My experience with shave sticks & slickness

I'm going on about a year of wet shaving now. In that short time, I have worked my way through many types of soap/cream. What comes to mind presently is:

- Williams
- VDH
- Proraso (C.O. Bigelow)
- TBS Maca Root
- Mamma Bears
- D.R. Harris (puck)
- Tabac (puck/bowl)
- Provence Sante Green Tea
- MWF
- TOBS creams
- Trumpers
- Cremo
- e-Shave cream
- P.160
- Cella
- Queen Charlotte Soaps
- Valobra Stick & milled
- Arko (stick)
- Palmolive (stick)
- SIM (stick)

I'm sure I forgot some.

I've tried both bowl and face lathering. I enjoy face lathering for maximum brush-to-face time and minimization of required equipment.

However, to the point of this post, having tried creams, pucks and sticks, I am finding that sticks just seem to provide a level of glide/slickness that I feel is above what I'm able to achieve with creams and pucks. In order of characteristics I find important, it seems to be glide/slickness, hydration/amount of water able to be held by the lather and sitll remain stable, and finally cushioning. YMMV. With respect to slickness, I find my shave sticks are outperforming my other soaps. E.g. Valobra, Palmolvie, SIM, Arko (minus the scent) are some of my go-tos in rotation. Perhaps this is because these are simply higher performance products than my non-stick products. Or perhaps it has more to do with delivery mechanism (rubbing it directly on my face).

Maybe a more experienced member would like to chime in on whether or not sticks have consistently provided a "slicker" shave for them over the long run vs other soap types. As for now... I think I'm converting to an all-stick rotation.

Regards,
Jason

I don't think it matters if a soap is in the from of a puck or a stick. Perhaps you get a slicker lather from the sticks because more soap is being used when it it rubbed into your beard rather than creating the lather on the soap. You could try rubbing a puck of soap into your beard, like you would with a shave stick, and see if the lather improves.

Empty Words said:

Perhaps you get a slicker lather from the sticks because more soap is being used when it it rubbed into your beard rather than creating the lather on the soap.

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this

I use a shave stick when I travel to keep my kit more simple and because they provide a great lather. Arko, Palmolive and Wilkinson Sword are fantastic sticks and really quite inexpensive even in this part of the world.
I would suggest that your findings are because of the high quality of the stick soap that you have used and the fact that it is a very efficient way to apply soap to your face.

It might just be a function of the sticks you list are all tallow based.
IMHO, slickness is the main thing that separates most tallow soaps from most of the others.

Or, as mentioned, sticks make it easier to get alot of soap in the mix and you are just making better lather overall since you are using more soap.

Have you tried a non-tallow based stick yet?
Did you feel the slickness was lacking in the Tabac and DR Harris soaps from the puck?

I think it comes down to the quality of the product.

Speick and Palmolive are my two favorite soaps. I milled 2 of each into pyrex bowls to use. Theyre two of the best soaps made imho.

Interesting question Jason!

I found that face-lathering (also with pucks; loading the brush on the puck and create the lather on my face) gives me a better lather in general than bowl-lathering. Two things come to mind; first you feel what you are doing and fine-tuning the lather with just drops of water at the time makes it easier to get the perfect product/water ratio right. Secondly it gives the interaction between your lather and your beard/skin more time which adds to the prep-time.

Sticks are a very easy, conveniant way to get the right amount of soap on your face and makes the contact-time between face and product even longer.

How do the SIM-stick and the Tabac-puck relate to each other for you? I know the formulation is not 100% the same but the major difference seems to be the amount of water in the SIM. If they are very different might it be that you load not enough product or have too wet a brush when you use the pucks? Just a thought.

40boy said:

Have you tried a non-tallow based stick yet?
Did you feel the slickness was lacking in the Tabac and DR Harris soaps from the puck?

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I haven't tried any non-tallow sticks, but I have tried veggie pucks/creams. I agree that the tallow-based products always seem slicker to me than the non-tallow ones.

I have been using the previously mentioned sticks exclusivly for a little over a month now. Recently, in the middle of a shave with a non-stick product (decided it was finally time for change-up) I realized how much slickness was lacking and covered my face with a layer of Arko and re-lathered before continuing on and the shave was much improved. I haven't attempted another non-stick shave since. I'm having too much fun.

An interesting case for me is that I was under-whelmed by Tabac, but I'm really enjoying SIM. As I undersand it, these two are very similar, if not the same, the largest difference for these purposes being "form factor"/application method (puck vs. stick). Admittedly, Tabac was earlier on in my short career, and I haven't used it for some time (and have since sold it).

Also, I have used Valobra as a stick and as milled into a bowl. I thought the stick performed very well when milled into a bowl, but I am even more impressed with it since using it as a stick and applying directly to my face.

