ARAMIS Shaving Soap - hopeless?

[informer]

Good morning Gentlemen,

I´m new here, 44 yo austrian, wet shaver since 1982. My actual tools : Feather AS-D1 razor, Feather blades, Mühle Silver Tipped Badger Shave Brush, black thick beard, bullet proof skin.
The soaps : Valobra Almond, Woods of Windsor, I Coloniali, Taylor of Old Bond Street Lavender & Sandalwood, L´Occitane, Savon du Midi Vetiver, Knize Ten, Mühle Sandalwood, Mühle someplantdontknowtheenglishname.

Tried and dumped : MWF (smell), Tabac(smell), all Colonel Conk (lack of lather)

And of course ARAMIS. Aramis (classic) is for me the best fragrance for Gentlemen(EdT).
Dry, elegant, not overpowering, very longlasting and very good quality Aftershave and Deo. Closes the open pores and helps avoiding shave burn.

The Shaving Soap smells like the EdT, just amazing. Lather? Alot, but not thick at all, doesn´t stick on the skin, doesn´t lubricate, it´s just a tragedy. I have tried all tricks, water on the soap in the mug over the night, scratched the surface befor lathering.
The results are poor. does anybody know some other trick to lather this stubborn but amazing smelling Shaving Soap?

Have a nice day !

[man00ver]

I haven't experienced this soap, but your silvertip may not be loading enough of it. Try rubbing the puck on your wet whiskers like a shave stick, then face lather from there. Or get a decent boar brush and load, load, load. I appreciate the Aramis scent as well, so it'd be worth it to me to put a little extra effort into the soap.

[Jim]

Johns suggestion is the one I was going to make, lots of product and add water slowly. Try distilled water if you have hard water.

[Sullybob]

You could also try making lather directly on the puck. If I have a hard soap that is really difficult to lather I'll do that until the soap soften up enough to go back to bowl or face lathering.

[Ceri]

From experience, Aramis soap's problems are irredeemable - it's the only soap I've used that I've had to relather mid pass.. my two pucks now live in my sock drawer. The older, tallow formulation was supposed to be very good.

[IainJ]

I have a puck of Aramis and it lathers wonderfully, it was a charity shop find so maybe it's the older formulation?

[JCinPA]

And I'd say that's one helluva first post!

Welcome!!! You'll like it here. I can tell already!

[informer]

Thank you very much for the flowers :)

And I'd say that's one helluva first post!

Welcome!!! You'll like it here. I can tell already!

[informer]

Thank you very much indeed for your advices Gentleman!
This morning I tried the Osma from Connaugh Shaving, got it yesterday so I had to do it but tommorow I will follow your tips (whiskers rubbing with the puck) and the day after tommorow lathering on the puck.
BTW all new reformulations starting with Coca-Cola, Gucci Envy and ending with Aramis Shaving Soap seem to be wrong decisions of the manufacturers.
Have a nice day!

[SuperChris]

Do they still make Aramis soap? I love the smell of the cologne.

[informer]

Thank God, YES !
Product Range: EdT, AS, Deo, Shaving Soap, Shaving Foam, Body Soap

Do they still make Aramis soap? I love the smell of the cologne.

[informer]

Johns suggestion is the one I was going to make, lots of product and add water slowly. Try distilled water if you have hard water.

Water isn´t hard here, it´s almost solid :) Iwill try distilled water, thx!

[scoopster]

Aramis shave soap is seldom seen in the US, only on Ebay once in a while. Are folks overseas using older, discontinued product or is it staill available?

[informer]

Aramis shave soap is seldom seen in the US, only on Ebay once in a while. Are folks overseas using older, discontinued product or is it staill available?

Still available as refill, 2 pucks in an Aramis style coloured box for about 30 $.
After you open it and the Aramis fragrance reaches your nose you know you won´t use anyother EdT or deo ever, it´s just amazing.
Btw I got a hell of a lather today from it using destilled water, hadn´t time to post the good news.
Have a nice day!

[QuarkVI]

Hi informer,

Now that you have managed to lather the Aramis are you able to compare it to MWF/Tabac in terms of performance ? I love the Aramis scent so seriously considering the shaving soap but from what I can find there seems to be quite a mix of thoughts on this soap.

cheers
Robin

[scoopster]

Curious what the ingredients of the Aramis soap are. There used to be a tallow version back in the states but is very hard to find today. It was replaced with a non-tallow version that folks didn't care for as much as the original formulation. Nice hearing it's available overseas and I'm surprised there isn't more buzz about this.

[QuarkVI]

Found it on StrawberryNet - so should be available stateside as well - no listing of ingredients unfortunately.

[informer]

Hi informer,

Now that you have managed to lather the Aramis are you able to compare it to MWF/Tabac in terms of performance ? I love the Aramis scent so seriously considering the shaving soap but from what I can find there seems to be quite a mix of thoughts on this soap.

cheers
Robin

Hey Robin,

I dumped MWF/Tabac because of the smell. I´m perfume collector (over 150 perfumes) and maybe my sense of smell works different than the sense of smell of the majority. The next words are my subjective opinion and I want to apologize if somebody feels offended.
MWF smelles to milky and cheapsweet. The lathering was good but not outstanding, my skin is really bulletproof but MWF fixed it to dry my skin like a desert sandstorm, I felt small stings all over the lathered area, good but not outraging lubrication, zero moisturizing, close shave, shaveburn. I would say the MWF is overrated.
TABAC soap was good, I would say better than MWF, rich lather, no stings on the face, good lubrication, good moisturizing, close shave, no shaveburn but awfull smell, oldman like (not to be confused with old school barbershop smell).
Aramis+distilled water over night on it´s surface in the mug, scratched surface with small fork, good loading of the brush = rich lather, not outstanding lubrication, no stings, very close shave, no shaveburn, zero moisturizing, great, longlasting smell.

[informer]

Found it on StrawberryNet - so should be available stateside as well - no listing of ingredients unfortunately.

Hey Quark,

the Aramis ingredients:
SODIUM PALMATE - POTASSIUM STEARATE - SODIUM COCOATE/SODIUM PALM KERNELATE - ARAMIS FRAGRANCE (!) - SODIUM CHLORIDE - COCONUT ACID - PENTASODIUM PENTETATE - TETRASODIUM ETRIDONATE - TRISODIUM HEDTA - BHT - BENZYL ALCOHOL - LINALOOL - GERANIOL - CITRAL - EUGENOL - LIMOXENE - ALPHA ISOMETHYL IONOXE - EVERNIA FURFURACEA (TREEMOOS) - HEXYL CINNAMAL - CITRONELOL - BENZYL BENZOATE - TITANIUM DIOXIDE - YELLOW TEN LAKE - IRON OXIDES.

I guess you can kill bugs or cure the cat´s flu with these ingredients but all together smell great.

[IainJ]

Here's my Aramis soap and mug, found in a charity shop for £5.