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When enough is enough

dewynter

dewynter

Member
Grand Society
Something to talk on Friday. :)

Some time ago on the B&B forum someone started a thread about number of soaps for normal shaver. (A-ha, please define 'normal shaver') And one guy posted an interesting thing. I'll quote it in full.

A few years ago I went through all the AD's. RAD, BAD, SAD, AAD, the works. For me the ideal number of soaps turned out to be 3. I think 3 good soaps is all you need for variety in everyday regular shaving, enough to mix it up once in a while, but not so many that you have to have an entire shelf dedicated to the things. I threw away all of the soaps that I didn't consider "great". It wasn't enough for a soap to just be "good" or even "very good". It had to be "great". Aggressive three pass shaves with my R41, absolutely zero alum sting on the cheeks and minimal alum sting on the neck (nothing is perfect I guess), smell that I liked; and if it didn't give me this I PIF'd it.

But! To get there I had to buy a whole bunch of soaps and try them all before I was able to determine what I wanted. I had to do the same with brushes and razors too. Now I know exactly what I like. One razor, one brush, one aftershave, three soaps. Besides re-fills on the soap and aftershave I'm done buying new things and have been for two solid years.

Unless your R41 head breaks or Barrister & Mann stops making the one scent of theirs you could tolerate and now the #3 spot is in open season and the last batch of Stirling Gin & Tonic had almost no scent leaving the coveted #1 slot in question and I Coloniali may or may not have been re-formulated so the #2 spot is pending review of the next shipment from England.
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While I do not want to limit myself to only three soaps I think it is very well said and that's where (roughly) I'm trying to get to - keeping only the great ones. Unfortunately I have to go through buying lots of stuff just to understand if it's right for me or not. But I think sometime it's just getting way to far. And I'm talking about myself. I've got too many soaps and creams right now I and just bought from TSW again. And hopefully I'll sniff BM and SV this weekend and buy more. And I'm thinking about placing orders with Stirling, Mystic Water and Through The Fire Fine Craft. I simply do not have much place to store them and I cannot keep track of what I used or not so it's not really a rotation. I've got soaps I haven't used at all yet. Good thing some of my soaps and creams are just samples.

Anyway... the point is (actually two points) why you need to keep something that it's not great (not just good enough, but great) for you and why not to stick to some reasonable amount. I think they both points are related to each other in a certain way.

You might like a soap but it's not great. It's just good enough. Why you need to keep it? For example I've got three Maggards soaps. Two of them are great for me and the third one is just good. I found that 'moss' scent doesn't touch me at all. I've got TTFFC 'moss' sample, but that's just a sample so I don't mind. Or for example Chatillon Lux balms. Oh, man! I love scents and post-feeling, but I still trying to find a way to use them without having greasy feeling for a hour. It's just doesn't absorbs too well into my skin so I have to wipe excess. Classical YMMV case. Otherwise my business shirts will have oily spots. Sure I can do that. And if I do that my skill feels fantastic for the whole day and smells great! But do I need to do that if I can use TWS balm instead and do not have such problem with oily skin, wiping etc?

What would you do? Would you keep it because it still performs great or get rid of because the soap scent doesn't touch you or you do not want to do additional step for balms? If you want to keep them then I guess there should be another question - do you believe all your soaps, tons of them actually, are great? Great in terms of performance, scent, availability, price etc. And if the answer is yes then do you really use them all? If you have 30 soaps then it's one soap per month, 12 times per year. Do you call it "using it"? If I like coffee I'm drinking it every day. Obviously with soaps that's not the case (at least for me). I'll get tried of one scent very soon so I do need some reasonable variety of scents to rotate, but having more than I can use or use relatively often is killing me. So why not keeping only some reasonable amount of great soaps (or whatever) you can actually use. Use often and enjoy them.

But I still want to try more. Anyone with me? What are your thoughts on the problem?
 
J.Mac said:
Waiting for a thread to pop up in B/S/T...
I have just purchased over 20 samples of different brands of soaps to hopefully reduce the cost it takes to find the brands and scents that work for me.
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That is the reason why I like purchasing samples and not full packs. Unfortunately it's not always possible.
 
Great thoughts and very challenging too.

I've gotten (had?) the ADs as bad as some and worse than most :whistle:.

My razor collection started with wanting to try different types, at one point I had so much coming in and in so many places I'd forgotten about a box in the laundry with at least one Double Ring and a Toggle if not two ...

My 'software' collection, soaps/creams and aftershaves goes up and down. I see new ones I've not tried that look interesting or a great bargain on a B/S/T and I buy them to try. Those I don't like I get rid of, often very cheaply, in my periodic purges. Others I put in the Travelling boxes and/or send out samples to people - there is something cathartic in finishing items occasionally.

In my side of the vanity I have three drawers. One for the usual bathroom stuff and some blades, one for soaps/creams and one for aftershaves. Any excess items get stored elsewhere and not really used. My aim (at present in the midst of a bit of a purge) it to get down to just those drawers (oh, plus the wooden bowl on the bench top and the SV70 nearby - it is a display piece!). That works out to be about 15 or so soaps/creams and potentially double that in aftershaves.