Right now I'm inclined to think it has more to do with the delivery mechanism, rubbing directly onto my face, due to the exeperiences above with the same/similar soaps applied in different ways. I think that could possibly be because more soap is there, but I usually get the brush adequately loaded from the puck. I think maybe it has something to do with getting that soap really "ground into" my skin and getting all the nooks and crannys filled with concentrated sweet tallow goodness before the lather explodes, as opposed to brushing it on afterwards. But I also understand that the products I'm "playing" with are considered some of the better perfomers around here, too.

- Jason

I had never tried a shaving stick until 3 weeks ago and now I have 4 sticks (Palmolive, Valobra, Speick and an Australian made stick) with a couple of sticks of La Toja on the way.

I am getting amazing shaves with all of the sticks, particularly Valobra and Speick, and was wondering why. I think this thread has answered my question.

Interesting thread...I've found the same, soap sticks soaked in water give me better and slicker lather.

Irisch Moos is specially great for me. In addition, I have converted MWF in stick form and all lather problems have disapeared.

I get my slickest, closest shaves from the sticks, and like others have commented, I think it has a lot to do with getting up close and personal with the soap. That said, I find the slickest shave stick to be.....La Toja. I love my Valobra, but La Toja is slicker.

Empty Words said:

I don't think it matters if a soap is in the from of a puck or a stick. Perhaps you get a slicker lather from the sticks because more soap is being used when it it rubbed into your beard rather than creating the lather on the soap. You could try rubbing a puck of soap into your beard, like you would with a shave stick, and see if the lather improves.

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Just what I was going to say - when I first used soaps, I got very mediocre results and got much better results with sticks. This caused me to spend a bit more time loading my brush off of my pucks and voila! better results with my soaps.

40boy said:

It might just be a function of the sticks you list are all tallow based.
IMHO, slickness is the main thing that separates most tallow soaps from most of the others.

Or, as mentioned, sticks make it easier to get alot of soap in the mix and you are just making better lather overall since you are using more soap.

Have you tried a non-tallow based stick yet?
Did you feel the slickness was lacking in the Tabac and DR Harris soaps from the puck?

Click to expand...

I also noticed this - I prefer the tallow products - whether they be stick or puck - I've also used non-tallow soaps like a stick (rubbed them on my face and lathered up) and gotten good results.

Oh, I noticed you didn't list Speick - another great stick that every shaver needs to try at least once.

Though the idea of their simplicity does appeal to me, I never got on with them. Can't judge how much soap I'm using. Then when I take the brush to my face its either empty of water and doesn't lather or its too full and causes a great mess. I like Valobra and Palmolive though, and they only come in stick form. Bit of a pity really, they look pretty grizzly all grated and squished.

Let me +1 the shave stick advantage!
Someone around here suggested making a shave stick out of Mitchell's Wool Fat and further said this "solved" all the lathering issues he was having. Let me +1 that as well. It's a shame MWF doesn't come in a stick!

Used my first stick today (Palmolive) and while it may not be the best lather I've had, it may well be the easiest to generate, aside from some water falling from the face.

talibeard said:

Interesting question Jason!

I found that face-lathering (also with pucks; loading the brush on the puck and create the lather on my face) gives me a better lather in general than bowl-lathering. Two things come to mind; first you feel what you are doing and fine-tuning the lather with just drops of water at the time makes it easier to get the perfect product/water ratio right. Secondly it gives the interaction between your lather and your beard/skin more time which adds to the prep-time.

Sticks are a very easy, conveniant way to get the right amount of soap on your face and makes the contact-time between face and product even longer.

How do the SIM-stick and the Tabac-puck relate to each other for you? I know the formulation is not 100% the same but the major difference seems to be the amount of water in the SIM. If they are very different might it be that you load not enough product or have too wet a brush when you use the pucks? Just a thought.

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^what he saidand i also get more slickness out of shavesticks

Slickness is what I look for in a product.

Creaminess is also a plus.

I don't need mounds and mounds of pillowy, cushiony lather. All that stuff is a big waste as you only need a thin layer between the blade and your face.

After all, isn't the point of using the stuff to provide a nice glide across the face thereby reducing tug, pull and irritation? So why not go for the slickest stuff you can get?

I find soaps to be slicker than creams and that is even more true in the stick variety.

Stick>Puck>Cream

In order, I would say my best performers would be

1) Arko
2) VDH Deluxe (laugh all you want, this stuff is great. Read the ingredient list and then tell me it shouldn't cost 15x what it currently sells for)
3) Valobra / AoS
4) Palmolive

Ignatius said:

Though the idea of their simplicity does appeal to me, I never got on with them. Can't judge how much soap I'm using. Then when I take the brush to my face its either empty of water and doesn't lather or its too full and causes a great mess. I like Valobra and Palmolive though, and they only come in stick form. Bit of a pity really, they look pretty grizzly all grated and squished.

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I agree with you, I have also had issues with shave sticks but recently I have tried using other brushes, specifically boar brushes instead on my badgers. I have the impression that due to their stiffness they are much better at mixing the soap with water and releasing it onto my face resulting in much slicker lather. I think my previous problems with "stick lather" have probably been due to the fact that the product/water ratio has been too high. I am going to try this out during the next few months and see if my suspicions are confirmed.