Olive Oil...yes or no?

and not Popeye's ole lady

i see posts that products with olive oil doesnt make good lather. Is that for soaps, creams or both?

the only experience i have with anything with olive oil in it is the Nivea cream from India and it makes nice thick lather.

I use straight olive oil as a pre shave treatment sometimes as long as my skin is not oily at the time.

I prefer to save my olive oil for clam sauce and garlic bread.

I prefer to slather olive oil all over my...oh, wait a minute, wrong web site.

Jeff in Boston

Olive Oil really helps my shave.

Less if any nicks or weepers now.

Plus it great for your skin.

Those Ancient Romans were on to something.

i figured all the fellas that said that olive oil kills the lather would be all over this thread.

I have seen olive oil shaving soaps and I am curious. I am currently using Tom's of Main Olive Oil body soap and I like it very much. It is very moisturizing. I suspect the shaving soaps are too.

http://www.tomsofmaine.com/products/product-detail.aspx?id=45&name=Natural%20Moisturizing%20Body%20Bar&s3=MjN8NDR8NDV8MjU=

Dave

Can Solivera makes a wonderful olive oil soap toilet...Olive oil as a preshave oil it's useless..on me at least but YMMV of course.

I used Susie's Bubbles Grapefruit shaving soap made with olive oil this morning and had mounds of great lather. Either I am doing something wrong or I haven't tried the right olive oil based soap because I have never had an issue getting a good lasting lather from this soap. I did a 4 pass shave this morning and I had lather left over.

I just don't get the hate.

sas71 said:

i figured all the fellas that said that olive oil kills the lather would be all over this thread.

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It doesn't negatively affect lather in my experience. YMMV of course.

David in Boston said:

Olive Oil really helps my shave.

Less if any nicks or weepers now.

Plus it great for your skin.

Those Ancient Romans were on to something.

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+1 You've said it all.

I've heard of using it for shaving, but that's as far as I've gone on the using of it to shave with. Won't it tend to clog up your razor? Have any of the members experienced the use of olive oil? I'd be interested in hearing about it, as I'm not adverse to trying anything that would improve my shave. Anyone who has used it please respond.

Never used it. And since I don't like the smell of it, am unlikely to give it a go.

LandToSea said:

I use straight olive oil as a pre shave treatment sometimes as long as my skin is not oily at the time.

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lamina said:

Can Solivera makes a wonderful olive oil soap toilet...Olive oil as a preshave oil it's useless..on me at least but YMMV of course.

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dpmtherrien said:

I've heard of using it for shaving, but that's as far as I've gone on the using of it to shave with. Won't it tend to clog up your razor? Have any of the members experienced the use of olive oil? I'd be interested in hearing about it, as I'm not adverse to trying anything that would improve my shave. Anyone who has used it please respond.

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Hughies_online said:

Never used it. And since I don't like the smell of it, am unlikely to give it a go.

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keep in mind im talking about using soaps or creams with olive oil in them as one of the ingredients ..not straight oil out of a bottle.

sas71 said:

keep in mind im talking about using soaps or creams with olive oil in them as one of the ingredients ..not straight oil out of a bottle.

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I've got a soap with olive oil as the first ingredient, and goat's milk at number 2 or 3. It is slick as all getout, but the lather has very little staying power. This morning I actually used it to make superlather with KMF lavender cream. I've always found the KMF to be short in the slickness dept., but easy to lather. So, I thought the soap with great slickness and a lackluster lather and the cream with the lackluster slickness and great lather might be perfect together. I was right.

In short, my olive oil soap seems not to lather well, yet makes makes a good component in a superlather due to slickness. YMMV

I saw the question "Olive Oil yes or no".

My instinctive answer is "YES!" It doesn't matter if you want to eat it or wear it Olive Oil is at the near perfection mark for both oils and lubricants!

sas71 said:

keep in mind im talking about using soaps or creams with olive oil in them as one of the ingredients ..not straight oil out of a bottle.

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Fair enough...

Crazy Dave said:

I have seen olive oil shaving soaps and I am curious. Dave

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I found an olive oil-based shaving soap at my local farmer's market from a local soaper, and (wanting to support the local economy and a boutique soaper, and the price being only $5) picked up a round. I had a brief discussion with the person at the booth (who was not the soaper) about wet shaving, and was encouraged by noting the inclusion of Bentonite clay in the ingredient list.

What a disappointment! Although I managed, (after a while, and with much effort) to get a fair looking lather up, it collapsed almost immediately on my face - I'm talking gone before I finished half a pass. By the time I picked up my brush to relather (a Kent BK4, which has the rep of being able to later just about anything...) it looked like I hadn't loaded it at all: just the slightest hint of some bubbles were visible. Although the lather was quite slick, the shave itself was totally without cushion and quite harsh, and I got weepers galore, which is VERY unusual for me.

I tried working a few more times with it to see if the soap/water ratio was off (including trying to just "learn" it by repeatedly lathering my hand), and even soaked the puck with water while I showered before using it, but the result was always the same. I was sad 'cause it was an interesting scent (tangerine), but at least for this soaper's attempt, olive oil does not a good shave soap make.

Will I ever try an olive oil shaving soap again? Perhaps, but this round is going into the shower as a bath soap.

I have a couple of dutch home made soaps with some lathering issues but I have an olive oil and tallow based hand soap (Duru by evyap; the same guys that make Arko) which gives a fantastic lather and can easily be used as a shaving soap.
It dries my skin just too much otherwise this would certainly stay in my rotation.

Anyway TALLOW is the magic word here!

In the spectrum of shaving soaps olive oil based ones are at the very lower level. Its not that you cannot shave with them or that you cannot get an OK result, its that there are better choices for a great shave.

A great lather is a complex salt based cocktail, unfortunatly, for shaving, olive oil just does not bring much to the table.

Olive oil can make a fine bath soap. Hope this helps.