shave stick has long been highly rated, and their hard soap in a dish is the same formula that made Art of Shaving a community favorite back in the day.
It's like Mitchell's wool fat but worse. I could use up MWF as a bath soap, I could not use up Fine, it made like it wanted to slice my fingers off. And it's $16?! for a lather that's b tier at most. I literally should have bought the west coast shaving store brand over this.
https://www.italianbarber.com/products/razorock-mudder-focker-shave-soap razorock and Tcheon Fung Sing. It's uh. It's bad.
https://shavesoaps.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/razorock-xxx/ razorock is a popular cheap store brand soap whose claim to fame is the xxx scent. This thing is the epitome of forum hype. It was a claimed revival of the acqua di parma scent shortly after its original formulation had been discontinued,
On a soap base that didn't suck. This was back when an "artisan" shaving soap that didn't spontaneously cause your bathroom to burst into flames was not just a success but a top tier, so Joe's having connections with established OEMs in Italy with years of experience was
An unparalleled advantage.
https://sharpologist.com/razorock-caprician-lemon-2/ I jumped in during the time when RazoRock was pushing a couple of new artisan lines from a higher shelf of OEM than usual, and on the actual best shaving cream ever. King Louis Karite! That $15 tub kept pace with and beat
https://sharpologist.com/razorock-caprician-lemon-2/ I jumped in during the time when RazoRock was pushing a couple of new artisan lines from a higher shelf of OEM than usual, and on the actual best shaving cream ever. King Louis Karite! That $15 tub kept pace with and beat
Every single competitor that I threw up against it, including the hallowed Castle Forbes, including the over $70 XPEC and Antica Barbieria Colla and Martin de Candre. The only things that beat it were Real Shave Co and Santa Maria Novella.
It was very swiftly discontinued and made me sad for ages. After some scrounging around years later, I discovered that it was in fact new old stock of the original acqua di parma base, left unscented after the line was discontinued. So the stuff really did live up to the hype
Currently I have a tub of circa ~2015 essential oil of lavender, from the time when Tcheon Fung Sing was providing the vegan base for the entire line. It is aggressively mediocre, lathering it up to do one thing better makes it do another one worse (good luck getting
Good skin care out of this formula)
And by all accounts the current BEEF TALLOW BASED formula isn't really any better.
https://sharpologist.com/best-shaving-soap-for-old-school-shave/ the formulations mentioned in this comment are the ones unanimously agreed to be better than average.
And by all accounts the current BEEF TALLOW BASED formula isn't really any better.
https://sharpologist.com/best-shaving-soap-for-old-school-shave/ the formulations mentioned in this comment are the ones unanimously agreed to be better than average.
The mudder focker I linked above and the dead sea line are built around a single supposed skin superfood each (a certain region mud, or dead sea salt), and there's also a knock off of Santa Maria novella that's supposedly above average.
https://www.italianbarber.com/products/razorock-what-the-puck-shaving-soap-gold-label what the puck is the triple milled hard soap line that's supposedly finally a good value for the price again, but again, aggressively mediocre, I don't think I need to spend time out of my life on those
People will say RR is no longer a value buy *nowadays*, but bullpucky. Real Shave Co existed for $4 before. Barrister and Mann was top notch during the transition period between then and now. There's never been a time when even newbies were wanting for better value stuff.
https://dailylather.com/content/vendor-italian-barber-hot-seat but really the biggest reason not to buy RR is that the owner is the kind of asshole who doesn't need to write AITA threads because he knows he is and he wears it like a badge
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1232858577863184384?s=20 okay fuck it if Cella makes it on this list, Col Conk does too
I'm pretty damn sure there was at least one other brand in this category that I wanted to add
I'm pretty damn sure there was at least one other brand in this category that I wanted to add
https://www.westcoastshaving.com/collections/col-conk/products/col-conk-shaving-soap-almond-large-3-75-oz col conk is one of the most popular shaving soaps ever for two reasons, it's like the absolute first result when you order by price lowest to highest, and it doesn't suck
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1232850844233560064?s=20 that second item is actually a bigger deal than you might think
But also... It does? Kind of suck, at least relative to your other options. One fren asking for gear advice mentioned using Pacific Shave Co after shave balm, and I'm pretty sure pacific shave's shaving cream is better than conk.
