I put this together a few years back with some input from a few other artisans. It’s a guide to choosing safe soap and aftershaves, with the consumer in mind: Guide to Choosing Safe Soap and Aftershaves from US Artisans

At the time I thought it might get me in trouble with other makers, despite not naming any brands specifically. I’ve been wondering why that is.

I think there’s a particular disease in many online wet shaving hobby communities, and that is the desire to keep the peace aka “be gentlemanly”. Unfortunately placing this value above accountability has silenced many including myself, and created dark spaces for bad makers to continue to operate and hurt customers.

I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that this has directly contributed to the slow decline of the artisan wet shaving hobby.

When a customer has a bad experience with sloppily made products that were rushed to market, it leaves a bad taste in their mouth.

When a customer knows they can’t share their experiences truthfully without being dogpiled by the community crying “be gentlemanly”, there is no incentive to continue to participate.

When irresponsible artisans are friends and business partners with moderators and admins of online communities, there is no accountability and thus no incentive to improve their craft.

Many good brands have suffered simply by being in the same hobby, by association with these slop makers.

And yes, most of them use AI artwork for their branding, because like every aspect of their businesses, fast and cheap wins over taking the time to do it right.

There are still some fantastic brands run by talented hardworking people with integrity, who have continued to produce wonderful high-quality products to high standards.

Hopefully this guide will help you the consumer identify them. And maybe we’ll be able to rebuild the damage done and return the wet shaving community to something vibrant and fun again. It starts with being safe and responsible.

Day 28 — You Start to Freeze

Wednesday, Oct 28 · Sponsor: Valentini Garage Works

Today's Theme: You Start to Freeze

Horror looks you right between the eyes using a soap with menthol or a synthetic cooling agent

Product must contain a cooling agent in its published ingredient list (e.g. menthol, menthyl methyl lactate, synthetic cooling agents). Note: Adding an after-market cooling agent to a non-cooling product will not satisfy this theme.

Today's Challenge: Opposites Attract

Counter-act the cold of your soap by finding a way to warm your lather. Use a heat source to warm your soap or lather, taking care not to burn yourself.

★ Sponsor Spotlight: Valentini Garage Works

Valentini Garage Works is the one-man workshop of Rob Valentini in St. Catharines, Ontario. After buying a few production straight razors, Rob set himself a personal challenge to make his own, fell down the straight-razor rabbit hole, and never climbed back out. He hand-makes straight razors — Damascus and layered-steel blades in styles like the Bull Nose and the Barber Notch — alongside hand-forged kitchen and hunting knives, working in small batches and shipping his custom pieces around the world. As he puts it, his razors and knives are "always evolving and getting better with every one I make."

Coming Tomorrow

Theme — Graveyard Day: A soap from a company that is shut down; re-brands / mergers / acquisitions / merely discontinued products don't count

Product must be from a company no longer in business. Caveats: companies that have re-branded (e.g. Smitten Soapery) merged or were acquired (e.g. Seaforth) or merely stopped making shave soap (e.g. Siliski) are not eligible.

There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.

Challenge — Do our work for us: Nearly one quarter of the themes this month were derived from previous feedback the community gave us. Tell us what themes or daily challenges you'd like to see in 2027. Tell us what fell flat or you're tired of.

Share your Shave of the Day

The pod is back!

Things go off the rails right from the start and then... well, you just have to listen to this one..

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4hIgIfjeywBjdSqlxS7rgz?si=gulJO7f4Soi7-8xbN5_6qg
RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/e4d74788/podcast/rss

Day 27 — The Haunted Woods

Tuesday, Oct 27 · Sponsor: The Cajun Blade Store

Today's Theme: The Haunted Woods

Woody Scents

Product must prominently feature woody notes, such as rosewood, palo santo, sandalwood, cedar, pine, fir, spruce, cypress, etc.

