Rescuing my GFT Eucris

What is your opinion on fine shaving creams and hard soaps? Do you like Trumpers, Coates, Taylors, Truefitt & Hill? Post your reviews and opinions here!
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Bill_K
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Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2018 12:40 pm
Location: Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by Bill_K »

Good morning chaps,

On an impulse I purchased a puck of Geo. F. Trumper's Eucris shaving soap, and I'm sad to say that I now regret it. While the scent is simply fantastic, I cannot say the same for its lathering capability. Quite frankly, it sucks.

I live in a city with very hard water (12.6 gpg) but even so I can generate vast quantities of rich lather with Tabac and 'Like Grandpa' Lime. After this morning's exhaustive effort I was ready to consign yet another puck of soap to the shower.

Before you ask, yes, I did try over-loading the brush; I mentally ran through six iterations of "Happy Birthday to You" in English and French while furiously working my Cachurro on the puck. Mantic59's article was the inspiration for this effort: https://sharpologist.com/2012/02/eucris-or-eunuch.html

I just can't see me singing "Happy Birthday to You" six times in a row every time I want to shave.

So, I plan to see if the following will make a difference:
1) take a small bottle of filtered water from work to see if that makes a difference;
2) grate the soap into another container, so as to increase the surface area for loading; and,
3) add a tiny amount of borax to the water that I'm pre-soaking the brush in.

Yes, I'm aware that borax can be hard on the skin but I've invested $40 in the Eucris and I'm too damn stubborn and cheap to relegate it to the tub.

Have any of you had success with another method?

Thanks in advance.

Bill
Bill
brothers
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Re: Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by brothers »

Bill, I hope you can get it to work for you. Let us know!
Gary

SOTD 99%: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, soaps & creams, synthetic / badger brushes, Colonial General razor, Kai & Schick blades, straight razors any time, Superior 70 aftershave splash + menthol + 444
EL Alamein
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Re: Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by EL Alamein »

Bill, the only advice I can give you is to try distilled water right now. It's soft and can help make a good lather out of the modern stuff. You'll never get "that lather" from modern stuff but it can be worthy under softer conditions.

Also, a water softener can also produce wonders. I'll never forget going to my sister-in-law's house and shaving in her softened water. All you had to do was present the moistened brush to the cake of soap and it lathered.

To boot, softened water will save your plumbing and make laundry a snap with less cleaner. I'll get there one day, myself.

Chris
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drmoss_ca
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Re: Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by drmoss_ca »

Just be sure to leave a tap in the kitchen with unsoftened water, since soft water tastes terrible to those used to the hard stuff.

The Eucris soap is from a younger generation than my other Trumper soaps, and it surely shows in the performance. It's sad to think they are probably all like that now.

C.
"Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse."
Pierre-Simon de Laplace
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blantyre
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Re: Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by blantyre »

Yes the Eucris soap was an expensive mistake. I like the scent but the shave quality was very inferior. I passed it on for peanuts to make room for the good stuff. I have added a few drops of Eucris edt to AOS unscented cream and got very good results - my standard sandalwood and rose cream comprise a few drops of Mysore or Bulgarian oil in the that cream. Overall it works well and allows for the fragrance of choice with minimal work.
Rick
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Re: Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by EL Alamein »

drmoss_ca wrote: Sat Apr 07, 2018 3:38 am Just be sure to leave a tap in the kitchen with unsoftened water, since soft water tastes terrible to those used to the hard stuff.
You had to let the cat out of the bag, didn't you? :D

Chris
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Re: Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by brothers »

What could have been a home run turned out to be the third out.
Gary

SOTD 99%: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, soaps & creams, synthetic / badger brushes, Colonial General razor, Kai & Schick blades, straight razors any time, Superior 70 aftershave splash + menthol + 444
Bill_K
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Location: Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

Re: Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by Bill_K »

brothers wrote: Sat Apr 07, 2018 8:25 pm What could have been a home run turned out to be the third out.
Indeed. I was led astray by the twin siren calls of scent and company name but my hopes were dashed upon the rocks. <sigh>

Thank you all for your suggestions about soft and distilled water. We've been in the same house for 30 years this May, so it's going to be tough for me to sell the benefits of a water softener system to Mrs. K. A less intrusive and far less expensive option would be the distilled water; I think I'll give it a go. The filtered water from work didn't seem to help much at all.

I did use our cheese grater to finely grate some Eucris into my lathering bowl; while it did improve the quantity of lather it did nothing for the quality. Once applied to my face I could feel the bubbles breaking down on my cheeks, in the same way that you can feel soda pop effervescing in your mouth.

On the bright side, though, by using it as body soap I smell pretty nice coming out of the shower.

Again... and with feeling... <sigh>

Bill
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Re: Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by brothers »

We have hard water. A few years back I put forth the effort to use distilled water for my lather. It may have been just my imagination, but I thought a few soaps did just a little bit better. Most other soaps don't suffer when I just use tap water. Since then, I've limited my soaps to those that give me the lather I like and I never use distilled water. In my case (YMMV :) ) I decided it was my lathering technique that needed to be improved, not much to do with the water.
Gary

SOTD 99%: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, soaps & creams, synthetic / badger brushes, Colonial General razor, Kai & Schick blades, straight razors any time, Superior 70 aftershave splash + menthol + 444
Bill_K
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Re: Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by Bill_K »

Agreed. If I have to go to extraordinary lengths then in my mind it's not a good soap and gets scratched off the list.
Bill
EL Alamein
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Re: Rescuing my GFT Eucris

Post by EL Alamein »

Gary and Bill, you guys nailed it. We can do extraordinary things to improve a product's performance but in the end, if it's a high quality product, they won't be necessary.

After all, we'll all need to shave somewhere other than our own home-base at some point. Who knows what we'll encounter. If it's not quality under the worst conditions then even under the best it's liable to disappoint to some degree.

I do understand the desire to make things work though, just because we love them in some way or another.

Chris
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