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Shave Sticks Review Project

Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
Hey Luc, I'd just like to say thanks for all the effort you've put into this thread and your earlier Turkish Sticks review thread! There is a ton of worthwhile information here and it inspired me to try out the whole shaving stick concept. First I tried a DIY stick where I milled a puck of Williams into an empty deodorant twist up. That worked splendidly so I picked up a couple of sticks of Arko which has performed quite well also. I'm getting wonderful slick, dense, protective lather out of both. All of a sudden, I'm finding a number of sticks moving up my products to try list. I'm looking forward to continuing to follow this excellent project. Well done sir!:thumbup:

Thanks, happy to help.

The GZD Review is getting close...
 

Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
The 30 shaves are completed and here's a picture. There not much to see but there's roughly half left. So this one should be good for 70 shaves

Full review to follow soon
$ImageUploadedByTapatalk1448195982.083410.jpg
 
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Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
Well. I think La Toja is a great shave stick! :blink::001_rolle

Possibly... For you...

I cannot mention it enough, water played a huge difference on LaToja. HUGE! In soft water, it's a top performer soap. In hard water, it really is not. If you do experience LaToja in hard water one day, you may or may not change your mind.

LaToja is a sensitive product when it comes to water. As long as you have soft water, you won't have much of an issue IMO.
 
I really want to get a hold of Camelot of GZD. I can never quite justify the cost of the stick plus shipping when I can get 12 Arko stick for ~$15 shipped. Someday when I am running low I might be able to swing it though.

As for La Toja, I can never get it to work here in Calgary (12 grains/gallon, 170 mg/L) but I use it in my travel kit and have had some great shaves with it in softer water areas like Vancouver. It's funny, I lived in Montreal for 5 years and always considered the water relatively soft ;) I do love the La Toja scent though, so I keep trying.

For the local water I have had the best luck with Speick, Tabac and Arko with Speick being my hands down favourite. I am going to have to get one of those twist up Speick sticks, that just seems like a dream come true.

Thanks again Luc, love this thread.
 
I received a package from Spain yesterday from Gifts and Care. The shipping was quick considering that it was coming from a different country. I've put the picture of the two sticks in the spoiler below if someone wants a sneak peak of what's coming.

Not related to shave sticks, I also got a bottle of Aqua Velva which comes in a glass bottle in Europe. The scent is... Aqua Velva-y... :tongue_sm

I hope to re-use the glass bottle after I'm done as I prefer glass over plastic.


Great thread Luc...will be interested to see about the Vie Long stick as I am pretty sure it is a rebranded LEA stick.. but I could be wrong. Happy shave sticking! :thumbup1:
 
Thanks Gents, I will re-kick this thread alive soonish. I've been busy during Christmas. Things are getting back to normal slowly.

If I look at the water hardness post that I did a while back (http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/310894-Shave-Sticks-Review-Project?p=7532794#post7532794), the Montreal water isn't that much lower. It also depends on which reservoir it's coming from.
Great to hear! I've been subscribed for a while and enjoy the thread. Thank you for your effort, Luc!
 
Possibly... For you...

I cannot mention it enough, water played a huge difference on LaToja. HUGE! In soft water, it's a top performer soap. In hard water, it really is not. If you do experience LaToja in hard water one day, you may or may not change your mind.

LaToja is a sensitive product when it comes to water. As long as you have soft water, you won't have much of an issue IMO.

I love LaToja and live in an area with hard water. Never have a problem lathering. I have a solution for you! Invest in a 2.5 gallon of soft spring water or distilled water. For $3/year you can use any soap or cream you want.
 

Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
I love LaToja and live in an area with hard water. Never have a problem lathering. I have a solution for you! Invest in a 2.5 gallon of soft spring water or distilled water. For $3/year you can use any soap or cream you want.

As I said, we all have different experiences. I experienced that product with soft and hard water. There's a difference. Is the product unworkable? Not at all. It's more difficult and that's it.

It's not a question of price or how easy it would be. Many products work fine with what comes out of the tap. If nothing would work then I would possibly look at an alternative. Since it's not the case, I will simply move to the next product.

When you can make any product work like you want, it comes down to scent. To start with, LaToja is okay for me. The scent wasn't why I rated it so low. It's really a performance issue. I was able to make it work but it's a special routine, just for that product.
 
Different strokes....

I have hard water and La Toja is my favorite shaving soap. Period. In fact, it out performs every other soap I've ever tried by good margin and is also the easiest and most forgiving to lather. The list includes Proraso of all flavors, MWF, Hasslinger, Dr. Ditmar, Tiki, Tabac, and others I forget.

It's all subjective.
 
