Help with New Soap Choice

Hello everyone, I've only been using soaps for about a year and my collection consists of Proraso 'White Label', Cella, Soap Commander 'Respect', and Rustic Shaving 'Mahogany'. I've saved up a few pennies and want to treat myself by picking up 5-6 new soaps. I have a short list(which is actually pretty long) and was hoping you fellows could point me in the right direction by recommending some from my list below.

Thanx in advance for any help or suggestions


Catie's Bubbles - Ocean Grove
Catie's Bubbles - LPV
Catie's Bubbles - Purple Grapefruit

Beer Soap Brewing - Bay Rum

B&M - Seville
B&M - Cheshire

Maggards - Lilac
Maggards - Orange Menthol

Razorock - XXX

Soap Commander - Endurance

Strop Shoppe - Russian Tea
Strop Shoppe - Baker Street
Strop Shoppe - Bay Rum

Mystic Water - Bay Rum
Mystic Water - Irish Traveller
Mystic Water - Sandalwood Rose

Tiki - Fougere
Tiki - Set Sail

TOBS - Grapefruit Shave

TSD - Angel Type
TSD - Bourbon Vanilla

PAA - The Ocean

Dapper Dragon - Signature

Tiki Fougere is my favorite scent. Very deep, strong "green" scent.
I have a Through the Fire, who make Maggards soaps and is a great performer.
Mystic Water and Catie's Bubbles are great soaps as well.
The performance from any of these is great just pick a scent that appeals to you.

I highly recommend Catie's Bubbles Fouet L'Orange. It smells amazing. That the only CBs I've tried. B&M Cheshire is strong to me. I can smell it a couple of hours after I shave. It smells very nice but not something I'd want to use everyday. Tiki's Set Sail also smells really good and the performance is there, also. I wasn't a huge fan of Maggards Orange menthol. The scent was just okay but I found it drying to my skin. My favorite scents so far is Shannon's soaps Aussie Ice, Stroppe Shop Alpine Frost with tallow, Mikes Lemongrass Eucalyptus and Catie's Bubbles L'Orange. All of them are incredible performers, too. I have DR Harris Windsor on the way after reading so much about it. Scents are very YMMV but I like more natural, less bold scents. Some soaps are way too overpowering and synthetic. B&M Cheshire is knocking on the door of too much for me but I still recommend it. FYI- I see you have Soap Commanders Respect. I love the performance but do not like the scent much. Hope this helps.

B & M
Palmolive shave stick grated into bowl
MWF
Speick cream
Cyril R Salter Cream

You need a good triple milled soap from DR Harris on that list.

I recommend getting at least one Catie's Bubbles soap and see what you think of its performance. Two or more would be what I'd do, but then you couldn't use the rest of your money on the other choices.

My favorite CB scent out of the five I own is La Terre Verte (LTV). The others are also very good. I realize LPV is the fave but the LTV is probably second and I don't see many if any love it / hate it posts on this scent. I haven't tried the LPV yet because I'm concerned about irritation. Can't comment on your CB choices, I don't have them.

Caties is good stuff. Also might want to consider Stirling.

Art of Shaving tallow from the 'bay.

But from your list I'd pick these 6:

Catie's Bubbles - Purple Grapefruit
B&M - Seville
Maggards - Lilac
Razorock - XXX
Strop Shoppe - Baker Street
Mystic Water - Bay Rum

Have to recommend TOBS grapefruit. I do love everything citrus tho. Great TOBS shave, and a switch from all things lime.

From your choices my selections would be as follow:

Catie's Bubbles - LPV
Razorock - XXX
Soap Commander - Endurance
Strop Shoppe - Baker Street
PAA - The Ocean
Tiki - Fougere

beginish said:

You need a good triple milled soap from DR Harris on that list.

Click to expand...

^ This.

I would say RazoRock and TOBS, but I may be in the minority of members who don't care for artisan soaps. I'm sure they are great, but they are not my thing at all. I might add Cella to your list. Tobs in any scent is outstanding.

Add Stirling. Great performance and wide variety of scents.

From your list, I have had great luck with and am a big fan of B&M Seville and Strop Shoppe Baker Street (and Barbershoppe, FWIW). Also, moving off of your list, I just started working on a jar of Knockout Cool Blue. Excellent performer. Waiting for Silver to arrive to try a new scent. Good luck.

B&M seville is great smell/performance. Caties bubbles LPV. I'd also look into haslinger schafmilch and cold river soap works if I were you.

Where is Stirling on that list???

Thanks for all the replies everyone, I have a good idea what I'm going to get and also a few that I apparently need to add, Dr. Harris, Stirling, Cold River, just to name a few!

No Stirling on the list? Must have been lost in the upload

What?! No Tabac?!!