Col Conk is a pure glycerin soap. Which, one, means that it runs out faster per ounce than just about any other shaving soap/cream form factor, so in the long run it ends up being more expensive to maintain. But whatever, that's fine as long as the shave is good, right
Two is that it gives a soap maker a lot of slick in the lather for relatively little effort. It is possible to make a high tier glycerin soap but Col Conk kind of does not have the branding, R&D budget, or motivation to do so. They make bank selling to the people who
Can't justify or afford $20 a pop and they have no reason to change anything about that.
https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/van-der-hagen-deluxe-shave-soap/ID=prod1898-product I'd recommend van Der hagen green box shipped to the nearest Walgreens in the US or any kind of shave stick in Europe for a better dollar shave soap
https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/van-der-hagen-deluxe-shave-soap/ID=prod1898-product I'd recommend van Der hagen green box shipped to the nearest Walgreens in the US or any kind of shave stick in Europe for a better dollar shave soap
But idk, and honestly I'd rather recommend upping your budget since it doesn't take that much of an asking price to get a 9/10 cream or so.
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1234420445568364546?s=20 Williams mug soap technically belongs here but I have an extreme dark souls bias for it
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1235323483359522816?s=20 if you do have a shaving brush and still want an entry level traditional shaving soap, shave sticks are pretty much always going to be reliable, and a lot of them produce cream in a tube that's also great.
Derby, Lea, Palmolive, Spieck, La Toja, and Tabac, among many others I'm no doubt missing, produce both sticks and cream in a tube that are highly regarded, with the higher end being roughly Spieck - Tabac - La Toja.
Arko has long been the budget buster favorite with the like 13 pack on Amazon, if you can stand the smell. (Or just air it out and turn it into scentless soap.)
Tabac's main claim to fame is their puck in a dish, which is far and away the most highly regarded workhorse over the history of community opinion.
Moving up we have valobra, an Italian favorite who have the shave stick, an Italian style almond soft soap, and the hard puck that is regarded as the reason old Art of Shaving was the best hard shaving soap on the market.
DR Harris is an old standby that's the last British brand to be still milling their own hard soap
Muhle has shaving sticks now which are probably going to be my bias favorite in this form factor. Their stuff and http://Ed.win J.agger's have been vegan forever so let's see
Their stuff is probably free of animal fats. I can't imagine putting tallow stearate on a palm base and especially not advertising it to a market that hypes tallow in and of itself.
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1232789106905636864?s=20 of course the other option is to buy the cheaper vegan options from top rated homebrew makers. Wholly Kaw, Zingari Man, and Southern Witchcrafts are frequently regarded as the absolute best simply, before even qualifying "vegan".
(And I gotta say, after trying a sample of zingari's tallow base, I probably would immediately recommend their plant based formula.)
West Coast Shaving store brand safety razors. I just found out that the open comb razor head I bought from them warps razor blades.
A DE razor should, for obvious reason, be able to hold a blade straight and aligned from left to right, so that the cutting edge is straight.
A DE razor should, for obvious reason, be able to hold a blade straight and aligned from left to right, so that the cutting edge is straight.
The black west coast shaving head I put on the handle for the $80 brand I have, warps the blade terribly with a sizeable bump in the middle, while the cheap barber supply razor with a chrome head holds the blade straight
People keep recommending Maggard's, Stirling, and Noble Otter starter kits, so I can only imagine their razors have better quality control
I'm about ready to put Wholly Kaw shave soap here
The community favorite for greatest of all time, second only to Declaration Grooming
The community favorite for greatest of all time, second only to Declaration Grooming
I was being extremely generous and calling it good not great in the middle of my first round of sampling each shave soap sample but the more I think about it, is it really?
The best one of these four is the one from a soap maker with industry experience in cosmetics and
The best one of these four is the one from a soap maker with industry experience in cosmetics and
Skin care, ie Zingari Man
And the more I think about my shave with Wholly Kaw and read comments from shave blogs that actually line up with my experience, I'm beginning to think WK is the polar opposite of that
And the more I think about my shave with Wholly Kaw and read comments from shave blogs that actually line up with my experience, I'm beginning to think WK is the polar opposite of that
Zingari has the weakest scent of the four by far and I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't because of avoiding the skin dry out effect of parfum/fragrance.
It would normally just be a case of wholly kaw being good not great but
1. I'm beginning to think it should in fact be compared head to head with Green Mountain, which is supposed to be a workhorse soap and not a $26 luxury soap.
