Comments on my Glycerin Shave Soaps

There a re a number of glycerin based shave soaps in my shave locker. I'm going to comment on the major ones I have used.

Col. Conk - found at various places.
Col. Conk has been around a very long time and a mainstay of the shaving world. I used a number of them and they performed OK but I was not enamored by any of the scents. They are relatively cheap. I ended up trading them to another member of The Shave Den because I felt I had a much better assortment of shave soaps already.

Honey Bee Spa
Honey Bee Spa soaps are made by an independent soap manufacturer named Sue. Her soaps are good quality, with adequate cushion and glide. The soaps scents offered are varied and pleasing. Although you can melt these soaps. They seem to lose something when you do. I don't shave with these very often but I am not disappointed when I do. Quality and consistency have been right on.

Mama Bear
Mama soaps are what I started out with. They are made by another independent soap maker named Sue. These are a typical melt and pour soap made with essential or fragrance oils. I would suggest staying with the soaps that use essential oils. There are many many great scents to choose from. The performance of the soaps as I use more and more soaps from various manufacturers show me that they are not the best when it comes to performance. Although they are adequate, they lack some key ingredients for moisture and skin care. Batch consistency has also been an issue. Quality control needs to be addressed a little better. I will probably choose 3-4 really nice scents and release the rest back into the wild.

Ogallala Bay Rum
Ogallala has been a love hate relationship for me. I love the scents. I hate the lather. It's slick but lather quickly faded to nothing and dried out your skin. It was a disaster. I ended up using the soaps I had as bath soaps. John, at Ogallala, had the soaps reformulated. They are much much better now but the lather still tends to fade quicker than many other soaps and requires replication in a couple of spots during a pass and the lather in the bowl needs refreshing after the second pass. I still love the scents and have found that adding some Kiss my Face Unscented Shave Cream or something similar to the mix dramatically improves the soap's qualities. They did a nice job in retaining the wonderful scents but a little more work needs to be done on the lather before mass marketing. I'm not definitely not unhappy though with the current formulation.

QEDUSA
Charles over at QEDUSA has great soaps. The scents, the consistency and the shave quality are well above average. I consider these soaps to be ones I don't use enough since I like to savor them. The ease of lather, cushion and glide make for a great shave experience. I would definitely recommend these soaps to others and I really need to use them more often.

The Gentlemen's Quarter
Of all the glycerin based shave soaps that I have, not including the really high end ones, these soaps I consider the best for me. The scents, the lather, the glide, cushion and skin care are all well above average. Once I trim down my shave soap collection I will be buying much more of these soaps. I made the mistake of getting sample pucks and I use them a lot so, I'm sure I will need to get more soon. There are some very unique scents and the product consistency is always there. I use these soaps more often on the weekends than any other shave cream r soap.

General Note on Glycerin Soaps: I'm commenting on melt and pour soaps. I shave with 3 different kinds of razors. Double edged razors, Feather ACD-N non folding razor and straight razors. Glycerin soaps are great for DE razors but I find very few work well with a straight razor. Triple milled soaps work better for me when using a straight razor. Since I use a DE razor most of the time, this is not an issue. The Feather razor works like a cross between a straight razor and a DE razor. It will do OK with a good glycerin based shave soap but will do as well or better with a triple milled soap. QED and TGQ soaps work across the spectrum of razors I use.

Special Note: I have a couple of The Shave Den soaps but I do not have enough experience with them yet to give an accurate opinion. I will update my comments after I have used them 6-7 more times at least. The same goes for the Tryphon Soaps. The C & E Soaps are glycerin based but I treat them as a triple milled/hard soap.