Today's Challenge: MOAR OVERLOAD

As your lathering, spray your fragrance or drip some aftershave into the lather. Report back on the results

★ Sponsor Spotlight: The Cajun Blade Store

The Cajun Blade Store is a small Louisiana business run by Eric — "The Cajun Blade" — out of rural Acadia Parish. A straight razor shaver with sensitive skin, Eric first formulated his beef-tallow shave soaps for his own use before sharing them with the community. The soaps are built with straight-razor shavers in mind while working just as well on a DE, carry lower-intensity scents that suit a sensitive face, and are made in small batches of only thirty-five to forty at a time. Alongside the soaps, aftershaves, and eau de parfums, the store offers its own ACR1 safety razor, shave brushes, and honing stones.

Coming Tomorrow

Theme — You Start to Freeze: Horror looks you right between the eyes using a soap with menthol or a synthetic cooling agent

Product must contain a cooling agent in its published ingredient list (e.g. menthol, menthyl methyl lactate, synthetic cooling agents). Note: Adding an after-market cooling agent to a non-cooling product will not satisfy this theme.

Challenge — Opposites Attract: Counter-act the cold of your soap by finding a way to warm your lather. Use a heat source to warm your soap or lather, taking care not to burn yourself.

Post any deals and new product announcements here!

Share your shave of the day for Tuesday!

Day 26 — The Time Warp

Monday, Oct 26 · Sponsor: Seaforth!

Today's Theme: The Time Warp

Use a soap whose scent is based on a scent from before you were born

Use a soap based on a scent from before you were born.

Examples: AG1889, B&M Reserve Series (except Waves), any Old Spice Dupe

Today's Challenge: International Howl at the Moon Day

A day dedicated to outdoor nighttime howling. Howl the entire time while shaving. Upload a SHORT video or sound clip of your howling.

★ Sponsor Spotlight: Seaforth!

Seaforth! is a line of shaving soaps, splashes, and fragrances that revives a men's grooming brand from the 1930s and '40s. The name was brought back to modern wet shaving in 2019 by Dennis of Spearhead Shaving Company and was, by his own account, born on r/Wetshaving, with community members helping shape its scents. Seaforth! is now owned by Ben Esposito of House of Mammoth — itself a long-time Lather Games sponsor — who carries the brand forward; on r/Wetshaving it posts as u/goseaforth. Made in the USA, the lineup includes long-time favorites like Black Watch, Sea Spice Lime, Heather, and Spiced.

Coming Tomorrow

Theme — The Haunted Woods: Woody Scents

Product must prominently feature woody notes, such as rosewood, palo santo, sandalwood, cedar, pine, fir, spruce, cypress, etc.

Challenge — MOAR OVERLOAD: As your lathering, spray your fragrance or drip some aftershave into the lather. Report back on the results

Share your shave of the day for Monday!

This is the place to ask beginner and simple questions. Some examples include:

• Soap, scent, or gear recommendations
• Favorite scents, bases, etc
• Where to buy certain items
• Identification of a razor you just bought
• Troubleshooting shaving issues such as cuts, poor lather, and technique

Please note these are examples and any questions for the sub should be posted here. Remember to visit the Wiki for more information too!

This is a thread to share those new purchases you're excited to show off, the shave-related projects you've been working on, or just some neat thing from your shave den.

Show everyone what you got!

Congrats to our winner:

1st - jbird996 - https://imgur.com/a/dictionary-day-october-16-2026-JwjOlTZ [8 votes]

Thanks to everyone who entered and voted!

Day 25 — Reckoning Day

Sunday, Oct 25 · Sponsor: TurnNShave

Today's Theme: Reckoning Day

Be the first to use a brand that day. Any other subsequent uses of that brand are DQ'd

Be the first to use a brand that day. Only soaps that are marketed for shaving are appropriate. Any other subsequent uses of that brand are DQ'd.

To eliminate players maliciously eliminating others, to get a point on this day you must have logged at least 5 shaves so far in October.

