Shave Sticks

[wchnu]

I am starting to really love shave sticks. I made one out of a puck of Williams and have several more now. Erasmic, palmolive, Speick, Bea, Lea, Arko. Anyone else here into them?

I find that they work better when I use a Badger to work the lather up as opposed to a boar. Even with my more broke in boar brushes.

So what do we say in the SE works. To stick or not to stick.... or just mix in with the rotation or what?

Fuzzy

[Possum]

Fuzzy,

I too am getting to liking the shave sticks better than the pucks. Seems I can get a much better lather as well as more lather by applying the soap directly to my face and then loading the brush right on my face. And it is not as sloppy either.

[stljeff]

I heard so many positive things about shaving sticks that I got my first couple of Palmolive sticks a few weeks ago. I thought it'd be great for travel but I've ended up getting really hooked on it for daily use. You just can't beat the convenience of a stick and I'm very pleased with the performance as well. I'm going to pick up a few Arko sticks soon and try them out.
__________
Jeff

[Alan]

I like them too. I face lather, so to me they are as easy as a cream and easier than soap. Like Fuzzy, I have made quite a few from soaps that I already had. Going to try Arko next.

Alan

[wchnu]

I highly recommend the Arko. My second favorite soap behind the Williams.

Fuzzy

[Possum]

I own 3 soap sticks. Tabac, Prairie Creations Nag Champa and Prairie Creations Rose. All 3 work well for me, making lots of great slick lather with great cushion. And the scents are great too.

While I do not use a lot of soaps, in the future I plan to try a few other soaps and will try to get them in shave stick form. I like how I apply the soap to the face and also the less space the stick takes in my shave cabinet.

[wchnu]

A bump to see how many of the newer folks use shave sticks. The arko is still a favorite of mine.

Fuzzy

[bjorney]

I like Arko too. Unfortunately my wife doesn't like the scent, so I don't use it very often. The Arko scent is rather polarizing.

[HoosierTrooper]

I am not a fan of shaving sticks at all, I tried Palmolive and while I really like the performance I didn't enjoy the sensation of rubbing it on my face so I grated it into a container.

With that said, I have a vintage WIlliams rose scented stick that I can't bring myself to grate so I do use it once a month or so, the scent and performance make up for the unpleasantness of rubbing my face with the stick.

[nate]

For the few years that I have been "Real" shaving, we all know what that means, I have always had a shave stick or two. They never intimidated me and I would always use them as a shave stick at least once, but I think my preference when I started was to then grate them and convert into a cake. All that being said, I am currently in a steamy affair with, and don't tell anyone, multiple shave sticks. Notably Harris' Arlington and Marlborough, Speick, and Valobra. I have a La Toja but it hasn't seen any face time, oh what a pun, in a while.

I also have to mention that I think one of the reasons it is hard to pull myself away from sticks as of late is, and I think I mentioned this in a recent SOTD post but, the brush I am using just absolutely... how should I say this... When using my Thater (24mm knot) I feel like I am watching and listening to a professional symphony perform. The brush/stick just work in such harmony I am constantly amazed. God, I am gushing. Which I guess is okay because I made a list and have decided to go around once to all of my lathering goodies. Once I have hit everything once I might just do something crazy like use a product exclusively, till its dead. And from the looks of it or as it stands right now, pre re-loving all the other things that I have been neglecting, it just might be a shave stick.

[wchnu]

I'm cheap. I have a BEA a LEA a erasmic a palmolive a speick a Arko and a home made Williams. They all work well. Williams will always be my favorite but the Arko is next. Probably the erasmic after that.

Fuzzy

[nate]

I felt this is definitely the place to add this. Shavegeekery at its finest, I did a "reverse grate" today. What is the mentioned reverse grate you ask? Take Valobra for example; great soap that only comes in stick form. So a lot of people take a cheese grater to it and make their own puck in bowl. Not me, not today says I. I took my good old puck of Mitchell's Wool Fat and grated it, after I had cleaned out an old old Kell's shave stick container (think tubular plastic twist up deodorant kind of deal) and then married the two, essentially meashing the shavings into the empty recepticle, not knowing if it was going to end in divorce or neglect. Although, quite frankly its been neglected lately so I looked at this like marriage counseling, couldn't hurt. Man, I should really get a picture up of it; I am a little proud of it.

As always, the shave wasn't half bad.

[HoosierTrooper]

Yeah, let's see a picture of your invention. Here's my Williams stick, it's interesting to me because it's a mixture of parts from the Glastonbury plant and the Cranford plant. My guess is that they had some parts leftover when they moved to the Cranford plant so they used them up.

I have quite a bit of vintage Williams but this is my pride and joy so I'm making it last as long as possible.

[wchnu]

Love the williams stick there. Mine is ugly but works well.

Fuzzy

[nate]

I apologize ahead of time for the sideways pictures. It bugs me how the iPhone does that. Anyway, This is of course the usual suspects, the soap I had to evict, plate and grater, and of course the empty Mitchell's bowl which will need something to hold... why not some more Mitchell's? Well, I will think about that later. Here you go.

Oh, and I don't if I am doing something wrong but I can only attach one image per post, so this is one of three.

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