Old shaving soap: powder.

Cool video!

SmokeyD said:

Thanks everybody for all the information. I guess there is no powder shaving soap available anymore. At one time in history there was an abundance. Any particular reason why this disappeared?

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Educated guess, but replaced by creams.

Creams had their big rise starting in the 30s while the Shaving Powders seem to have petered out in about the 30s. The Shave Powder was meant to speed the shave by not having to load the brush on a round. I imagine early creams suffered from a lack of preservatives making them more unstable, once that was figured out they became an even more efficient version of powder.

I say efficient from a manufacturers standpoint because a soap puck was say 5oz "Soap Base", Shave Stick same 5oz, Shave Powder(from the recipe) was say 4.5oz "Soap Base"and .5oz corn starch(so keep it from sticking) to make 5oz of product, now suspend in liquid sort of presoaked and you might be down to 3oz or 3.5oz of actual "Soap Base" plus an 1.5oz or 2oz of water to make the same 5oz of Cream product. Etc, Etc, Etc. By the end your making more money using the same amount of "soap base".

Now prelather and aerate .5oz of "Soap Base" and stick it in a 10oz tin can and you are raking in the bucks!

See the progression?



Jay

I found currently produced Buck Lee's Naturals Powdered Shave Soap 50g at

The history of powdered shave soap is a little difficult to ascertain. There is nothing about Colgate Rapid-Shave Powder on Colgate's website. However, the oldest advertisement I found for it is dated 1909, and the ad says that it is "the latest" product, so 1909 is a good educated guess.

1909 Original Colgate Rapid Shave Powder Shaving Lather - ORIGINAL OLD3
www.periodpaper.com/products/1909-original-colgate-rapid-shave-powder-shaving-lather-original-advertising-006266-old3-501

SmokeyD said:

I recently converted a friend into DE shaving. He likes it very much. Everytime I visit him, we talk about it. Recently, he mentionned having a shave at the barber each week long time ago. Needless to say he is of a golden age ;-))

The soap the barber used came in powder. He remembers the brand too: La Corbeille Royale. It was package in a big rond container much like some brands of whiskey are packaged. And as large too. On the outside were big stripped colors across, blue, white and probably red, he said. The barber added a spoon of the stuff to water and made a wonderfull foam.

On the net, I couldnt find anything. Now I wonder, did anybody know about this kind of soap? Anybody has some information about this? I suppose it doesnt exist anymore. Maybe there were other brands too? Does it help saying that I'm from Belgium?

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There's a Greek shaving powder product called SPLENDID. It's an olive oil based soap. There is a thread about it here:

Here in Greece ,the domestic
”Splendid” which is a shaving soap in powder form is still available .
Priced about $4 per 200 grams .

INCI : Sodium Olivate (Saponified Oilve Oil),Aqua, Parfum, Sodium Chloride, Tetrasodium Glutamate Diacetate, Citric Acid, Limonene, Linalool, Citronellol, Citral.

Never tried it ,but from what I’m
aware of it needs plenty of elbow grease in order to lather .