Hard or soft soaps?

Fido

Fido

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Location
New Forest, England.
I'm not sure if we have discussed general preferences for either hard or soft soaps recently.

Personally, having tried a wide variety of soaps, I now much prefer and find easier to use the wonderful variety of softer soaps on offer. There are many fine soaps made by artisan soap makers and among the commercial brands I never cease to enjoy are the ever popular Palmolive, Proraso, Tabac, and Arko.

The hard triple milled soaps supplied by the big brands are very popular - and often significantly more expensive - but I find them harder to work with, perhaps it's my hard water.

So for the time being I'm going to be spending more time with my "softs"
 
Hard soaps are good in stick form for face lathering; soft soaps are for brush loading and bowl lathering.

At least that's me with my hard water and soft (badger) brushes; I suspect with a boar bristles and soft water I could pick up a hard soap on a brush.

But frankly I'd be happy right now if I never used anything but MdC and a New Forest brush ;)

I'm spoilt. And it's your fault.
 
I don't have any problem with triple milled soaps even with a soft brush and hard water. A pre soak with a few drops of water for a few minutes seems to help, and I need to spend maybe an extra 20 seconds picking up as opposed to a couple of seconds with softer stuff. No big deal unless you're in a serious rush.
I use a few different soaps and creams now, changing between them based only on what I fancy on the day, and that can often be the T+H hard soap. I think I like the "old fashionedness" of it as well. Some days is soft days, some days is hard, I like 'em all.
 
CanucksTraveller said:
I don't have any problem with triple milled soaps even with a soft brush and hard water. A pre soak with a few drops of water for a few minutes seems to help, and I need to spend maybe an extra 20 seconds picking up as opposed to a couple of seconds with softer stuff. No big deal unless you're in a serious rush.
I use a few different soaps and creams now, changing between them based only on what I fancy on the day, and that can often be the T+H hard soap. I think I like the "old fashionedness" of it as well. Some days is soft days, some days is hard, I like 'em all.
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Pre soaking your hard soap makes it into a soft soap. Why not go for the soft one in the first place? Is it a fragrence thing i.e. certain fragrences are not made in both soft and hard soaps. Or is there something in the soap itself?
 
Pig Cat said:
Is it me or doesn't P160 get mentioned anymore? :?
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I think they stoped making it? I use Cella though, good stuff and close to the 160, I think. I like hard soap before creams, but a lot of my "hard" soaps are soft :lol: Sharons, Henks and Cella. I like hard soaps best, for me it´s a pleasure loading with it, but I do have very soft water.
 
Parwin said:
Pre soaking your hard soap makes it into a soft soap.
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Does it? To me it's a hard soap, and that's just how I use one, I'd never get any lather off it otherwise. I don't soak the whole thing, just a few drops of water to make a start on the surface of the cake.

Why not go for the soft one in the first place? Is it a fragrence thing i.e. certain fragrences are not made in both soft and hard soaps. Or is there something in the soap itself
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Dunno really, I haven't analysed it to that extent, I was bought my hard soap as a present and I just like it. I do like the different scent and there's an appeal in the "old schoolness" of a hard soap I suppose. It's almost an ultra hard line tradionalist thing, and I find it kind of rewarding to build up a good lather from scratch.

But as I say, I appreciate them all on different days, on work mornings I will generally go with a cream for speed.
 
shrink said:
how soft is a soft soap? i've never encountered one... and wonder where is the line between a soft soap, and a cream?
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I'd describe as a "soft" soap one that I can push into a bowl of my preferred shape using fingers and thumbs. That includes several soap sticks including Tabac, Palmolive, Arko and the like as well as soaps like Nanny's, Proraso and Martin de Candre. And there must be many more.
 
The triple milled soap I use the most is Cade which explodes with lather as soon as the brush touches it, pre soaking does not turn this into a soft soap.It helps to start the lathering process no doubt but that's about it.I still have my batch of the famed P160 in it's wooden bowl.
 
I pulled the Proraso out, thought what a gloomy day it was and went for the Tabac instead. What great stuff this is . So easy to lather and apply and I do actually like the scent.

Somehow Cade doesn't seem as hard as the other triple milled soaps. I love that too.

So much to choose from!
 
Henks' stuff (lovely, by the way) is way less hard than any other 'soft' soap out there.

In my opinion it is even more fluid than most manufacturers' shave creams contained in tubes.

I generally tend to favor shave creams these days, face lathered. Sticks are fantastic, too, wish more manufacturers made them.
Soaps (normal, hard, soaps - and that excludes C&S #88) I usually soak the whole puck while I shower.
 
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