allergies and soaps and creams

[nicodemus38]

have chemical allergies. and some asthma this time of the year. so I have to ask, what does a fellow do when trying to figure out new soaps to try?

I really want to avoid eucalyptus and menthol. Aloe would be a nice one to avoid. Sniffed the low cost van der hagen soap puck and it was not good for me.

thanks.

been thinking arko and speick would be good to try.

[Squire]

I have successfully avoided eucalyptus and menthol products for a many years now without any sense of loss. It's really hard to recommend what others may like though. I like Arko well enough to have kept a stick in my desk drawer at work just for the scent but some members of shaving boards consider the scent cheap and brassy.

It's cheap enough there's no real loss if it doesn't work out so give Arko a shot.

[Marcall]

I was in the grocery store yesterday and I actually had to cut it short , buy a box of tissues and head to my truck for a sneezefest all because some guy was drenched in some horrible drugstore body spray like Axe or something, seriously

Anyway I'm not really that sensitive to anything else but my point is grooming items can irritate. In general I like the more subtle and "'earthy/natural" and clean type scents so my advice would be to look for things with clean scents, probably the simpler the ingrediant list the better or even unscented soaps and for a post shave something like a simple witch hazel. The two you mentioned would be good a great one would be Volobra almond and even though it says menthol on it I don't detect any, it's pretty much unscented and very pure. Another that is lightly scented is Edwinn jagger Seabuckthorn which has a slightly fruit smell, it's hard to describe but it's subtle unique and pleasant.

[brothers]

. . . been thinking arko and speick would be good to try.

You're on the right track with that idea. You may want to add a stick of Palmolive and a stick of La Toja soap to your list. They're also cheap and good. This is not just me, there are tons of guys who use them.

[nicodemus38]

la toja has been looking awfully appealing lately. just finding a decent place to purchase from.

[Rufust445]

I have a puck of Van der Hagen soap stashed away somewhere that I tried, but my face didn't like.
Also tried the Wilkinson Sword stick which makes great lather, but my face didn't like that either. Not so much due to the
scent, but I believe from the dyes that give it that blue color.

I've found that the LEA stick, nueva formula, con glicerina y lanolina (new formula w. glycerin and lanolin) is quite mild,
soothing to my skin, and makes great slick lather. A Web search should reveal more than one source, including eBay.

As always, YMMV.

[ShadowsDad]

have chemical allergies. and some asthma this time of the year. so I have to ask, what does a fellow do when trying to figure out new soaps to try?

I really want to avoid eucalyptus and menthol. Aloe would be a nice one to avoid. Sniffed the low cost van der hagen soap puck and it was not good for me.

thanks.

been thinking arko and speick would be good to try.

There's only one way to tell since only you possess your body chemistry.

I have a huge problem with synthetic scents and when I was buying soaps and such I tried to steer clear of them. I don't know if it's an allergy, but many of them just don't smell good to me at all. Lots of times when I would review a soap I would disconnect the scent from the soaps performance to give it a fair shot for others.

As inexpensive as ARKO is, the scent is naturally derived. It is a soap that performs way above it's pay grade during the shave, but has no after the shave skin care. Speick is a very nice soap either in stick or cream. (Does Speick make a puck?)

[nicodemus38]

I have the problem of smelling the individual base solvents in most scents at the store. instead of smelling "ocean dream" I smell something funky mixed with industrial solvent. very annoying when some gal comes up and gets a tad flirty and all you can really notice is that she smells like a gallon of MEK spilled on her.

[EL Alamein]

I suggest D.R. Harris Lavender or Almond Shaving soap. Both are very lightly scented, though there is a slight scent, but neither would I describe as prominent or strong.

The lather, of course, is top notch.

Hope that helps.

Chris

[BPman]

...I like Arko well enough to have kept a stick in my desk drawer at work just for the scent but some members of shaving boards consider the scent cheap and brassy.

It's cheap enough there's no real loss if it doesn't work out so give Arko a shot.

One cannot say enough good things about Arko. It's just simply a treasure in today's day & age.

[rexcarolus]

I love Strop Shoppe Special Edition Unscented. This is top class shaving soap and very hypoallergenic.

Regards,

Rexcarolus

[Big Swifty]

I suggest D.R. Harris Lavender or Almond Shaving soap. Both are very lightly scented, though there is a slight scent, but neither would I describe as prominent or strong.

The lather, of course, is top notch.

+1 agreed, it would be hard to find a better performing light scented soap

[nicodemus38]

I ordered a tub of razorock classic and a tube of lea classic cream. Im hopind things turn out fine.

[brothers]

You're on your way now!

[BPman]

I love Strop Shoppe Special Edition Unscented. This is top class shaving soap and very hypoallergenic.

Regards,

Rexcarolus

I just got this unscented soap in the tallow version and cannot say enough good things about it!! I'd like to think this was how shaving soaps were initially before the advent of integrating scents into them. Simply marvelous. Too bad they're gone now.

[nicodemus38]

Harris is given good reviews on vendor sites. Normally trumpers and taylors hard soaps don't even get a review. what I am curious about is this.

Harris soaps are far more expensive then the others, But get all the reviews. Is there a correlation?

[Squire]

Yes there is, Harris soaps are good stuff.

[BPman]

I forgot, many say that one of the best is Mitchell's Woolf Fat soap. It does however contain lanolin. Peronally, I have never used it, but many who are sensitive swear by it.

[nicodemus38]

mitchells may have lanolin, but that is an excellent thing. go pet a goat for a while, youll get really nice happy hands.i think they sweat lanolin.

However, the absence of certain chemicals is more to mitchels favor as a soap for sensitive skin.

[CMur12]

Lanolin is found in sheep's wool, which is why it is also called wool fat. As others have noted, it is a very effective skin moisturizer.

Some people are sensitive to lanolin, however, so they wouldn't be able to use Mitchell's Wool Fat.

- Murray