Geo F Trumper Limes lathering problems

lerenau

lerenau

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Hi Gents,

My wonderful wife gifted me (among other things) a wooden bowl of Geo F Trumper's "Limes" shave soap for Christmas.
It looks and smells lovely. But, the lather broke down on contact with my face. Honestly, it looked like I was using hand-soap. And, as you can imagine it resulted in a lot of razor-burn; I was also in a hurry and didn't have time to use something else.

Has anyone else experienced this? My lathering technique has improved significantly over the last few months. But, it didn't help at all, in this case. I typically load the soap with a damp brush for 30-60 seconds then lather for an additional 30-60s in my ribbed lather-bowl with a few drops of water. This normally results in enough lather to cover me head-to-toe.

For those wondering, this is a hard soap. Much harder than anything else I have used.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers.
 
The only way I've ever achieved anything like a useable lather from GFT soaps is when I've soaked the puck in boiling water for 15 mins before loading very heavily and then face lathering. Even then it's not exactly a great lather but it is useable. A shame as the scents are heavenly and their creams are, IMO, the best available.
 
lerenau said:
Hi Gents,

My wonderful wife gifted me (among other things) a wooden bowl of Geo F Trumper's "Limes" shave soap for Christmas.
It looks and smells lovely. But, the lather broke down on contact with my face. Honestly, it looked like I was using hand-soap. And, as you can imagine it resulted in a lot of razor-burn; I was also in a hurry and didn't have time to use something else.

Has anyone else experienced this? My lathering technique has improved significantly over the last few months. But, it didn't help at all, in this case. I typically load the soap with a damp brush for 30-60 seconds then lather for an additional 30-60s in my ribbed lather-bowl with a few drops of water. This normally results in enough lather to cover me head-to-toe.

For those wondering, this is a hard soap. Much harder than anything else I have used.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers.
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I haven't used Geo Trumper's but if you're describing it as a hard soap then I wonder if it's like Crabtree & Evelyn. I've got a Crabtree and Evelyn in a wooden bowl and find it's fine if you lather on the puck in the wooden bowl.
 
Never impressed by GFT soaps. Not quite as bad as Crabtrees which can barely hold a lather, but not far off IME.
 
No, that's par for these high end English products.
Was not always that way though sadly.
 
Well, I shaved with this setup again, this morning.

I bloomed the soap. Lathered in the original bowl. Transferred directly to face. Then *poof* lather gone... turned into soapy water. And that's with just a damp brush and face.
Result? A very close shave. But, only because it took off two layers of skin. Afterwards I looked red and splotchy as my face went into shock. No amount of razor technique or restraint helped.
That's Zero for Two.

How did these hard soaps ever get a reputation for being any good, @borked? Seriously, I'd have gotten a better result from from hand-soap.
Why is this stuff on the market? Literally *any* local artisan soap would do a better job at a lower price!

Frankly, I feel robbed (and assaulted).
 
These soaps are renowned for being notoriously difficult to lather. You need to build the lather on the puck. Start with a damp brush (e.g. all excess water flicked or squeezed out) and work the soap whilst slowly adding water. Until you have enough lather for a shave on the soap puck itself do not move to face lathering. Once you have enough lather for 3-4 passes scrape it all off the soap puck and on to your brush. Now move on to face lathering, again slowly add water until the lather is at the consistency that you are happy with. I would expect this to take somewhere in the vicinity of 5 to 10 minutes.
 
lerenau said:
How did these hard soaps ever get a reputation for being any good,
Click to expand...

They don't. I tried the sandalwood and rose and both were crap. GFT soaps went to shit many many years ago when they ditched tallow and went all veg.

The amount of work to get even a passable lather out of this stuff renders them not worth the effort. Only outcrapped by Crabtree.
 
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tullfan said:
Life is far too short with too many quality soaps to waste time on these soaps
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Exactly. I've been DE shaving for nearly 10 years, and there are only a small number of dud soaps out there. Zero point in wasting time and effort to get a result from something that's too much work to do so.

I won't pay premium for Artisan stuff either. Musgo, Speick, Tabac, Cella and Taylor's creams all work great. GFT do some other good products, as do Truefitts, but they flog the marketing arse out of their "Olde Tyme Gentlymen" London heritage - it's almost parodic.
 
borked said:
No, that's par for these high end English products.
Was not always that way though sadly.
Click to expand...
Yes and no. GFT and T&H hard soaps are both awful, Penhaligons, Floris and TOBS have all got good performing hard soaps again after a few years of crap and D.R. Harris have always had an excellent hard soap.
 
Ah well. The consensus appears to be the soap lies somewhere between "terrible" and "unusable". Sigh
At least I wasn't imagining it.

My wrists are already crap due to my profession (programmer) and old hobbies (TKD and weights). I'd rather not lather for ten minutes, even if it guaranteed a better result.
 
lerenau said:
Ah well. The consensus appears to be the soap lies somewhere between "terrible" and "unusable". Sigh
At least I wasn't imagining it.
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Don't tell the boss.... she'll be gutted!

Try grating it up and mixing with something else to see how it goes..... tell her you just want to make it last longer if she asks any questions :)
 
lerenau said:
Ah well. The consensus appears to be the soap lies somewhere between "terrible" and "unusable". Sigh
At least I wasn't imagining it.

My wrists are already crap due to my profession (programmer) and old hobbies (TKD and weights). I'd rather not lather for ten minutes, even if it guaranteed a better result.
Click to expand...

What brush are you using to lather it with
 
lerenau said:
How did these hard soaps ever get a reputation for being any good, @borked?
Click to expand...
See below.

Drubbing said:
They ... went to shit many many years ago when they ditched tallow and went all veg.
The amount of work to get even a passable lather out of this stuff renders them not worth the effort. Only outcrapped by Crabtree.
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Hear, hear!

Nightguard said:
Yes and no. GFT and T&H hard soaps are both awful, Penhaligons, Floris and TOBS have all got good performing hard soaps again after a few years of crap and D.R. Harris have always had an excellent hard soap.
Click to expand...
As good as the tallow versions?

lerenau said:
Ah well. The consensus appears to be the soap lies somewhere between "terrible" and "unusable". Sigh
At least I wasn't imagining it.

My wrists are already crap due to my profession (programmer) and old hobbies (TKD and weights). I'd rather not lather for ten minutes, even if it guaranteed a better result.
Click to expand...
My recommendation, used them as a pre shave and to break in your brushes with :)

58FB said:
What brush are you using to lather it with
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Paint?
 
borked said:
As good as the tallow versions?
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Not sure. Of the listed soaps I've only tried Penhaligon's vintage tallow base and I personally found it to be pretty crappy. D.R. Harris is still tallow based (except the natural one) however and one of the best production soaps available imo.
 
lerenau said:
How did these hard soaps ever get a reputation for being any good...
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When I was browsing the US forums people were saying of the 3 Ts (Taylor's, Truefitt, Trumpers) , the creams were good but the soaps were bad.
Ive been tempted to pick them up as I didn't expect any to be as bad as you mentioned. I'm concerned you still shaved with barely any lather. :wideyed:

Scotty said:
Try grating it up and mixing with something else to see how it goes...
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And ruin a good soap!? :LOL:
 
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