I am trying to keep this to 'great' items, but some other will slip in as well. Cella and Proraso will always be there, despite being good but not great, they are sentimental favourites. My P.160 Tipo Morbido probably gets in for the same reason. I vacillated about my Soap Commander and Jabonman but recently bit the bullet on those and they are gone. On the other hand I was getting ambivalent on the Mike's until using it for a month in May - it performed so well with improvements in my technique.

I doubt I NEED to buy any more soaps/cream every. I will though, and I will sell some as well. The Paste & Cut Travelling Boxes (PCTB) are a great way to sample stuff before buying so keep your eye out for them too.

(Not sure I answered the questions ....)
 
@Mark1966, excellent post! Thanks for that! I wasn't really about answering my exact questions per se but rather to open a dialogue or allow people to put down their thoughts on the problem. It's good to know what others are doing and how they curing or trying to cure their AD or if they are doing it at all. I'm just trying to find the balance. I do not want to limit myself but at the same time I want to be conscious of what I'm doing. Am I doing it because I really need that or because it's just some impulse? Something like that...
 
I would have to cull a lot of soap to get to just 3 :)

I like different soaps but yes you can go overboard and end up with enough soap to use a different one every day for six months.

I think the magic number might be between 10-30 soaps depending on seasons.
 
At one stage I had a rotation of 25 and got down to just 3...Mitchell's, Speick and C&E sweet almond.

Then I tried a heap more and kept a few. In the last 12 months, my rotation has grown to about 50 soaps.
I've worked out the perfect rotation system and I'm happy.

Some are not great performers but I didn't keep any below average or any that irritated my skin or triggered my allergies so any soap that comes up in rotation makes me happy, even if it's not up to the level of Mitchell's wool fat.
 
Life is too short for just good shaves, I like them to be great.

My soap rotation consists of only 3 brands: Mike's, Mystic Water, Stirling
+1 extra cream more for travel: Esbjerg

In order to make it into my rotation, you have to knock one of them off the top. I have a couple of outliers, that I use more for sentimental reasons once every full moon (BM Cheshire, CRSW Savon #1, Haslinger Schafmilch), everything else I either give away or trade. I am loosing more and more the drive to try out new stuff (especially when it comes to soaps), and it has to be seriously tempting on all fronts to get my attention.

At the moment there is only one brand on my radar that I really would love to try, but they have just limited scents, so I am holding back my order. And maybe 2-3 other brands, I would try in a trade or a pass around, but not excited enough to order.
 
dewynter said:
@alfredus, I think your POV is very similar to one from the original post. Life is too short for just good shaves, hey should be only great. And this is where I'm trying to get to.
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I think you're also asking about HOW to get there as much as the final result. That's the tricky part because what one person loves is only average for another, especially with scents. Adding to that is that there is now a HUGE range of soap makers and that the top tier is getting crowded... Some have specific restrictions which help make decisions (eg tallow or vegan).

I think it's like eating. Some people (like @Sxot) eat the same meal every day and enjoy that very much. Others like variety and eat differently everyday. Sometimes you may have a "special meal" out; but some prefer to eat at home and don't like fancy meals...
So the same with shaving. There will be done with huge appetites and want it all (I'm looking at you @borked [emoji13]) and others will be happy with a handful of home-made soaps or personal favourites.

So that's the end point. But getting there?! Well that's a whole different ballgame... You could be selective and choose based on your preferences. Or you could try a whole variety... For me, scents play a strong role and you simply can't describe all the scents (like I'Colonali for instance!!!). So that means you simply HAVE to smell it or give it a go. But rather than buy, you can try to swap on a local basis and test out soaps. (Some people may find this disgusting, but there's nothing unhygienic about it if you look after your soap or use it correctly.)

Anyway, enough woffle from me...
 
filobiblic said:
I think you're also asking about HOW to get there as much as the final result. That's the tricky part because what one person loves is only average for another, especially with scents. Adding to that is that there is now a HUGE range of soap makers and that the top tier is getting crowded... Some have specific restrictions which help make decisions (eg tallow or vegan).

I think it's like eating. Some people (like @Sxot) eat the same meal every day and enjoy that very much. Others like variety and eat differently everyday. Sometimes you may have a "special meal" out; but some prefer to eat at home and don't like fancy meals...
So the same with shaving. There will be done with huge appetites and want it all (I'm looking at you @borked [emoji13]) and others will be happy with a handful of home-made soaps or personal favourites.

So that's the end point. But getting there?! Well that's a whole different ballgame... You could be selective and choose based on your preferences. Or you could try a whole variety... For me, scents play a strong role and you simply can't describe all the scents (like I'Colonali for instance!!!). So that means you simply HAVE to smell it or give it a go. But rather than buy, you can try to swap on a local basis and test out soaps. (Some people may find this disgusting, but there's nothing unhygienic about it if you look after your soap or use it correctly.)

Anyway, enough woffle from me...
Click to expand...

well said!
 
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