Today's Challenge: Jack of all trades

Incorporate another hobby into your shave routine. What does that mean? You tell us!

★ Sponsor Spotlight: TurnNShave

TurnNShave is a Chicago brush and knot maker run by Milton, with a straightforward mission: bring low-priced, great-quality brushes to wet shaving so everyone can have one. Milton ties his own knots — boar, badger, and synthetic — and sells them both as loose knots for other makers and set into his own handles, including the signature M1. His hand-tied boar knots, like the well-regarded Shoat, are a particular point of pride, and new brushes go up in periodic small drops.

Coming Tomorrow

Theme — The Time Warp: Use a soap whose scent is based on a scent from before you were born

Use a soap based on a scent from before you were born.

Examples: AG1889, B&M Reserve Series (except Waves), any Old Spice Dupe

Challenge — International Howl at the Moon Day: A day dedicated to outdoor nighttime howling. Howl the entire time while shaving. Upload a SHORT video or sound clip of your howling.

Share your shave of the day for Sunday!

Welcome to your SOTD Lather Log for September 2026

• 1,298 shave reports from 99 distinct shavers during the month of September 2026 were analyzed to produce this report. Collectively, these shavers used 526 distinct soaps from 126 distinct brands. 30 of those shaves used samples or smushes of 17 unique soaps, and 5 used mashups.

Observations

• Stirling Soap Co. eases to the top of the Brands table for the fifth straight month, but the real fight was one step down with Barrister and Mann holding off Catie's Bubbles by a single shave, 100 to 99.

• Catie's Bubbles – Tonsorium took the top step of the Soaps table for its first time ever. u/Glass_Procedure7497 did most of the work, posting 29 of its 35 shaves.

• Silver was a one-shaver production too: u/tsrblke logged all 22 of Barrister and Mann – Oceana's shaves, the soap's first podium finish since April 2021.

• Seaforth! Épée makes its Lather Log debut at #14 and hauls the whole Spearhead Shaving Company banner up 18 spots to #7.

• Brand Diversity reverted to standard programming: Stirling's 48 distinct soaps put it 17 clear of silver medalist Barrister and Mann (31), with Catie's Bubbles on the bronze step at 29. .

• u/sandstorm99 didn't get the message the Austere Augest ended at the end of August. He stuck to one soap, one razor, one blade, one brush for all 19 of his September shaves, earning him the coveted Most Boring Shaver crown this month.

• u/partyman97_3 wins the Soap Diversity by User trophy with 30 unique soaps in 31 shaves, one repeat away from perfection. u/snoo-ting actually went perfect at 27-for-27, but the contest rewards max distinct count, not perfect ratios.

• u/Engineered_Shave nabbed the Exclusive Soaps title with 24 soaps that only he used.

• Sample September 2026 fell far short of 2025. 30 sample shaves from 7 users (17 different soaps) was half of last September's 60 from 19 users.

Notes & Caveats

• Tables show all entries with 5 or more shaves to provide comprehensive coverage without artificial row limits.

• The unique user column shows the number of different users who used a given brand/soap/etc in the month.

• The Brand Diversity table details the number of distinct soaps used during the month from that particular brand, showing all brands with 5+ unique soaps.

• The change Δ vs columns show how an item has moved up or down the rankings since that month. = means no change in position, up or down arrows indicate how many positions up or down the rankings an item has moved compared to that month. n/a means the item was not present in that month.

• When available, soap names in the Soaps table link to their entry on Wet Shaving Database, where you can see scent notes, descriptions, and ingredient lists.

• An exclusive soap is a matched brand+scent used by only one shaver in the month. That shaver earns one point for that soap, no matter how many times they logged it.

