SMF

Excellent points Josh. Using the MdC every day for the past months has actually helped me learn something useful, and here it is: it's got a great reputation, and blah blah blah, good stuff, yep. However - it isn't slick. It's just not. Reminds me of Cade soap. I love them both, but they're not slick. How did I come to realize this? I got myself a big tub of Krampert's Bay Rum Soap, made by Seifenglatt in California. Now that is a slick soap! I'm not going to yield to temptation and abandon the MdC. It'll take me a few more weeks, but it will happen, and I won't ever have to deal with yet another partially used soap or cream if it doesn't exist. Right? I keep reminding myself I'm in charge of all of these little globs and balls of soap gathering dust and aging gracefully in a bunch of boxes and plastic bins. Nobody else but me. If I give up the challenge of getting rid of these little waxy lumps, some of which smell pretty good, then they will have defeated me. Yes, I have thrown several straight into the trash if they even threatened to get the best of me. Big strong man's gotta stand up to these ugly little dusty clumps of wax.

Hi Tinman, Glad to make your acquaintance. To each of us, but not to anyone else, we're both new here (I think so anyway, I can't keep track of time.).

Glad to hear it's back to being a hobby and enjoyable for you.

Gary, there's always the shower to use soaps up. I removed some soaps through shaving attrition maybe a year ago. The only way I could do it was to have a lineup of the ones I wanted to move out and use them each in their turn. On Sunday I allowed myself to use any soap in the cabinet. I learned one thing doing that. Soaps last a very long time. So now I use the soaps in the shower. When I'm done whittling them down I'll still have too many in the cabinet, but it's a start.

Yes, I've used many of them in the shower, that's only for soaps though. Creams just hit the dumpster. Once I tried using some shaving cream for shampooing my hair, and it was horrible. Not adaptable. Surprisingly it sold and didn't have to get used up or thrown away. Giving stuff away is also a very good alternative. MdC, on the other hand is NOT bad, it is excellent. I'd never consider repurposing it. It is a lovely soap, as is Cade, just not as slick as others. I'm so far out on the limb, that I can now choose or avoid soaps that might be just a tiny bit better or worse than the other one for any number of seemingly ubiquitous reasons or traits. The following term doesn't really apply to me, but it might be used to describe how I judge the qualities I really admire in shaving gear including soaps (and creams) --- "sophisticated?"

I got your Speick cream if you remember. I still use it from time to time. I need to know what I'm up against, but I've been very delinquent in keeping up. There are just so many soaps available any more. So I've just given up with keeping up and just make (or have made) what I can.

Pretty much the same as Squire...whatever it pops into my head to use that day. But I also agree with Squire in that I've found that I get optimal performance much more often if it's a cream/soap that I'm using daily as opposed to one I just use occasionally ( same's true for brushes and razors for that matter ). So, I'm somewhere in the middle I guess when it comes to the 'fidelity' question. While I do use different creams and soaps I don't have nearly as many different ones around as I used to....and, they are all at least somewhat similar; all of them are from the smaller old school London barbering firms. I hardly ever vary the razor or aftershave and my choice of colognes is very limited now days. I used to have loads of all these things around but today I know what products I like best and I stick with them generally. Maybe I'm just getting old...sigh....
Regards,
Gordon

Gordon I like to think we're not growing older so much as growing more refined.

'More refined'?...yes, that must be it....definitely.
Regards,
Gordon

Up to now, the longest lasting single product was 2 1/2 sticks of Valobra stick that I smashed together into a big bowl and it took 77 daily latherings to use it all up, and that was loading the brush on the soap for quite a bit longer than 15 seconds, as I am currently doing with the MdC. With over 80 latherings on this bowl, it'll last almost an even hundred, maybe a few less to get all used up and gone. That's when it gets monotonous, wouldn't you agree? Anyway, for most if not all of this coming year (2015), I've decided maybe about 24 latherings in a row on any given soap or cream might be all I should comfortably do, before I give myself permission to move to the next one. Next up after the MdC will be AOS Sandalwood, the NOS tallow version currently being made available. Looking forward to the first of several 24 day runs with some iconic soaps and creams. (After AOS, up comes Cella -- looking good!)

Not really Gary, I don't find it monotonous at all. But then I'm in no particular hurry.

Yes, patience is a virtue, as is tenacity. We're fortunate to have such a fine variety of soaps and creams to choose from on a daily basis. I have considered giving up the daily shave and replacing it with a bi-daily shave just to slow it down even more. The benefit (to me) would be the doubly satisfying shave on day two. There was a brief time when I shaved morning and night, but it turned out to irritate the skin so I had to throttle back to once daily. Kudos to those who must do so because of the nature of their beard, while avoiding the possibility of skin irritation.

I agree with the notion, expressed earlier, that using one product for a while gives you a chance to learn the sweet spot -- be it razor, blade, or cream. But that doesn't mean that you need to use the same cream/soap every day forever. It's just the every-day-switching that seems sub-optimal to me, because you don't get "good" at it.

In my case, I get a degree of satisfaction knowing I completed what I started. Certainly in all earthly pursuits, even including grooming products.

This little smudge of a soap seems to last forever. Nearly a hundred lathers, and maybe 5 left. Can't quit now! Never again ---

The MdC is finished. 100 thick rich creamy lathers and a million whiskers down the drain. This project was interesting and challenging, but it wasn't in the spirit of magnifying my enjoyment of the daily act of shaving. More of a "have to" rather than a "want to". Does that make sense?

Absolutely makes sense. Better you than me though.

ShadowsDad wrote:Absolutely makes sense. Better you than me though.

Makes sense to me too.

Gary, I don't know how you do it. I am still on that cake of Taylor's I started at the end of May of last year and haven't hit bottom yet. Lots of pleasurable shaves still left in it.

Chris

Next up: AOS Sandalwood tallow. Maybe 2 or 3 weeks just to get really comfortable with it, then on to Cella.

I could never do what gary does with soaps....mine like Chris just last too long

My soaps also last quite awhile Clive, so long in fact I loose track of the time it takes to use one up.

I now realize that the 100 days of one soap resulted in my becoming thoroughly burned out on that particular soap, and while many guys on the shaving forums idolize it and pay well to have it, I am unable to think of it without a strong resentment and dread. That was not a pleasant outcome. That won't happen again. This doesn't really make sense, because for several decades totalling thousands of days when I used whatever was on the shelves at the drug or grocery store without ever caring a small hill of beans, and I managed to enjoy every shave every day since I was in high school, even in the army, standing outside with a cup of cold water, a razor and a can of lather. To this day I know I wouldn't mind using that canned stuff.