Early on in this journey, I kept seeing posts saying that the only way to shave is with a good soap. Gels, creams, foams, etc. aren’t worth it at all and don’t perform well, blah, blah, blah. Hey, those gels, creams and foams were doing better than what I had been using before, which was water, so they were a step up.
But as happens so much in this hobby, you end up asking yourself “could this be better?” Or “What am I missing out on by not using a soap?”
What’s daunting about using a soap, though, is the need to lather. No longer can you just put a dollop of foam or dab of gel on your hands and apply it to your face to work up a lather. Soap requires additional equipment. The Brush.
I’ve already talked about the brushes. So what is there to look for in soaps? Honestly, there are so many, it is really overwhelming. But here’s my attempt at the basics:
- Fragrance: There are hundreds of fragrances, built around common themes: fruity fragrance, floral fragrance, outdoorsy, woodsy or wooden, old school (like a bay rum or Old Spice theme), and classic (a generic barber shop fragrance of soap and whatever those chemicals are they they use in classic barbershops. The choice of these is all about personal preference. More to come.
- The Soap Base: Just like regular face, hand, or body soap, you can make shaving soaps out of a variety of ingredients and bases. The most common are glycerin, tallow (animal fat, usually beef, but can be any animal fat), and vegetable fat (like an olive or vegetable oil). The choice here comes down to personal perference and performance. More later.
- Lather and lubrication: Since the goal of a shave soap is to help stand the beard hairs up to make them easier to shave, as well as providing lubrication so that the razor can easily glide along the skin, these are key features, but also extraordinarily hard to discern when shopping. And when most of the time these products are shopped for online, samples are required. More later.
- The Cool Factor: Not a bad thing…let’s start off with that. But branding and design is big in our modern world, so finding a cool looking tin of a shave soap can be just as important to some people as finding one that works well. Bonus points if you find both.
Fragrances seem to be one of the biggest differentiators in soaps for a lot of people. Building a fragrance profile on their face is important to them, and I get that. I tried, for a week, to apply some scented products to my shave routine, and found that at least some of them are way too strong for me–smelling a barbershop scented beard oil and after shave splash all day coming off of my own face proved to be too much, so I gave those away and have just stuck with mildly scented or unscented products. But the various big manufacturers of shave soaps also typically make other products: pre-shaves, post-shave balms, lotions, and splashes; soaps, face and body lotions, even candles, and they use specific scent profiles that get huge followings. I just can’t. My experience so far with Stirling Soap Co. products is that they’re too heavily scented for my tastes (or for my family who have to live with me). So I’ve moved on to their unscented products.
The base, if fragrance isn’t a big deal to you, is likely to be most important then, and it is for me. Now this is interesting to me: Generally, I find tallow-based products to be richer, thicker, and have better lubrication, but Proraso white, my favorite, is made with coconut oil and has oatmeal and tea tree to make it for sensitive skin, and so it and it’s partner products have a pleasant, light scent. And I never have a problem with Proraso soap. Of course, I got it with their paired pre-shave cream and post shave balm. But I will say that different bases have different lathers and can produce different results.

I recently tried Imperial Barber Products Field Shave Soap (purchased because I’ve used their Matte Pomade for years). It’s a glycerin-based soap that is almost transparent. It lathered up very well, but didn’t seem to provide as much lubrication as I want in my shave. In fact, I had to reapply with the lather from my brush more than once for additional passes. But it wasn’t bad. I think I need practice with it–maybe it just needed a dab more water.
The Cooper & French and Stirling Soap Co. Sheep soaps are both tallow-based. And you can tell. They both lather wonderfully and feel thicker and heavier, and just make the razor glide effortlessly across your face. There are those who just don’t like the concept of using animal fat in a soap. And that’s fine.
Vegetable oil soaps usually combine things. In addition to the vegetable oils, they will include some glycerin or other things to make the soap work better. As mentioned, the Proraso white soap adds oatmeal and tea tree to get it’s sensitive skin formula working, and I don’t know what it is that they do differently, but the soap gives me a thick, rich lather that feels very comfortable through all shaves and I almost never have to apply more for another pass.
Again, my favorite soap is the Proraso white. But honestly, it’s tied with or very close to the Nivea Sensitive shave gel for the quality of shaves it delivers. After that, though, I’ve been very happy with the Cooper & French Unscented, the Stirling Soap’s Naked & Smooth, Sheep, and Unscented with Beeswax soaps; and even the Nordic and Barbershop soaps from Razer Emporium. I’ve talked in the brush post about the Badger Shaving Soap, but I do need to try that with one of my newer, better brushes to see if it performs any better than it did with the cheap bad goat brush.
All of these soap types I’ve talked about so far have lathered well for me, as you’d expect them to–that’s what they’re supposed to do when a brush and water are applied. Thickness can be affected by water and technique, but as I’ve developed a pretty consistent technique, it’s becoming clearer what soaps just naturally produce a better lather. And most lubricate well–some better than others, but there is no rule against reapplying lather between passes.
So let’s close with a quick discussion of the style factor. Go out there and look at soap brands and the branding on their various soap types. Go to the shave soap page at Razor Emporium, The Razor Company or Maggard Razors, and you’ll see the wide variety of what I’m talking about. You get everything (and I mean everything) from the old English style and history to modern or post-modern styles with aliens and superheroes. Clearly, none of it actually makes the products perform better, but in an area where there are hundreds (if not thousands) of competitors, you probably need to find a way to stand out, and since fragrances and bases are limited, applying creativity to the product can be the key to success.
All of that being said, I latched on to Proraso because there are few people out there online who don’t use it for shaving, and very few negative reviews of the products. Stirling Soap is also a standout case where lots of people use them and love their products. Cooper & French, however, was one I’d stumbled on online. It turned out they’re very local to me (actually within blocks, so ordering from them and having it shipped was almost funny). But as someone who likes shopping local, I was thrilled that they were so close, and even more thrilled that their product works so well for me.
If you’re looking to try out different shaving soaps, then I’d definitely recommend the sample route. A small 1 or 3 ounce tub of soap comes to you and is almost always under $5 each. You can try it for a handful of shaves (usually 3-5 for a 1 oz sample, and a dozen or two shaves for the larger sample) and get a real feel for it before you fully commit. The Proraso and Cooper & French, I bought as full-size cups of soap, because the Proraso was only $10 for the full sized tub, and was part of a set of 3 products; and the Cooper & French because their unscented product was not available in sample sizes at the time.