50+ soaps reviewed by a new DE shaver.

[MENTION=108562]dkeester[/MENTION] those are all fantastic choices! You will certainly enjoy every one of them.


Proraso green


First pass plenty of water but still not slick enough for me


Second and third passes maybe too wet for others but I prefer Proraso like this... or at least I did today. I haven't tried Proraso in months.


Slickness 9/10

Residual slickness 8.5/10

Cushion 8/10

Moisturizing 9/10 I can't believe this scored so high!

Scent 6/10 synthetic and generic but enjoyable with the menthol.


Overall 8.5/10 way better than I thought this would score. This is just as good as I remember it even though it was the second soap I ever tried. I'm glad I came back to this before moving on to more of my samples.

One complaint I have is the small plastic tub it comes in. This makes it difficult to load and is messy. I would subtract one full point off the soap for container to be quite honest. I really have grown spoiled by CRSW and Dr. Jon containers.

rockclimber said:

Proraso green

Slickness 9/10

Residual slickness 8.5/10

Cushion 8/10

Moisturizing 9/10 I can't believe this scored so high!

Scent 6/10 synthetic and generic but enjoyable with the menthol.


Overall 8.5/10 way better than I thought this would score. This is just as good as I remember it even though it was the second soap I ever tried. I'm glad I came back to this before moving on to more of my samples.

One complaint I have is the small plastic tub it comes in. This makes it difficult to load and is messy. I would subtract one full point off the soap for container to be quite honest. I really have grown spoiled by CRSW and Dr. Jon containers.

Click to expand...

I cant believe you scored this soap that high either. Were you in a very generous mood when you shaved?


I'll have to use my Proraso again just to see what's up.

Thanks to this thread I just ordered a 2 ounce puck of Dr. Jon's in the Savanah sunrise scent. I am excited. I'm pretty sure I'm going to love this one. Great ingredients list and a scent profile that is right up my alley.

Elvergun said:

I cant believe you scored this soap that high either. Were you in a very generous mood when you shaved?


I'll have to use my Proraso again just to see what's up.

Click to expand...

I know, I was surprised myself. I shaved with it again today just to make sure my review was accurate and I went ahead and face lathered it instead of bowl lathered.

Face lather start


Face lather finish after lathering up the soap more and applying "painting" brush strokes.


Same score as last time. 8.5/10 with a great moisturizing and slickness score. Looking at the ingredients I don't know why this is but I'm going to go ahead and just roll with it and enjoy the shaves. Proraso green for the cheap win... If you can truly call 8.5 a win since many artisans score higher for around the same price. In any case I think this is a must have addition for any new DE shaver.

Two hours later moisturizing drops to a 7/10 I think the first rating was because Arko is so bad for moisturizing that Proraso scored a 9/10 easily. I think the next test will be Nuavia vs Proraso Green for the final review.

rockclimber said:

Two hours later moisturizing drops to a 7/10 I think the first rating was because Arko is so bad for moisturizing that Proraso scored a 9/10 easily. I think the next test will be Nuavia vs Proraso Green for the final review.

Click to expand...

A David and Goliath shave, huh?

Elvergun said:

A David and Goliath shave, huh?

Click to expand...

Something like that

Today's shave was with the fat. I haven't used this puck in several months and it experienced The Tell-Tale signs that everyone asks questions about on here, the cracking of the puck and does it present a problem? The answer is yes it will crack and no there is no problem. After I lathered on the puck the cracks completely disappeared.



There are two ways to work with this soap. The normal looking yogurt lather which tends to clog the razor even though it is not "thick" per se.


Slickness 8/10
Residual slickness 7.5/10
Cushion 9/10

And the much wetter version


Slickness 9/10
Residual slickness 8.5/10
Cushion 7.5/10

Personally I would choose the wetter version even though it has very little cushion however having to compromise with soap is not something I prefer to do and as such My overall rating is not as good as most of the Artisans I've reviewed. I will put a brand new blade in tomorrow and shave with the fat one time before giving my final review.

rockclimber said:

Time to go from one of the best smelling soaps to one of the worst. Arko.

