Is Lightfoot's Pine Soap Redeemable?

[Price]

Never tried it myself, but life's too short to lather crappy soaps, IMO. Take it to the shower. If you're really interested in getting a pine-scented product that's shave-worthy, you might want to contact Matthew at QCS. He can make you a bespoke batch, so you can get exactly the result you were trying to obtain with your frankensoap attempt.

[Kramerica]

My wife bought this soap for me when I first started DE shaving. She was so happy to be 'helping' that I just couldn't break it to her that it...well...sucked. Then she saw me trying to lather it one morning. She laughed when I threw it out.


It is utterly useless as a shaving soap. Nice scent, though.

[cryhavoc]

Against my better judgment (not to mention the advice of most of the reviews I read) I purchased a cake of Lightfoot's shaving soap a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, I'm a hopeless sucker for anything pine-scented. I expected that it might require a little more elbow grease than most to produce decent lather, but so far I'm at a loss to wring out anything more than a thin, watery film that begins dissipating almost as soon as it touches the skin. It seems a lot of the negative reviews were being too kind, if anything. I tried grating it into a bowl along with half a cake of QCS Vostok, but the results haven't been much different. It's almost as if whatever ingredient in the Lightfoot's that prevents a decent lather from forming is acting upon the other soap as well.

Has anyone had a similar experience with soaps that simply refuse to lather? Is there a way to salvage some use from them, or are some just beyond help?

Try Mike's Natural Soaps Pine and Cedarwood, great soap and great scent. YMMV

[Toddy]

Update

I did a little research and found that Lightfoots was originally based in Chester in the UK and supplied to the local area, however it seems that production must have ceased almost 40 years ago, before I was even born, so it must be an old brand which has been resurrected.

[Broccoli Man]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I think I'll bite the bullet, enjoy my newly-mentholated, algae-colored bath soap, and try some Mike's Pine and Cedarwood. I'm a great fan of cedar as well, so I think it will definitely fit the bill. Hopefully he ships overseas...

Good detective work, Toddy. I have to admit, as an American myself, I was really hoping to pass the buck on this soap, but it looks like this one's on our heads

[pipskicks]

I liked using some as bath soaps more than others, although the scent is nice for the bath soap probably :)

I find they get used very quickly and are expensive for the bath soap but it doesn't make sense to keep lathering with something so hard to lather when there are such cheap alternatives!

I also agree with not mixing it, you'd lose out on the scent (unless you had a good unscented or matching scent. My experience has been if I can't lather a soap, usually I'm not picking up enough product (and I don't want to spend over 5 minutes trying to do so), so I always end up with the cream having a much bigger ratio.

[Toddy]

Erasmic works well as a bath or washing soap. When I go camping that's all I take.