Customer Reviews

Colonel Conk Santa Fe Shave Cup bowl including Conk Shave Soap

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought a Sante Fe bowl 6 or 8 months ago. It's a nice hand-made bowl. My wife has a variety of "art" vases in our bathroom, and I have no qualms having this bowl out on the counter the mix -- albeit with my razor and badger brush on a drip stand in the bowl.:D
The Sante Fe is right at home.

As to function: I love it. I also have several antique shave mugs, and I've got to say that the Sante Fe mug is much better tool for producing a head of lather from shave soap. The "classic" mug design tends to be a little deep for my purposes, since a classic shave-mug's real purpose is to hold a cake of soap and then generate lather on top of the soap. While I like the Colonel Conk shave soaps, esp. the Bay Rum scent, I more freqeuently use either a hard cake shave soap, which comes in it's own bowl (Tabac Original By Maurer & Wirtz For Men. Shaving Soap Bowl 4.4 Ounces ), or a tube shave cream (Proraso Classic Shaving Cream With Eucalyptus Oil & Menthol). Since neither option requires that I store any soap in the Sante Fe bowl, I just use the bowl to whip up lather. And it's very well suited to that task: Without a cake of soap in the bowl, the curved side shape does an excellent job of containing the lather as it grows.

If I broke mine, I wouldn't hesitate to buy another immediately.

This shave bowl is very sturdy, attractive and is just the right size. I wholeheartedly endorse this product for the new soap shaver. This will fit in your new routine as well as in your budget. Plus you get a big size soap instead of buying the smaller ones somewhere else.

So I read reviews about soap not fitting in this bowl and ask "Why does it go in the bowl?" My opinion is that it doesn't. When you leave the soap in the same bowl that you lather in, your soap gets used up WAY too quickly and your suds are not as good of quality (IMHO).

This is how I build my lather:

I run hot water in the tap and fill this very attractive bowl, letting is sit on the counter for a few minutes. I then take a little bit of the same hot tap water, just enough to cover the surface of the soap; yes still in the plastic container.

Rinse the brush in hot water and check for debris in sink, then let it sit in the bowl of water while I warm a hot towel to soften my beard.

After about 3 minutes, I empty the bowl and then tip the water out of the soap too. Shake out the brush a couple times and grab some soap in the tip. This takes about 5-15 seconds of stirring. Move the brush to the bowl and start to whip, and the foam starts to explode! If you need more foam while stirring, add about a teaspoon of water and keep going.

This process gets me enough lather to manage the 3 pass technique with my razor and still have about a hand full of suds when done.

I used to HATE shaving...

When I first started using a safety razor, I jumped in full force and got this shave cup and soap, plus a badger brush. Wanted to do the whole experience. It was fun for a while, but after going through two shave soap bars, the novelty has worn off and I just use regular, decent quality shave cream.

The included shave soap smells good and lathers well. No complaints there. Very much enjoyed it. The bowl looks good enough to leave on the bathroom sink if desired.

My only complaint is that the Colonel Conk Shave Soap bars are so small in the cup. The picture looks like it's a nice fit, but when removed from the packaging and placed in the bowl, it's dwarfed by the size of the bowl. "So what?" you may ask. Well, when using your brush to generate a lather, the soap bar will move all around the bottom of the bowl. You need to have the soap stationary so you can whip that brush on it and generate a lather. However, I found myself simply chasing the thing around the bottom of the bowl like an ice cube in a cup. As it dries between shaves it'll affix itself to the bottom, but sometimes comes loose and here we go again. The Colonel Conk soap bar is not a good fit for the bowl.

Nonetheless, the shave cup itself is nice.

The ceramic bowl is a unique piece of pottery - I was surprised. Unfortunately, a piece of it chipped in the mail. The sender immediately refunded me and I didn't have to pay charges to send it back.
This is the best example I know of professional business that wants my business and offers quality goods.

Guys, invest in a badger shaving brush and then use this stuff. It smells great and is a much better shave using my mach 3 than any product found in Walgreens. This one comes with a nice pottery bowl which looks better than the traditional mug.

I took up shaving with a blade again recently, and was looking for something beyond the normal shaving mug. This cup really did it for me, and I was enjoying it very much. I found that if I stuck the little cup with soap in the microwave for about 15 seconds, the soap would melt and re-congeal nicely. The only thing wanting was it didn't have a lid. I thought, 'OK, well I'll just sculpt one (I can do that).' So a few weeks of shaving, and I got more soap, and was really enjoying using my new kit, and... I knocked the shave cup off the counter, and it shattered into a dozen fragments. Sigh...
Dont get me wrong, I loved the cup. Custom made, really beautiful, and worked great.
I replaced it with one of those 4" porcelain custard cups (a deep one) from the cooking store, which cost me about three bucks. It works great too.

I bought this for my husband for Christmas. He thoroughly enjoys it and it gives him a closer shave. I think he shaves more now solely because he enjoys lathering :)

Col Conk gives him a closer, softer shave and his skin feels kissably soft after he shaves. I also enjoy the smell of it. It smells nice as well. Now, all he wants to do is shave, shave, shave.

Before I bought this, I was resorting to squirting a little shaving cream out of a tube, and loading the brush on the palm of my hand. I felt like I was wasting a lot of soap this way. Now, I feel like I'm much more in control of the amount of soap I'm using. I would have liked to have had a choice of the fragrance, but considering how cheap these bars of soap are, it's not really a big deal to buy a different one.

...hardly "elegant" as the decription states. Soap does not fit well in the dish. Would have returned it but I couldn't justify spending $5.00 and the time involved to get a $20 refund. Any old coffee mug would do just as well.