Observations on Grooming Dept Number of Shaves per Tub - An Experiment

My heaping 1/4 teaspoon of soap is around 1/3 teaspoon or about 5 grams. I combine that with 15 grams (1 Tablespoon) of hot water. However, I do have a water softener, so my water is soft.

For those with super hard water (like mine would be without a water softener), using water purified by distillation or reverse osmosis would be far less expensive than using huge amount of soap.

Absolutely concurred on those 2 points

GENERALLY:
There has been some discussion of shaves per tub, more explicitly concerning Grooming Dept 4Oz tubs but feel this post has many implications to modern artisan soaps, including lather porn shots.

BACKGROUND:
It has been posted that some people are regularly getting 16 shaves per 4Oz tub of Grooming Dept soaps across various bases.  This seems more than a bit low based on having used Grooming Dept for years in every formulation prior to the release of the ETHOS line a year or so ago.  Over those years had lathered dozens of tubs using various knots of differing size and type although primarily badger 26-28mm diameter.  In all cases over last 4 years or so had scooped and bowl lathered without measuring weight nor volume but it rarely exceeded a small almond size approximately equal to slightly less than 0,5 teaspoon if pressed to guess a volume amount.  Bowl lathering that small almond sized amount using a 26-28mm badger knot never failed to deliver industry best at the time slick, cushioned lather sufficient for a 3 pass shave and a final face lathering post shave for hydration during gear clean up – on many occasions there was sufficient lather to shave the upper chest but not always.  While I did not usually finish tubs, many times passing on to friends (such as Enzo) as new bases were introduced, when finishing Grooming Dept tubs, found they easily yielded about 50 shaves although, honestly, never bothered to keep a spreadsheet.  The recent posts regarding some users getting 16 shaves per tub piqued interest as it didn’t comport with experience and had some implications beyond the statements: for one cost per shave could be quite high: e.g., 16 shaves out of a $26 tub of Mallard equates to $1,62/shave.  Curiosity aroused, endeavoured to determine the volume of soap per shave entailed in getting 16 shaves out of a 4Oz tub of Mallard, how much lather that amount of soap per shave would yield, and the quality of lather such an amount would yield (suspecting it would be abnormally bounteous and thereby difficult to maintain quality and consistency during lathering). 


METHODOLOGY:
Disclaimer: under no circumstances is there any claim this is a scientific study.  Further, am using tools available in any household to conduct this research and not relying on electronic scales&c – however, if people insist that the results cannot be trusted without using such items, shall endeavour to secure them and repeat the process, likely yielding the same results as directionally the volumes/shave are by necessity going to be approximations of the weight/shave in proportion to the whole of a tub.  Finally, there may be issues of water chemical content unique to these users causing such abnormal results, unusually soap hogging brushes or other personal expectations/methodologies skewing results.

Determining how much soap/shave 16 shaves/tub entails:
The first step in attempting to understand what is leading to such unexpected yields is to approximate what it entails regarding volume of soap per shave to arrive at 16 shaves/tub of soap.  Fortunately, being a packrat, had an empty Grooming Dept tub that matched perfectly with a new unused but previously aired puck of Mallard that had sat open for well over a week.  Sticking with teaspoons as a volume metric based on experience having used roughly half a teaspoon per shave, placed the full and empty container side by side counting the teaspoons of water it took to match the level of the thoroughly dried but unused Mallard soap.  Surprisingly, it took 24 teaspoons, which jibes with prior experience of a 4Oz tub of Grooming Dept yielding approximately 50 shaves and intuition being each finger scoop equated to about 0,5 teaspoon of soap.  Thus, 16 shaves per 4Oz container would entail approximately 1,5 teaspoons of soap per shave, an incredible amount of soap.

Determining how much soap I typically use per shave:
The next step was to determine just how much soap by volume I was typically using employing a finger scoop technique.  Using the soap from another recent Grooming Dept Mallard release: Almond Vanilla, scooped a couple finger’s worth what appeared a normal amount per shave based on recent experience and placed them it into a measuring scoop of 0,5 teaspoon volume – in each case it was almost exactly 0,5 teaspoon when spread and leveled.  Thus, 24 teaspoons of soap per tub of air-dried Grooming Dept soap would yield 48 shaves based on my typical finger scoop per shave equating to 0,5 teaspoon - comporting with my recollection of a 4Oz tub of Grooming Dept soap yielding about 50 shaves.  Honestly, this was not back solved in any way to yield a result as was as curious as others in regards to these posts – if anything doubted my recollections, particularly as they have not been accompanied by spreadsheets, electronic scale measures and such.

Final step was to measure 1,5 teaspoons into a separate lathering container to control the soap volume and determine just how much lather is yielded as one of the observations being little lather is being produced in relation to the amount of soap being consumed.

RESULTS:
Using a Declaration Grooming original release B3 knot of 24mm diameter and local tap water which has proven to yield significantly less lather than distilled water, endeavoured to determine just how much lather and the quality so produced from 1,5 teaspoons of Grooming Dept Mallard soap.

