Newbie Q, what is the difference between soap and cream?

J

jonboy

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As above really, as some of you may have read I am new to the world of DE shaving but I seem to have got the hang of mapping my beard very quickly and have not suffered many niks.... touch wood!

I am however using up my old gillette gel. I have already sought advice about brushes but as a noob, I am struggling to grasp the difference between cream and soap. I used a sample pack of Menscience advanced shave formula I received with my Merk tonight, but could not really notice a marked improvement over the gel - other than a little less clogging. Is this classed as a cream or a lotion, and would this have been applied by a brush rather than by hand?

I have tried the search function but there are too many "common words"

Thanks in advance.
 
Shave soap comes in a hard cake or "puck". Sometimes, less often, in a stick as well. It's solid, and you wet it and work some lather off it with your wet brush. Then build up the lather in your bowl.
Cream is just that, it looks creamy, you pick up a smallish amount out of a tub or a pot with the tips of your brush, then build up the lather as before. Sometimes it comes in a tube and you squeeze a small amount into your mug or bowl and you work it up as before.

Cream is generally regarded by many as easier and slightly quicker to get a good lather from as there's moisture there already. I disagree though, I've always got a quick lather from hard soap. Suppose it might depend on what soap you use.

At the end of the day, they're both soap, there to cushion and lubricate, and they're used in much the same way. Try both, see what you think. A bit of trial and error has to be key... I'm still learning myself and will be for a long time, but I still use both.
 
Jonboy,

My understanding is that the soaps tend to be solid (like bars of hard soap for washing hands etc) wheras creams are much softer and more like cosmetic creams in texture(although viscosity varies greatly from brand to brand).

I may be wrong and am happy to be proved so :lol:

In my experience creams are much quicker to form a lather than soaps when lathering in a bowl although there are advantages to both types.

Henk is the man with the technical knowledge on this one!
 
I am not so much of a novice that I dont know the difference between in their raw physical state! :lol:

I was refering to their performance properties! :shave

So once you have the lather, there are no notable advantages/disadvantages between the two?
 
I bowl lather and find it quicker to whip up a lather with the creams I use (Erasmic and Ingram) as opposed to the soaps I use (Palmolive and ARKO - both pressed into a ramekin, as opposed to their natural stick format)

I also personally feel I get a smoother shave with the creams, with less tightening of the skin post shave.

Again, all my personal experience.

I recently got some L'Occitane Cade soap and that is proving to be a match to the Ingram cream for me.
 
At the top of each section are a group of "Sticky" threads - when I was a newbie I learnt (and often still do learn) a fantastic amount of information from them. Definitely worth a browse.
 
Canuck has explained it well I think. If I were you I'd pop to your nearest Tesco and grab a Palmolive shave stick and tube of cream. Both together will set you back a couple of pounds and between them could last up to six months, so you can't go wrong really.

You can either rub the shave stick on to your wet face and your stubble and when after a little while continue by lathering this soap with a brush. Or do what most here prefer and grate your stick in to a bowl and squish the gratings down so you can swirl a brush around the bowl to make lather.

The cream is easier I suppose. An almond sized blob squished in to the brush and either lather in a bowl or on your face. I'm sure there is a good thread about lathering technique here somewhere but I really must go to bed so can't find it for you! Also I think in the Beginners Kit thread there is a brush widely available so probably from Tesco. Get down there tomorrow, come back home and have a shower washing your face well in hot water to prep it for your shave. Then have fun trying to make lather. :shave Let us know how you get on.
 
jonboy said:
So once you have the lather, there are no notable advantages/disadvantages between the two?
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Not generally and most chaps here have no real preference, choosing to choose use some of each type. Imagine a Venn diagram with a circle for the soap users and one for the cream users. These circles would overlap considerably showing only a small percentage as only soap users or only cream users. Now I'm rambling, must get to bed!! N'night xxx
 
I am struggling to grasp the difference between cream and soap
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Sorry for the misunderstanding, maybe your wording didn't help. You didn't mention performance in the whole post, just the difference between the two. Ah well, no matter, I apologise if it was a misunderstanding on my part.

Anyway, I've found no great difference so far in performance, they're both fine enough and it all comes down to individual preferences on products, like in all walks of life. If you're getting a good lathering technique going on then there should be no difference between hard soap and a cream. As I said earlier, try them both, see what you reckon.
 
The tightening of the skin post shave with a soap stands to reason I guess, with the cream having more of a moisturising property presumably. I guess I was trying to find out if one provided more lubrication than the other. Trial and error depending on your skin/beard to a certain degree then. This is becoming more of a hobby than a chore! :D

As soon as I decide on a brush, I will be off to purchase one of each.... Thanks guys, thats another £(insert banknote of choice here! :twisted: ) you have all cost me!!! :mrgreen:
 
Pig Cat said:
Imagine a Venn diagram with a circle for the soap users and one for the cream users. These circles would overlap considerably showing only a small percentage as only soap users or only cream users.
Click to expand...

I think that's spot on. Many do use both. Some days is a soap day, some days is a cream day. And even if you settle on one, you probably like a bit of the other for a change now and then.

I quite like the old fashioned feel of a hard soap in a wooden hand turned bowl, it's getting in touch with the really traditional methods. But sometimes it's nice to just squirt a bit of shaving cream in a mug and get going.

There is probably 30 seconds to one minute's lathering difference, which is nothing in the grand scheme of things, but everything in the "I'm slightly pressed for time" mindset. Hence why I save the hard soap for days where I have actually got up in plenty of time.
 
jonboy said:
the cream having more of a moisturising property....
trying to find out if one provided more lubrication than the other.
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No. The cream is more moist to start with and the soap is drier to start with. Once you've lathered up you have incorporated water into each, the soap just needed a bit more. IMO they perform pretty much the same once lathered.


jonboy said:
This is becoming more of a hobby than a chore! :D
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Ah, now you're getting there. It IS a hobby! It's a pleasure, never a chore from now on.
 
CanucksTraveller said:
Ah, now you're getting there. It IS a hobby! It's a pleasure, never a chore from now on.
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I completely understand that, I used to shave in the shower in about 2 mins with a mach3, now I have my shower and take some time out at the sink. The sound, the care needed, the learning, the whole experience just seems so much more... traditional/manly/pleasurable, and I havent even got a brush or soap/cream yet!!!

A friend described DE shaving as pretty much the above, the main reason for me converting from the mach 3 after reading up on the subject.... He also said that it is cheaper after the initial outlay than cartridge shaving.... The lying .......!!! :mrgreen:
 
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