Hey everyone, I'm just wondering have any of you here tried to get the Dove 3 in 1 body, face and shave bar to lather well? Does the soap hydrate as well as others out there does or does it dry out the skin like you'd expect something like irish spring deodorant bar would cause?
Dove as a shaving soap?
- Thread starter PrincessMari
- Start date
Wait, a crazy guy from here will tell you all you need to know about this dove bar 
You can certainly use dove soap or any other hand soap to shave. My older brother used to shave with ivory soap all the time, when his can of sub $1.00 shave cream finished. The lather from hand soaps isn't as thick and rich like the lather you get from real shave soap, or shaving cream.. You don't get as much protection, or sickness from hand soaps.. It makes the job more difficult.. However, if you don't have access to shave soap by all means use it, and enjoy the shave. Many old girlfriends of mine used to use dove, Irish springs, etc to shave their legs with..
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Of the bath bars out there the Dove Men+care is one of the better. It lathers well, but you will have to reapply it because it dissipates rather quickly. Not as quickly as lets say Irish Spring does, but still. I don't think though that it was drying to the skin, but if you have issues with that I would just use moisturizer post-shave.
Why?
Just use a shave soap.
Just use a shave soap.
It’s drying. Use whatever you like, but I’d stick with products intended for their purpose. So much great shaving software out there.
You can wash the area you intend to shave (for men, this is typically the face) with said soap and observe afterward if it's too drying or irritating. With that said, there are some here who have successfully used the Dove "MEN + CARE 3-N-1" bar to shave with (I presume this is the product you are asking about). I haven't tried it myself, but this is mainly because I have plenty of shave soap.
I'm not the crazy guy alluded to (and I already know what he's going to say), but I have used Dove Men + Care 3 in 1 multiple times and it is a decent shaving soap. I did not have any problems with it drying my skin or the lather dissipating. However, a good dedicated shaving soap will easily out do it. It's main advantage is its cheap price and local availability. Pears glycerin bath soap will also work very well. Both can be found at Dollar Tree for $1.25 if you wish to try them. Others like Irish Spring are a no go for me.
My wife uses a Henson DE and regular Dove for her needs, but she doesn't use a brush to lather.
My wife uses a Henson DE and regular Dove for her needs, but she doesn't use a brush to lather.
Just responded to a similar question regarding Dove back in September. Response was:
I've done a lot of experimentation with Dove Men+Care (see link to my earlier thread on this below) and other bath soaps such as Ivory and found that they can produce a good lather. Key findings have been:
- Tallow based bath soaps alone (e.g. Ivory) produce slick lather. Problem is that the lather can quickly dissipate. OK to use in a pinch if nothing else is available.
- Dove Men+Care produces gobs of almost too thick lather with reasonable slickness. Have found it to be an excellent superlathering ingredient to my custom shave soap blends
- Mixing a tallow based bath soap (Ivory in my experiments) with Dove in a 50/50 by weight mix makes a good budget priced shaving soap - covered in detail via the link below. Suspect performance could be improved by adjusting the mix to roughly 1/3 Dove and 2/3 Ivory (or other tallow based bath soap).
- While the bath soap blend performance was good and something one could easily use regularly the performance from my actual shaving soaps and shaving soap blends is better.
- I have found that adding small amounts (10-15% by weight) of bath soaps to my custom blends improves performance. My best Van Der Williams Blend includes 10-15% each of Dove Men+Care (superlathering ingredient) and Ivory (slickness) providing core shaving performance (ease of lathering, slickness, lather stability/texture) that is as good or better as my commercial soaps. Latest batch included two pucks Van Der Hagen Deluxe (5oz), two pucks Williams (3.5oz), Arko (2oz), Proraso Red (1oz), Dove Men+Care (2oz) and Ivory (2oz) to produce five 3oz+ pucks of shaving soap for under $2 U.S. of ingredients each. Arko can substitute for all the Williams since the latter is discontinued.