The 1,5 teaspoons were pressed into the bottom of a crystal bowl and spread to make the lathering process as easy as possible; irrespective, there was so much soap that even pressed and smeared, it still was rather thick.  After soaking and removing the excess water from the brush, started loading as normal carefully counting the swirls.  The photos represent intervals of 100 swirls judiciously adding water as appropriate to load an artisan badger brush properly.  It required approximately 500 swirls to thoroughly load the soap from the bowl onto the brush.  Stipulated that the bowl is crystal and smooth which in no way aided the loading unlike loading directly from the puck where an underlying soap base would always add friction to assist the loading process.  However, in this case, having solved for the volume of soap being loaded by the claims of 16 shaves/tub, isolating that volume of soap was critical to determining the amount of lather so yielding.  It required a further 1000 swirls to yield the finished lather product free from bubbles – any bubbles in the photos were a result of spooning lather into a pile for photographic purposes.  Did not attempt to yield the consistency of lather typically preferred for a shave of my extremely damaged and sensitive skin as the bowl was overflowing and the photos posted by others are much thicker and dryer.  The finished lather very much resembles lather porn photos, being stacked high using one of the measuring spoons thus resulting in some bubbles.  The lather porn shot represents slightly less than half the total lather produced to that point and easily could have been piled on another 8” higher.  Hell, was so inspired, considered taking the lather porn out to our gazebo for pictures or even to our town airport for a photo next to a private jet but in the end decided it was just lather for a shave and a photograph in the bathroom where shaves are undertaken was sufficient. 

So how much admittedly thicker and denser than desirable lather does 1,5 teaspoons of soap produce?  Incredible amounts of lather.  If had to estimate, could have shaved 4 faces 3 passes each plus a fourth post shave lathering for healing purposes – this based on the amount of soap remaining after a 3 pass shave with 4th lathering for healing.  There was so much lather that literally shaved my entire body (using a dedicated body brush after face shaving for those curious), had my wife shave her legs too and still had enough left in the lathering bowl for undertaking a cleaning process on the face brush.

So how does lather porn actually shave?  Everybody is different and my skin is particularly bad, having been so since a child and damaged terribly over the years – bear that in mind.  While have found ETHOS to be the single best soap line for my skin, the competing artisans’ latest releases are significantly improved and approaching the ETHOS standard.  We are blessed to be living in a golden age of soap artisans.  Of the reformulations tried, by far the best have been from Wholly Kaw, Barrister and Mann and now Grooming Dept.  Had suggested Grooming Dept was the solid second best to ETHOS until the recent bout of reformulations where others had caught and perhaps passed Mo but with this latest Mallard, Grooming Dept is firmly back in the number 2 spot and the soap artisan quality/value leader from my perspective.  Will undertake a complete review of Mallard but it is a quantum leap from prior Mallard releases in being far less fatty and cleaner rinsing whilst retaining all the benefits of the fatty releases of yore.  Irrespective, even with additional wetting as face lathering, lather porn style lather was far below the quality of shaves yielded using wetter, yet properly lathered Mallard.  The resulting shave was less slick and, despite the lather being significantly thicker which should have provided additional cushion, harsher.  For me, lather porn is akin to film sex, it may have a visual appeal for onlookers but is lacking as an experience.  As with every other attempt at body shaving with quality facial shaving soap, the results were terrible in comparison to using the canned products intended for women.  While canned goop for face shaving sucks, the manufacturers of women’s canned shaving soap have it down to almost perfection for body shaving and at a very favourable price point to boot.  One has to question how they could deliver so well and affordably for women while completely missing the mark for men – maybe because women will not tolerate discomfort.

CONCLUSION:
Something is amiss with the reports of 16 shaves/4Oz tub of Grooming Dept or any such yield of shaving soap.  This trial was undertaken with every disadvantage possible present: tap water, smooth crystal mixing bowl for loading and lathering, less than highly regarded knot&c.  Perhaps issues are arising from other than the soap: be it creating overabundant lather for aesthetic purposes, the chemical composition of local waters, the cumulative dilution of the soap by residual over hydration from blooming or puck lathering – who knows but directionally, the results yielded in this trial are consistent with intuition.  If results are doubted, will repeat using an electronic scale but sincerely doubt there going to be much of a delta; can also repeat the procedure with other Grooming Dept soap bases if suspected something unique about Mallard is favourably impacting results.  For those bowl lathering/loading, it would seem 0,5 teaspoon is the amount to target, maybe slightly less if obsessed with efficiency – if a measuring spoon not in residence, it may be worth the effort to obtain one as they quite inexpensive and make scooping easy as well as consistent.  For those getting poor results while consuming huge amounts of soap, perhaps soaking the brush in distilled water and using the residual for hydrating the soap as lathered will resolve the issue – know for a fact that local water composition differences can play Hell with particular artisan soaps whilst having no impact on others, seemingly without rhyme nor reason.  Intuitively one would suspect dried soap would require less volume/weight to produce the same amount of lather as a wetter soap that Grooming Dept delivers presuming a water conducive to lathering.

