Talk Me Out of This

Squire · Post by **Squire** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 7:20 am

Clive I thought of several replies to your post, none of them printable.

rustyblade · Post by **rustyblade** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 7:41 am

fallingwickets wrote:i remember the fanfare and buzz that permeated smf when you bought that puck......the shower seems like such a shitty ending for it

clive

Clive, you got your wires crossed, I am using Yardley Sandalwood bath soap.

fallingwickets · Post by **fallingwickets** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 3:31 am

sorry, its the becks fault! for a minute or two i was wondering what the world was coming to?

clive

EL Alamein · Post by **EL Alamein** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:08 am

EL Alamein wrote:
rustyblade wrote:I was using my Taylor's lavender in the shower recently, up until it became really difficult to lather. It just seem to dry up and became really difficult to get suds out of. I had to chuck it and use Yardley Sandalwood instead.
Richard, you are describing something which I have noticed as well with the Taylor's soap (the old formula at least). I am at the end stages of using my second cake of this. When the hole appeared in the bottom I cut the remaining ring into strips (just last night as a matter of fact) and plastered them to the bottom of the bowl. It takes a bit of effort in these last stages to get the soap to melt and load onto the bristles, far more effort than when the cake was new. I think with these truly hard-milled soaps they can get even harder with use - why, I don't know. I suspect that contaminants in the water leach into the soap and further reduce it's lathering capabilities but who knows.

I've also noticed that Tabac doesn't seem to have this problem. I don't think it's a truly milled soap but it performs excellently nonetheless.

Chris

Just to clarify what I wrote about how it gets harder to lather the Taylor's soap as it gets older: it seems that this may be most apt to happen in hard water. It can be remedied by switching to distilled water at this stage and it may be that the problem is compounded by hard water. I have been vacillating back and forth between tap and distilled water with this cake over that last year and when I hit this stage I switched, right after I made that post, back to distilled water and the difference in lather was like night and day. It took a little bit of effort at first to get the soap to load but then it seemed to yield up excellent lather after that. Perhaps this was due to the upper layer being contaminated with minerals etc.

Anyway, if someone is experiencing this type of phenomenon with their soap I recommend trying distilled water.

Chris

95% · Post by **95%** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:18 am

The same thing happened to my cake of Arlington. It eventually would produce no lather at all, even if I soaked it in water overnight. I threw it out, which I now regret. I should have tried Chris' suggestion of distilled water.

brothers · Post by **brothers** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 2:08 pm

Porter, I share the same regrets, looking back at my sorry results with soaps and hard tap water, there were some great soaps that I could not master. The advent of distilled water was a big breakthrough for me.

rustyblade · Post by **rustyblade** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 3:33 pm

I only use soft water.

Squire · Post by **Squire** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 3:46 pm

I have hard water at the office, soft water at the condo, and somewhere in between at the town house. Shave at all three and soft water works the quickest but I don't feel handicapped by the others.

bernards66 · Post by **bernards66** » Wed Sep 07, 2011 10:16 pm

Squire, I think that it might depend on HOW hard the water is. My tap water is rated as 'medium hard' and I can get soaps to lather pretty well, but not as well as creams. I think I was the first, back on the old MSN forum, to suggest a member having this sort of problem to try distilled water, and it did work for him. But, I don't follow my own advice. I, myself, never use distilled water because I don't want the added hassle and since my water isn't THAT hard I can get by without it. And I use creams more than soaps anyway. But the distilled water thing can make a big difference for some, no doubt about that.
Regards,
Gordon

Squire · Post by **Squire** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 4:46 am

Ain't it so Gordon, for a young fellow life's an adventure whereas for us seasoned gents it can be more about avoiding hassles. For a long time I prepared hot water to warm my shaving cup and brush, microwave, hot pot, that sort of thing but no longer bother. I'm an early riser but not a morning person so the fewer steps the better.

I wonder if something like a Britta system might be useful for those with hard water.