Click to expand...

Umm, have you smelled Williams? Truly yuck.

rockclimber said:

. . . Classic to me means Bay Rum with a very organic smell or Tabac with its signature powder and tobacco scent.

Click to expand...

I wish that I could pick up tobacco from Tabac. All I get is a very sweet floral, not even "tobacco flower" floral, just "old lady" floral.

Hhhmmm... I actually like the smell of Arko and Williams. They smell clean and soapy to me.

Speaking of interesting scents...

I tried the Stirling Ben Franklin today. It is an interesting scent. I get clove with hints of something peppery when I smell it. My wife says it smells like old man, which I guess was the point of the soap. It is a unique scent and I kind of enjoy it. I probably won't be buying a full puck of it, however. I don't want my wife thinking that I smell like old man just yet.

The soap performance was really good. I can see why Benjamin has been giving Stirling consistently high marks, and why they are one of the most often recommended soap companies here on B&B. The cushion was nice, but the slickness was a bit lacking. That is not the fault of the soap. I think that I didn't add enough water. I didn't have any problems making it lather, but it did seem to be really thirsty. It shouldn't be hard to dial this stuff in and get some really stellar shaves. Also, I like that the Stirling scents are strong and bold. They aren't afraid to make unique things and they don't skimp on the scent oils.

Tomorrow will be a shave with the Coconut Sandalwood Mystic Water (yay!), then Sunday will probably be back to my 3017 project of TOBS Cedarwood.

Oh, and you guys should definitely give BlueBell soaps (https://www.bluebellsoap.com/) a try. I just finished my turn with the RMS passaround box and I am very pleased with the quality of the soap. I would love to hear what you guys who have tried 100+ soaps think of them.

Stirling is consistently one of the slicker soaps I have tried.

It can take a lot of water,and is extremely slick when you lather it a little on the wet side.

I thought Stirling Ben Franklin smelled pretty good and my wife didn't think it was an old man smell so I really lucked out on that. She even thinks Bay Rum is old man smell and I love Bay Rum! I agree with you though it's not something I would buy an entire puck of.

Stirling is pretty much the gold standard of noob shave soap for me. It is what I have introduced my entire office staff to and they absolutely love it. The price is also very reasonable and can only be bested by Artisans such as Suday Soapery.

Last night I went out to drink after work and met a couple of women one named Kim or Kym and later on met someone else.. the other I can't remember unfortunately. Anyway one sold bath and Shave soap as a side business and the other sold honey. Around here everything is local or Artisan so I was excited to try both. The honey is really good and the shave soap is good as well. As soon as I told Kim about my thread on Badger and Blade she made me promise not to review her soap LOL I think she was kind of intimidated. I bought a 2oz sample of her "moisturizing" soap and shaved with it last night. It's not the best soap in the world but man is it moisturizing, I would actually say it is way too moisturized and should only be used in winter. Anyway, it was fun to try and I'll probably buy her normal soap to try out. I like supporting local artists and my kids really love the honey!

It is good that you are supporting local artisans and the local economy. I am looking for good Colorado made shave soaps for the same reason.

BTW, the Mystic Water Coconut Sandalwood smells wonderful!

Well thanks to Google I can forget about the honey, I just looked them up and 6 years ago they were accused of using other people's honey and rebranding it their own. I can't stand it when people do that so I probably won't be buying that honey again.


Anyway, on to good news a couple days ago I was comparing the two Dr. Jon soaps and it looks like the new version has more castor oil and has some sodium hydroxide as well. It would appear that the sodium hydroxide has given it a much firmer texture which is nice and the castor oil has helped with the lather while completely replacing the coconut oil. I would not have guessed that the new version had 0% coconut oil, interesting. The new version also has something called slippery elm bark which I have yet to even look up online. Just by looking at the ingredients I can't tell if there is more mango seed butter or other oils but it is certainly a much better recipe. The new label is on the left.

