I think I messed up.

LiquidPig · Mar 4, 2014

I went down to a local barber shop to pick up some soap, as i am new to the whole building a lather thing, unsure what i was looking for. But looking around online they has some very good reviews so i figured that they would carry good products like i would expect any good business to do. I spoke with the girl behind the reception desk about looking for a soap and she showed me a few different ones. I looked and smelled and enjoyed the experience. I settled on this one puck that smelled amazing.

Got home and immediately looked up the reviews of the soap. I jumped on google and started typing c-a-s-w-e-l-l

As you can already guess i ended up with a puck of caswell massey sandalwood shaving soap

To my gross disappointment this soap i am unable to build a lather, every time i take some extra time to see if i can get it to go into anything decent it just starts to hold a little lather and falls to this disappointing mess in the bottom of my lather bowl. I have read the reviews to see just the awful experience that people have had with this. Is there any way i can save this? or do i now have a new soap bowl and now need to go out and buy a puck to put in it?

The worse part is if anyone found out the horrible price i paid for this, you would all die laughing.

Capslock · Mar 4, 2014

You have yourself a nice, good-smelling, expensive BATH soap now.

AngryGreek · Mar 4, 2014

I'm sure it would be a great bath soap!

Mr5x5 · Mar 4, 2014

LiquidPig said:
I went down to a local barber shop to pick up some soap, as i am new to the whole building a lather thing, unsure what i was looking for. But looking around online they has some very good reviews so i figured that they would carry good products like i would expect any good business to do. I spoke with the girl behind the reception desk about looking for a soap and she showed me a few different ones. I looked and smelled and enjoyed the experience. I settled on this one puck that smelled amazing.

Got home and immediately looked up the reviews of the soap. I jumped on google and started typing c-a-s-w-e-l-l

As you can already guess i ended up with a puck of caswell massey sandalwood shaving soap

To my gross disappointment this soap i am unable to build a lather, every time i take some extra time to see if i can get it to go into anything decent it just starts to hold a little lather and falls to this disappointing mess in the bottom of my lather bowl. I have read the reviews to see just the awful experience that people have had with this. Is there any way i can save this? or do i now have a new soap bowl and now need to go out and buy a puck to put in it?

The worse part is if anyone found out the horrible price i paid for this, you would all die laughing.

Welcome to B&B. Lots of good soaps out there, you just happened upon one that most don't like. I'm partial to Mama Bear soaps but some prefer tallow in their soap. Depending on where you are you can usually find Van Der Hagen or Williams at a larger drug store in the US. VDH is pretty much foolproof. There are vendors that sell samples in the market place and I would suggest you try out one of them and get yourself some samples of various soaps and see what you like. As we say here, Your Mileage May (Will) Vary.

blzrfn · Mar 4, 2014

You could always use it as a pre shave soap and find another functional puck to put in the bowl (assuming you got the bowl that is). Or you could just use it to defunk new brushes or do like I did with my last (ever!) Trumper pucks and use them for facial soap.

LiquidPig · Mar 4, 2014

Thanks all for the advise, I did get the nice mango wood bowl with it for the Unreal price of 40 dollars.

and just orders a couple new soaps to try out in that bowl. and we will find a place for the Caswell

Lakebound · Mar 4, 2014

LiquidPig said:
Thanks all for the advise, I did get the nice mango wood bowl with it for the Unreal price of 40 dollars.

and just orders a couple new soaps to try out in that bowl. and we will find a place for the Caswell

Stick a piece of wire through it, hang it over the side of the toilet. It will freshen the bowl with every flush after that.

Don't feel bad, I bought a puck myself once.

Once.

Frank

OccamsBadger · Mar 4, 2014

My first shaving soap was C-M. Nice smell but it turned to slime almost as soon as I got it on my face. I could never get stable lather with it. It made a nice shower soap and I still have the bowl. There are lots of great soaps out there, just move on.

john parker · Mar 4, 2014

I just read somewhere that perhaps a year ago Caswell-Massey was going through a reformulation of their soaps, though no one had tried the new one (if it exists) yet. Will have to go back to try to find out where I read that, but perhaps you might give it a try or two more, just to see. I have the Caswell-Massey Sandalwood cologne and it is very nice. I know that their shaving soaps have a rotten reputation, but was really hoping that there would be a reformulation and that sandalwood would be one of the options. If the scent of the soap is truly nice, perhaps superlathering with an unscented cream would "save" the situation. I have read about superlathering but must admit to never having tried it myself. At any rate, best of luck! There are many good soaps out there.

HoneyBadger300 · Mar 5, 2014

john parker said:
I just read somewhere that perhaps a year ago Caswell-Massey was going through a reformulation of their soaps, though no one had tried the new one (if it exists) yet. Will have to go back to try to find out where I read that, but perhaps you might give it a try or two more, just to see. I have the Caswell-Massey Sandalwood cologne and it is very nice. I know that their shaving soaps have a rotten reputation, but was really hoping that there would be a reformulation and that sandalwood would be one of the options. If the scent of the soap is truly nice, perhaps superlathering with an unscented cream would "save" the situation. I have read about superlathering but must admit to never having tried it myself. At any rate, best of luck! There are many good soaps out there.

Sorry I have no link for proof, but in my clicking around I did see someone have success with Caswell. No idea what brush he was using or what his prep was (soaking, dripping water on top, nothing at all). Sorry! But I've heard that the new formula CAN work. It's not worth wasting the time over a soap that you don't like though. Enjoy all of those other good ones out there!

joshf128 · Mar 5, 2014

My first foray into wet shaving was with a CVS boar brush and Williams. I liked it well enough to ask for a nicer set for Christmas a couple of years ago . My wife ordered a Mach 3/ Best Badger Brush set with stand from Caswell Massey and some Almond cream to go with it. The brush works great and I have since upgraded to a DE but that cream would not lather for anything. Almost turned me off to the whole deal. Fortunately I heard about Razorock and got some XXX and Fresco and did much better with those products.

There are tons of great low priced soaps (and higher priced ones too) available. Razorock, Stirling, and Mama Bear are all very popular around here.

At least the C-M Almond cream smelled good...

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I think I messed up.

LiquidPig

Capslock

AngryGreek

Mr5x5

blzrfn

LiquidPig

Lakebound

OccamsBadger

john parker

HoneyBadger300

joshf128

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