- For comparison my commercial soaps include brands such as Mitchell's Wool Fat, Tabac (new formula), Cyril R. Salter, D.R. Harris and Razorock What-the-Puck. Versus my best custom blend these can provide better scent and post shave feel.
Link to the original September thread with links to other posts is here:
Anyone tried handsoap (Dove)?
I’ve tried Yardley and Dove in the past and had gotten decent results. I’ll have to try it again as we have a years supply of Dove in the bathroom closet.
www.badgerandblade.com
Guessing that @PrincessMari may be using this to shave her legs and could be looking for something to both bathe and shave with.
Fixing your typo as follows:Wait, a crazy guy from here will tell you all you need to know about this dove bar
Wait, a crazy smart guy from here will tell you all you need to know about this dove bar.
It works. It's better than most bar soaps. The lather is a little more structured and doesn't get whispy or crispy as fast as some non-shave soaps do when used for shaving. I shave briskly so I have plenty of time to complete each pass before anything untoward happens to the lather.
This isn't a great picture by the way. I do a hybrid bowl lather/face lather most days so I don't whip the lather in the bowl until it is fully thickened. I still hadn't done the face lathering at this point so this thin lather thickened up much more on my face.
That said I don't use it often but I don't hesitate to use it when the feeling strikes me, and a bar is often with me on trips since it's not a mono-tasker.
Well, let's she what she says.
Either way, use a shave a soap for shaving and a body soap for cleaning your body. Same reason you don't wash your car with dishes soap or at least you shouldn't.
- Thread starter
- #14
Yeah, I'm wanting to use it to shave my legs.
My gramps would use the leftover bar soap for shaving exclusively. And I mean all the leftovers, different brands, different bar soap. You know when you get down to the little tiny quarter size amount left right before you bust out a new bar? He would take all those and toss them in his shave mug. Next thing you know he’s got a full soap puck just from leftover bath bars. And that’s what he shaved with. With a brush.
So yup, it can be done. I’m sure the stuff you are asking about is much better than what he was using.
So yup, it can be done. I’m sure the stuff you are asking about is much better than what he was using.
AimlessWanderer
Remember to forget me!
I've used various hand soaps many times. So long as it's kept very wet, it works fine. I don't tend to use a brush though. I just rub the bar on my face, and lather with wet hands.
Ron R
I survived a lathey foreman
Great soap to clean the skin and I use it all the time showering, but have never used it as a shave soap.
I have used CeraVe hand bar cleanser to shave with(it kicks up a great lather with some slickness) and it worked OK but not quite as good as my other designated shave soaps. Industrial hand bar soap has a higher Alkaline rating on the PH scale usually from my limited research.
So a person might find it drying to the skin when used with certain hand soaps (It is designed to cut through oils and grease). CeraVe was not that noticeable for dryness. If a hand soap has slickness it should work regardless IMO.
I've washed A LOT of vehicles with Dawn dish soap...including cars, work trucks, firetrucks and ambulances and always got superb results. I also had two of the nastiest garage floors I've ever seen (caked with oil/assorted fluids and diesel exhaust soot) clean enough to eat off of, thanks to Dawn.
My grandfather...and I assume a lot of old timers...often used chips of whatever soap they had available for shaving. This probably included plain lye soap.
I, myself, have had decent results with whatever shampoo or body wash/soap I had in a pinch. I've also had some nice shaves with olive oil.
I'm not debating it can't be done and won't wash your car, but the ingredients are not good for your cars finish long term.
Wash away.
I‘ve used a regular Dove beauty bar from Dollar Tree for my face and neck and it worked great. Pretending I won’t add to my 30+ years worth of shaving soaps and creams, no qualms using Dove or Irish Spring and almost none using Dial* for shaving. It’s what I did with cartridges.
*Dial is tremendously slick and would be perfect if it didn’t smell like Dial
*Dial is tremendously slick and would be perfect if it didn’t smell like Dial