Haslinger, I haven't used this in months either so I thought I would come back to it as a good base before moving on.
I remember Haslinger having an epic moisturizing score but after shaving I'm left somewhat disappointed.




Slickness 9/10

Residual slickness 9/10

Cushion 9.2/10

Moisturizing 8/10

Scent 2/10

Overall 8.5/10

I'm surprised that Haslinger scored below a 9 but the moisturizing is not nearly as good as I remember it being and there is no scent. Still probably a staple in everyone's garage but not the 10/10 I remember from months ago.


Ingredients: potassium stearate, sodium stearate, potassium tallowate, aqua, lac powder, parfum, sheep milk, arachis hypogaea, lanolin, potassium cocoate, glycerine, etc.

Bora35 said:

But they're using Babassu oil which is almost identical to Coconut oil, but has nicer label appeal

Click to expand...

Good catch, I had to look that one up online to see what it was.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babassu_oil

Dr. Jon has always been creative when coming up with ingredients. It's a nice change from the solid old-school recipes. In my opinion Dr. Jons new recipe shaves better than Haslinger so it's a win-win for all of us. Add in new player Sudsy Soapery with their unique ingredients and combine that with the tallow, veggie and palm oil and palm kernel oil based soaps... we really have it too good don't we! To think that I was using canned go less than a year ago

Bain Amour Bay Rum



I'm really glad that this week I tried MWF, Haslinger, Arko and Proraso because I would have a hard time trusting my own review without those in the back of my mind.

Slickness 9.5/10

Residual slickness 9.5/10

Cushion 9/10

Moisturizing ?/10 this smelled so good I had to put the Clubman Bay Rum on immediately. Today was the perfect shave!

Scent 8.5/10 could be stronger in my opinion, bring on the Bay Rum!

Overall 9.2/10 beats MWF, Haslinger, Arko and Proraso. I don't know what I am imagining or what everyone else is missing but I love this stuff. I'll test the moisturizing of this tomorrow when I don't have to rush off to a family event. Enjoy the weekend!

I used the Mystic Water Coconut Sandalwood this morning. Wow, was that a great shave. It requires patience and time to lather it right, but it does reward the investment. The post-shave feel isn't quite as nice as BlueBell, but it is a great post-shave feel.

This one is Michelle's new formula, so it is supposedly easier to lather. It works for me, but I can see why Benjamin rated it as something that is not very newbie friendly. However, I have a big smile on my face because of how good my face feels after the shave. I think this is one that everyone should try once. It may take some work to get good performance out of it, but once you get it working you will be very happy.

rockclimber said:

I don't know what I am imagining or what everyone else is missing but I love this stuff.

Click to expand...

I bought the Green Irish Tweed. I'm not crazy about the scent, but the performance is fantastic. I do like Sudsy Soapery just a bit better, but they're both really, really good.

I think if people are "missing" anything, it's because they don't know about it. If I wasn't reading this thread, there's no way I'd know about it, either.

Mitchell's wool fat


I had to use this one more time before putting it away for the next several months. I thought perhaps my last review was too harsh for this old school Classic. This time I decided to go with a thinner lather so it would not clog my Razor as quickly as last time.

Slickness 8/10

Residual slickness 7.5/10

Cushion 8.5/10

Moisturizing 8/10

Scent -/10

Overall 8/10

Not bad for a hundred year old recipe but certainly not in my top 10. A good solid soap everyone should try but the slickness is not on par with modern soap and the moisturizing is only above-average, I'm sure the lanolin was a breakthrough addition to shave soap 100 years ago but nowadays everyone uses moisturizing agents in their soap including lanolin. I do like the scent as it is a simple clean wool fat soap scent but if I was to rate it a number it would be a 2 or 3 / 10. Overall 8/10 and something I am looking forward to using again in the winter months ahead.