Soap Brands

Soaps

Brand Diversity

Top Mashup Users

Soap Diversity by User

Exclusive Soaps

Most Boring Shaver

Boring Score is the chance that two shaves picked at random from a user used the same soap (higher means more repetitive). Effective Soaps converts that into an equivalent even-rotation count: the number of soaps they would need to use equally often to produce the same score. Example: someone can log 20 soaps but still have ~2 Effective Soaps if one soap dominates roughly 70% of their shaves and the rest are just occasional. In the case of tied HHI, Shaves descending is the tie breaker, since it's clearly more boring to use the same soap for 20 shaves than it is for 10.

For the mathematically inclined: Boring Score is a diversity/concentration index (HHI in economics, Simpson’s index in ecology). More detail at Wikipedia: Diversity index.

This is the place to ask beginner and simple questions. Some examples include:

• Soap, scent, or gear recommendations
• Favorite scents, bases, etc
• Where to buy certain items
• Identification of a razor you just bought
• Troubleshooting shaving issues such as cuts, poor lather, and technique

Please note these are examples and any questions for the sub should be posted here. Remember to visit the Wiki for more information too!

Voting will remain open for 24 hours. In the event of a tie for 1st place, a winner will be chosen at random. May the best submission win! Good luck to all!

Day 24 — MonsterMash

Saturday, Oct 24 · Sponsor: Fanzine Saponifications

Today's Theme: MonsterMash

Combine multiple fall/halloween scents to create one Frankenstein of a soap to rule them all

Combine two or more fall/halloween scents to create one Frankenstein of a soap to rule them all. Create a name for the soap, your spooky brand, and make a label.

★ Special Challenge: Design Your Label & Brand

Today's Daily Challenge is the Special Challenge.

You created a soap for today, now hand-draw a label, write up a description, and create a marketing campaign for your new brand. Get creative. The best one wins a prize. As always, if you use AI, you're out.

Prize: $25 Maggard Razors Gift Card

★ Sponsor Spotlight: Fanzine Saponifications

Fanzine Saponifications is the vegan shaving soap project of Paul, a maker with a punk, DIY, zine-culture streak and a simple creed: "Soap is art. Art is Soap." An active member of the wet shaving community, Paul builds characterful small-batch scents — like the flagship "This is Not a Test" and the leather-and-incense "Caravaggio" — and sells them through Etsy.

Coming Tomorrow

Theme — Reckoning Day: Be the first to use a brand that day. Any other subsequent uses of that brand are DQ'd

Be the first to use a brand that day. Only soaps that are marketed for shaving are appropriate. Any other subsequent uses of that brand are DQ'd.

To eliminate players maliciously eliminating others, to get a point on this day you must have logged at least 5 shaves so far in October.

Challenge — Jack of all trades: Incorporate another hobby into your shave routine. What does that mean? You tell us!

Share your shave of the day for Saturday!

Welcome to another weekly reading session.
I just started chapter 15 in Eye of the World book 1 from the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan. The story is getting better and more exciting as the chapters move forward. So many unforeseen turns. There is a build up and something is about to happen. Recapping with a reading buddy always helps ( u/curbside_champ ). Strongly recommend a reading companion if you have the chance.

Listening to Twenty One Pilots…..

What ya’ll reading and listening to…

Post any deals and new product announcements here or list anything you would like to sell! A few ground rules:

1. Only post an item once. If it doesn't move then take it to the bazaar.
2. No auctioning. You must include a list price.

The mods are not responsible for your transactions. Caveat Emptor! We suggest you only deal with established members of the community. It is strongly recommend not to use PayPal Friends & Family to avoid fees. This is against their terms and leaves you with no buyer protection.

This is the place to ask beginner and simple questions. Some examples include:

• Soap, scent, or gear recommendations
• Favorite scents, bases, etc
• Where to buy certain items
• Identification of a razor you just bought
• Troubleshooting shaving issues such as cuts, poor lather, and technique

Please note these are examples and any questions for the sub should be posted here. Remember to visit the Wiki for more information too!

Happy Friday!

What's new, shave nerds?