WhollyKaw

I am very surprised that your experience with the WK is so underwhelming... I went through quite a few soaps and find the WK donkey milk version to be one of the best performing soaps on all counts in my den. To provide a baseline below is the list of my other TOP tier soaps in no particular order:

Nuavia
B&M
CRSW
GroomingDept
SMN
MDC
Noble Otter
Talbot
Ballenclaugh
Sudsy Soapery
Eufros

I find the lather from WKDM in terms of slickness, protection second to none. Extremely easy to lather, lovely scents as well. Immediately after the shave, my face feels soft, moisturized.

I have actually tested the post shave property of WKDM (didn't apply any post shave product), and I found that after ~30 minutes, my face starts to feel dry and a bit itchy. Bottom line: I have to use some aftershave product after WKDM. I can go on w/o any AS with some soaps (MW, Mike's, some stirling, Mallard etc) but not with WKDM. I suppose this aspect can be ignored as most of us (including me) have a decent collection of AS, but it is what it is.

I find the lather from WKDM in terms of slickness, protection second to none. Extremely easy to lather, lovely scents as well. Immediately after the shave, my face feels soft, moisturized.

I have actually tested the post shave property of WKDM (didn't apply any post shave product), and I found that after ~30 minutes, my face starts to feel dry and a bit itchy. Bottom line: I have to use some aftershave product after WKDM. I can go on w/o any AS with some soaps (MW, Mike's, some stirling, Mallard etc) but not with WKDM. I suppose this aspect can be ignored as most of us (including me) have a decent collection of AS, but it is what it is.

Crazy! I'm completely underwhelmed in this area save the scent. And I certainly don't find it easy to lather in the least... But it's only one sample. I'm going to move onto another on Tuesday. Maybe I got a bad sample? Who knows.


ANG69 - I've tried a few creams/soaps in my day. Most of them by larger brand name co's vs. the artisans. I'm as surprised as you are that I'm underwhelmed. The ingredients and all the reviews had me thinking it would be heaven. Like I said, it could just be this one sample. I'll let you know Tuesday or Wednesday.

Honestly, at this point I would rate HASLINGER miles ahead. Crazy.

I find the lather from WKDM in terms of slickness, protection second to none. Extremely easy to lather, lovely scents as well. Immediately after the shave, my face feels soft, moisturized.

I have actually tested the post shave property of WKDM (didn't apply any post shave product), and I found that after ~30 minutes, my face starts to feel dry and a bit itchy. Bottom line: I have to use some aftershave product after WKDM. I can go on w/o any AS with some soaps (MW, Mike's, some stirling, Mallard etc) but not with WKDM. I suppose this aspect can be ignored as most of us (including me) have a decent collection of AS, but it is what it is.

+1

You think that maybe the samples aren't the ones with Donkey Milk?

King of Oud, Monaco Royale, Merchant of Tobacco, Project Leather - these definitely have Donkey Milk.

UPDATE:

Ok so I've shaved with the "Fougere Bouquet" a couple times now.  Initially I found the scent overpowering, but no longer.  Quite pleasant really.  But the shave... the lather was never as impressive as I expected it would be.

I always use aftershave so I'll never get a true understanding what the soap will do by itself, but compared to some soaps I use, it's not the most moistening.  Moreover, it's not the slickest cream I've ever used either.  Don't get me wrong, it's a nice cream, but I'm not convinced it's better than some of the creams/soaps I use now.  I mean today I paired it with Gentleman's Refinery's aftershave, and my face feels awesome!!  

I'm not sure.  I'm going to try a different scent next shave and see.  I like it - it's just not rocking my world the way I was hoping.

If you didn’t use a donkey milk version you didn’t get the full WhollyKow experience. That said...like any other soap...it might work amazing for some people....not so good for others. Nothing new....

It's all YMMV. For instance, Haslinger mentioned above smells like dirty diapers to me. WK is an excellent soap and the scents are great. However, one of the samples did not perform as good as my tub of King of Oud. I recently found that Mystic Water is better than others including WK, GD, Mikes, etc. I like variety so I will be keeping a mix. Again, ymmv.

Today was the day. The WK was going to swim or sink. I loaded about 1/3 of the sample into my bowl and then added the water slowly! Man, that stuff started to lather like a champ. It wasn't instant, it took some work, but when it hit - oh boy. In all honesty, it might have been too much soap. Oh well.

I let it sit the entirety of my shower and when I came back, the consistency was still there - Nice! The shave was awesome, the feel afterward was nice. It's a good soap. You... I, just need to start dry and work my way into it. Which is kind of odd in that once you have it going, you can add tons of water to it!

I'll try it again with less soap next time and see how it works out. All said and done I'm glad it was me. I'm glad I stuck with it.

Today was the day. The WK was going to swim or sink. I loaded about 1/3 of the sample into my bowl and then added the water slowly! Man, that stuff started to lather like a champ. It wasn't instant, it took some work, but when it hit - oh boy. In all honesty, it might have been too much soap. Oh well.

I let it sit the entirety of my shower and when I came back, the consistency was still there - Nice! The shave was awesome, the feel afterward was nice. It's a good soap. You... I, just need to start dry and work my way into it. Which is kind of odd in that once you have it going, you can add tons of water to it!

I'll try it again with less soap next time and see how it works out. All said and done I'm glad it was me.  I'm glad I stuck with it.

Congratulations on finding out what works for you. That is the most fun part. Also, every time I lather a Wholly Kaw soap, I think, "man, that's lather for days!"