2. WHOLLY KAW IS A $26 LUXURY SOAP
1. I'm beginning to think it should in fact be compared head to head with Green Mountain, which is supposed to be a workhorse soap and not a $26 luxury soap.
2. WHOLLY KAW IS A $26 LUXURY SOAP
Between that and being a soft soap, it's literally more expensive per shave than soaps that actually cost $70 or $90 upfront. Santa Maria Novella et al are dense enough that it actually does take you that long to run out a tub.
Post shave is not a placebo effect, online shave community, you're all just shaving with soaps that are designed to be crap at it
The wet and messy lathering method popular on one shaving reddit right now is just Method Shaving with extra steps
https://sharpologist.com/method-shaving-without-drama/ method shaving is this weirdly evangelical and particular process of shave prep and shaving that was more or less developed around getting consistent results with the creator's lack of skill
Literally everything about current community meta, including which soaps are deemed top tier and not top tier, is more or less the same energy
Wholly Kaw
It's been an entire month struggling with tallow based soaps and I've forgotten how good vegetable bases feel by default
Community scuttlebutt is that tallow is inherently slicker and more protective and moisturizing than vegetable bases by default and it's like... No. Southern Witchcrafts is all of $14-$17 for the same amount as others are charging $20+ for, so it's not like it's even
That expensive to make it shave good.
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1232789106905636864 I bought a sample lot of four of the most highly regarded shave soap bases in this current rotation with an eye for the ones rated for best post shave feel. Wholly Kaw was rated the best in that regard,
Higher even than Declaration Grooming which is otherwise the community favorite absolute #1, and it ended up being the worst. Of my sample lot, of my current stock, and I'm realizing nearly of my entire experience with brushes.
All of reddit seems to think it's only a myth that a soap, including on hand wash, will do anything but tear your skin apart. And the one euro biased vendor likes to rag on US "artisan" soaps as overloading on plant butters after the fact to
Cover for a fundamentally drying soap base
And that's more or less entirely because the majority of US "artisan" soaps especially tallow are like wholly kaw
And that's more or less entirely because the majority of US "artisan" soaps especially tallow are like wholly kaw
Right after the shave my skin is dry and chappy, but about an hour later it's nice and supple. Like the effect of applying about a mid grade drug store lotion or so.
Then another hour after that the added moisturizers are gone
Then another hour after that the added moisturizers are gone
Which would just be annoying like barrister and Mann is but, Wholly kaw is clearly the effort of an amateur with no professional training, my skin burns like fire for however long it takes me to wash the fragrance completely off
Shave soaps will frequently have an unscented offering because any kind of scenting is liable to have negative reactions with the skin, especially fragrance instead of essential oil as is extremely popular with US artisans.
https://www.stirlingsoap.com/products/lime-shave-soap I think there's all of about three essential oil offerings with Stirling, and a line for sensitive skin with Dr Jons, and that's it, everyone else uses fragrance oil.
Zingari too I think, and A&E definitely, so it's not like fragrance/parfum = necessarily unusable. But the thing is, them two are weakly scented compared to wholly kaw.
One of the benefits of having a euro bias over US in this hobby is that they actually have any goddamn standards of safety and regulation at all, cosmetics have to be tested for years long longevity and skin safety before they're allowed to be sold.
https://www.maggardrazors.com/product/edwin-jagger-limes-pomegranate-shave-cream-tub-100ml/ EJ limes and pomegranate is one of my all time favorites because it's intensely scented without having a lick of bad reaction with my skin
The US has no such regulations, and Wholly Kaw clearly took that and ran with it, because the Rebelle scent is burning my skin something fierce every time I use it. And it would be expected for such a strongly scented soap only THE SCENT WAS NEARLY ALL GONE BY THE SECOND TIME
I USED IT
So basically you get all the mundanity of an unscented soap without any of its benefits for sensitive skin.
So basically you get all the mundanity of an unscented soap without any of its benefits for sensitive skin.
This isn't like the other Do Not Buy recommendations in this thread, this soap costs about $24 and runs out fast, it's probably the most expensive soap per shave on the hobbyist market. This soap has too many compromises all around
https://twitter.com/kalina_chung/status/1238764808905740290 and like Southern Witchcrafts is right there, no compromises all around, more flavors than hyper masculine, for $17 total (or $14 if you buy unscented), there's literally no reason for this