In any case, this was my result, having no stake in the outcome and an affection for those posting their experiences that piqued an interest in conducting the trial so not as though pursuing a vendetta. 

This was one impressive experiment and posting!  And I've got to say that I've gotten well more than 16 shaves from each of my GD pucks -- and the bases have varied greatly.  I agree that the new Mallard base is awfully fine as well.  By the bye, today, I tried for the first time the Pasión that Mohammed released last week -- it's the Kairos base but with some lamb tallow and emu oil.  I've often thought the lamb tallow Angel soap is perhaps the single best soap I've ever tried (only Ethos Vanilla Safi seems its equal, to me, although some others are, of course, awfully close).  Now this new soap is right up there with Angel (and Vanilla Safi and the others); not sure I love the scent but the soap is fantastic.

Is it true that with a synthetic brush a soap can last longer?

Have no idea. My experience is softer knots more readily create lather and that synthetics seem to release lather more readily but those observations never tested to any rigour.

Ive read over the OP on this thread a couple of times because I initially thought that there had to be typos - the idea of getting only 16 shaves per 4 oz tub of soap just seemed disengaged from reality.  4 oz is a 1/4 of a pound which is a substantial amount of soap and you'd have to be loading the brush heavily or scooping a mighty big portion to only get 16 shaves out of it.  Theres no doubt that brush loading softer soaps can result in overloading the brush which of course wastes a lot of the soap.  By scooping a consistent amount per shave it should be much easier to calculate mow many scoops add up to 4 oz without having to scoop the whole tub.  I use a small spoon intended for espresso Demi-tasse cups and generally scoop a similar amount each time although I'm guessing theres a +/ - error in there.  16 portions would probably have to be a tablespoon or close to it, in other words a heck of a lot of soap for just a single shave.  I recall that a member did an experiment several years ago where they started with a new tub of soap (can't remember which) and brush loading, shave with it every shave until it was done.  I recall the number was in the neighbourhood of 60 shaves.  Thats a respectable number of shaves.  I'm thinking that the 16 shaves from a 4 oz tub guy may have got a bad batch - I had a tub of GD L'avventura that I bought last spring.  It was really nice and at the time I was still brush loading off the puck (this was one of the reasons I stopped doing that entirely) I had used it maybe twice and it had been stored in a cool dark place and I'd only had it a couple of months.  I went to use it and tried to load the brush but the soap had turned to a soupy, lumpy mush and a good 1/4 of the contents stuck on my brush, it literally sunk to the bottom of the tub.  Now I don't consider that normal softer soap but rather something that went wrong.  I tossed it.  I've had a Murphy & MacNeil that did that too.  Again, I wouldn't say that its a normal high consumption rate soap but a defect.

**forgot to mention that when the 60 shaved to a tub experiment was done a few years ago, shaving soaps were all generally firmer than the are now. Todays softer soaps tend to stick to a brush more on loading.

Based on an unscientific level measuring spoons methodology, 16 shaves would equate to 1,5 teaspoons (0,5 tablespoon) per shave.  Good God, wish US would go metric. Teaspoons, cups, pints&c just madness

But agreed, the original posts (despite fondness for the posters) piqued an interest that could not be ignored (tried mightily to let it go).

Is it true that with a synthetic brush a soap can last longer?

I tend to use synthetic brushes and badger brushes interchangeably. When evaluating a new soap I have never tried before, I often use a synthetic brush. Once I have used the soap at least once, I might use a badger brush. Personally,I do not find much difference. I rarely load for more than 10 seconds using a 24-26 mm brush as that is all the soap I need.

If you are concerned about the appearance of your badger brushes, be careful using them with very dark colored soaps, especially those high in vanilla as badger can discolor. For dark soaps I always use a synthetic brush.

I rarely use a boar brush when loading artisan soaps. I do use them when loading hard tallow pucks. I much prefer artisan soaps, so my boar brushes do not get much use.

My heaping 1/4 teaspoon of soap is around 1/3 teaspoon or about 5 grams. I combine that with 15 grams (1 Tablespoon) of hot water. However, I do have a water softener, so my water is soft.

For those with super hard water (like mine would be without a water softener), using water purified by distillation or reverse osmosis would be far less expensive than using huge amount of soap.

Unfortunately, may grams of soap indicated above is incorrect. 1/4 - 1/3 teaspoon of soap equates to 1.5 - 2 grams of soap. If I used 5 grams of soap, I would only get 24 shaves per tub. I would normally get 60-80 shaves per tub

There were a few posts some years ago on another forum and people complaining they get only some 15-20 shaves from certain GD's. There was a time when some of the soaps were not very solid, so one cannot get to them like lathering off a hard puck.
I am in the last uses of a Kairos based soap, Amare, and I would say I am having about 80-90 shaves with it. There is not much left, but I guess there is another 10 shaves in the tub.
We have a water softener, so hard water is not an issue.