Best soap recommendation for water conditions

I travel quite a bit, sometimes to areas with harder water than I have at home. Some of my soaps don't work well. Please recommend soaps that are consistent regardless of water conditions.

Thanks!

In my experience, all of the HTGAM and Barrister & Mann soaps work consistently well, regardless of water.

ARKO will lather well even in very hard water. IMO, this is one of the reasons for its popularity. It has been formulated in Turkey, which has hard water in many places.

Thanks guys.

Really? That's it?

I live in Tucson where the water is pretty hard. I don't have any problems lathering Mike's, Stirling, or Razorock soaps. I couldn't get Mystic Water soap to lather no matter how hard I tried or what method I used.

But if you're traveling somewhere with hard water and you aren't used to it, you might be facing a different problem than someone who lives where there is hard water. All of my lathering techniques have been gained working with hard water...

Agreed on the HTGAM soaps, and would add in Haslinger soaps which seems to explode with lather whether or not I use tap or distilled water, and hot or cold water.

For hard water, PPF works best for me. Is an excellent performer.

Arko, too.

Valobra soft soap, I Coloniali, and Institut Karite are some that have proven themselves to me in more than one hard-water setting.

Personally, I don't buy into the hype that certain soaps don't lather well in hard water. I have moved around quite a bit since I started wet shaving, and always to an area with extremely hard water. I have never had an issue lathering any soap, and I have drawers full of soap.

The USGS defines water hardness (mg/L of dissolved minerals) as such:


The hardness at my last few addresses was: 232mg/L, 255mg/L, and 222 mg/L (current).

I've traveled the country on business to several locations that have soft water. I've never noticed my soaps to lather any better or easier anywhere I've gone.

If people are having issues with lathering soap, I believe (YMMV), that there is more to it than just water hardness.

We have really hard water in Arizona but I recently spent a few days at an inexpensive hotel on the beach in San Diego. The water there was way, way harder than the water here which is already quite bad (we do have a water softener now). The San Diego water was probably the worst I've ever experienced from a hardness standpoint. I had trouble with many of the soap samples I brought and had to use bottled water for them. The only one that lathered right up and didn't seem to care one bit about the hard water was Le Pere Lucien.

Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

Hard water vs Soft water does make a difference. Once we installed the water softener we cut the amount of soap that was needed for the dishwasher and washing machine in half.

dfoulk said:

We have really hard water in Arizona but I recently spent a few days at an inexpensive hotel on the beach in San Diego. The water there was way, way harder than the water here which is already quite bad (we do have a water softener now). The San Diego water was probably the worst I've ever experienced from a hardness standpoint. I had trouble with many of the soap samples I brought and had to use bottled water for them. The only one that lathered right up and didn't seem to care one bit about the hard water was Le Pere Lucien.

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That's interesting. I live in Tucson and travel to San Diego about a week a month. My shaves in San Diego in various hotel rooms are significantly nicer than my shaves at home. I generally have little alum burn, but when I shave in San Diego I have none! According to the tucsonaz.gov website the median PPM is 234. The sandiegogov website claims between 229 and 325 depending on where you are. So I guess if you were somewhere closer to the 325 and I've been closer to 229 it would make sense...

another vote for HTGAM. I live in an area with HARD water. Lathers up just fine.

I think I have one winner...I am currently in San Jose...water pretty hard. Haslinger Schafmilch worked very well. I have travelled with it before and always had great results. I have HTGAM The Beach, but the tin is so huge!!!.

Gotta order me some more Schafmilch, toot suite!!

I travel with a stick of La Toja, and that seems to be pretty good in regards to lathering no matter where I am in the world.

You can overcome hard water to some extent by loading more product. Also, I get better lather by starting with a wetter brush and adding less water later. The water in the brush will be softened by some of the extra soap you load and adding hard water later will tend to kill the lather.

I ran into the same issue and found that Haslinger Schafmilch and La Toja work well in harder water, as long as I use a little more water - slightly wetter brush to start with and add a few drops of water as I face lather.

TheVez2 said:

Personally, I don't buy into the hype that certain soaps don't lather well in hard water. I have moved around quite a bit since I started wet shaving, and always to an area with extremely hard water. I have never had an issue lathering any soap, and I have drawers full of soap.

The USGS defines water hardness (mg/L of dissolved minerals) as such:

Soft	0-60 mg/L
Moderately Hard	61-120 mg/L
Hard	121-180 mg/L
Very Hard	> 181 mg/L

The hardness at my last few addresses was: 232mg/L, 255mg/L, and 222 mg/L (current).

I've traveled the country on business to several locations that have soft water. I've never noticed my soaps to lather any better or easier anywhere I've gone.

If people are having issues with lathering soap, I believe (YMMV), that there is more to it than just water hardness.

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Certainly there is more to it, the general issue with hard water is you must use more product. sometimes much more, and you'll get a lot more soap scum! What happens is

soap + Mg(2+) or Ca(2+) --> Soap Scum (a solid that doesn't dissolve in water)

So when you start loading the brush, in the beginning you'll produce soap scum, not lather. Also when you add additional water you'll lose some lather, as it will bind with the newly introduced calcium or mg and form more soap scum. Using a wet brush method and avoiding adding too much additional water should work better in hard water areas as after the soap scum precipitates out, you'll be left with water that is no longer hard.

My 2nd semester organic chemistry professor had a story that when he lived with well water with really hard water, to get the soap to lather he'd have to step out of the stream of water, and lather without the stream of water hitting his skin and soap. Without the new water introducing the hard ions, he could get his soap to lather and suds! (Prof. Vale RIP)

So hard water does create problems creating lather, but should be alleviated by technique. I would guess the "hydrate" methods of creating lather will create the most difficulty.

hydro-magic said:

You can overcome hard water to some extent by loading more product. Also, I get better lather by starting with a wetter brush and adding less water later. The water in the brush will be softened by some of the extra soap you load and adding hard water later will tend to kill the lather.

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exactly what he said.

I don't know any better. I have, on the usgs scale, rock hard water. I don't notice a significant difference when the water softener is or is not working with any of my soaps ... Though my baseline is Arko; all my soaps are just fine (MWF, strop shoppe, prorasso). I'll be honest that I don't try for huge lather: just something that covers and protects.