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I really want to get a hold of Camelot of GZD. I can never quite justify the cost of the stick plus shipping when I can get 12 Arko stick for ~$15 shipped. Someday when I am running low I might be able to swing it though.

As for La Toja, I can never get it to work here in Calgary (12 grains/gallon, 170 mg/L) but I use it in my travel kit and have had some great shaves with it in softer water areas like Vancouver. It's funny, I lived in Montreal for 5 years and always considered the water relatively soft ;) I do love the La Toja scent though, so I keep trying.

For the local water I have had the best luck with Speick, Tabac and Arko with Speick being my hands down favourite. I am going to have to get one of those twist up Speick sticks, that just seems like a dream come true.

Thanks again Luc, love this thread.

May I point out that the Speick stick is not a twist-up container. You have to take the soap stick out of the container to use. It was a let-down for me.
 
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As I said, we all have different experiences. I experienced that product with soft and hard water. There's a difference. Is the product unworkable? Not at all. It's more difficult and that's it.

It's not a question of price or how easy it would be. Many products work fine with what comes out of the tap. If nothing would work then I would possibly look at an alternative. Since it's not the case, I will simply move to the next product.

When you can make any product work like you want, it comes down to scent. To start with, LaToja is okay for me. The scent wasn't why I rated it so low. It's really a performance issue. I was able to make it work but it's a special routine, just for that product.

Maybe you miss my point, I am not sure. I see many post about shavers complaining that a particular soap won't lather with hard water. In my opinion, it really should not be much of an issue. Like I posted you can buy a 2.5 gallon container of soft spring water which should last for a YEAR of making lather, for under $3. Doesn't seem like much of a special routine to take water hardness completely out of the equation for any soap or cream. I use regular tap water for everything but making lather and use spring water for lather building.
 

Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
Maybe you miss my point, I am not sure. I see many post about shavers complaining that a particular soap won't lather with hard water. In my opinion, it really should not be much of an issue. Like I posted you can buy a 2.5 gallon container of soft spring water which should last for a YEAR of making lather, for under $3. Doesn't seem like much of a special routine to take water hardness completely out of the equation for any soap or cream. I use regular tap water for everything but making lather and use spring water for lather building.

Sorry, what I said

1-not impossible to work with, some soaps are easier to work with
2-special routine does not mean using a gallon of distilled or water that was softened. I had to do something differently to make it work

Again, we can discuss that such product is workable and others aren't. We will disagree on the results. I try to only change the soap when it comes to testing

This ensure that only 1 variable alter the shave.

Those are my observations when I post here. I can try to adjust a little something here and there. It may or may not work but eventually, I have to move on. I believe that the product had a fair chance. If I switch water now, I may have to restart from the first product.
 

Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
Next stick is a mystery stick. I will post more soon
$ImageUploadedByTapatalk1452508366.418754.jpg
 

Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
As part of the East Coast Canadian Pass-around Box - Round 2 I was lucky enough to grab a piece of Duo Shave Stick. I haven't seen that shave stick before and thought it would be unfair to take the whole stick so I took a small piece that I stuck on the Derby shave stick as shown above.

attachment.php


I, again, used this method to stick the shave stick on top of another one so it's easier to work with.

Handy Grip in hand!

attachment.php

First impressions are not good. The soap is crumbly and very hard. I will need to soak it a lot to get something out of it. The surface is starting to get softer now so it's easier to apply the product. As mentioned here, it seems that the product is made in Bulgaria.

I used Bulgarian shave creams before and they worked well.
http://badgerandblade.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=123612
http://badgerandblade.com/reviews/s...le=kapo-karo-fresh-shaving-cream-green&cat=41

However, this shave stick still need work. I will try soaking the tip while I shower and see how it helps. So far, it seems that I can't get enough product to make and okay lather. It's usable but poor. It looks like I'm not the only one with this issue: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/313833-Shave-Suppository
 
$IMG_3593.jpg
Luc, I`m at the tail end of my Erasmic stick soap and I`ll be sure to follow the Colgate chart that you`ve provided and stick this Erasmic stub onto my Arko stick. I couldn`t believe the journey of finally finishing off this Erasmic soap stick. At first I hated it for it was such a bad soap but over time I`ve managed to find how to maximize the lather for a good shave despite the lack lustre lather.
 

Luc

"To Wiki or Not To Wiki, That's The Question".
Staff member
View attachment 629305
Luc, I`m at the tail end of my Erasmic stick soap and I`ll be sure to follow the Colgate chart that you`ve provided and stick this Erasmic stub onto my Arko stick. I couldn`t believe the journey of finally finishing off this Erasmic soap stick. At first I hated it for it was such a bad soap but over time I`ve managed to find how to maximize the lather for a good shave despite the lack lustre lather.

I would be interested to know what you did to make this one work better.
 
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