Van Der Hagen Luxury Shave Soap: A Cheap Kit Worth Trying
Hello again, everybody. How are you? John Bonham here, also known as Cape Cod Wet Shaving. I’m back with another video, and this one’s geared more toward beginners, or people who are looking to get into the hobby, or who know someone who is and don’t know where to start.
In my last video I used Arco soap and happened to mention Van Der Hagen along the way. That soap was actually really good. I’m not doing a full Van Der Hagen product review here, I do plan one of those down the road where I use their stuff across the board, razor to aftershave to the shave cream and shave butter they make. Right now I’m focusing on the scented luxury shave soap.
Building a Kit at the Big Box Store
Here’s what I tried to do. I wanted to see if you could walk into a Stop and Shop, a Kroger, an H-E-B, a Safeway, whatever you’ve got around you, and build yourself a cheap wet shaving kit right there. For me, this soap runs about $5.30. That’s on the high end. You’ll probably find it elsewhere for around $4, maybe $4.50.
The razor I’m pairing it with is the King C. Gillette. You’ve almost certainly seen this one, wet shaver or not. It comes in a beautiful vintage looking dark blue and gold box, and it typically runs somewhere between $20 and $30 depending on where you find it. I’m pairing that with the one and only Brut. I think it’s an excellent classic fougère, spicy, and the aftershave pairs really well with this soap in my opinion.
If you want to go a step further, you can find the Van Der Hagen shave kit online, and probably in stores too. It comes with either a bowl or an apothecary mug, a boar brush, and the soap.
The Van Der Hagen Shave Set
I’ve got the Van Der Hagen badger brush too. You can find them, you’ve got to look a little, they’re not as common as the boar. Decent little brush, great for a beginner, a little on the cheap side. It’s a generic. If you’ve got enough shave brushes, you know these handles are mass produced, plastic with a silver ring, they knot them and slap the logo on the side.
For this video I’m using the boar, since that’s more than likely what you’ll actually find on a shelf. It’s not a bad brush. It’ll shed a lot, the knot’s a little cheap, you could re-knot it yourself if you really wanted, but you’re not doing that when you’re just starting out.
The apothecary mug looks exactly like the one I’ve got here. Generic too, wouldn’t even say Van Der Hagen on it necessarily.
That Angled Puck
In case anyone’s ever wondered, these pucks come at a slight angle. Not a perfect puck. It’s angled like a wedge. That’s because you’re supposed to drop it into the apothecary mug or the bowl, and that angle fits in there perfectly. Downside, you can’t get it back out once it’s in.
Back in the day, guys would use a coffee mug for this. Drop the soap in, do their shave, set the mug down on the counter, let the soap and brush dry, and leave it there till the next shave. They weren’t swapping scents every other day like we do now.
I’m not using either the mug or the bowl for this video, since you might not have one and might not want to dedicate a coffee mug to it either. I’m just opening the lid and lathering right out of the plastic tub it comes in.
The Scent
Coffee of the day, by the way, is Sterling, the Kenya. Almost said Colombia, that’s not the one I’ve got.
If you see this puck in the store, a lot of people are hesitant. Other guys have done videos on it before, but I’ve wanted to do one for a while. For me, this is an excellent pre-shave soap and a great face wash. There’s so much glycerin and shea butter in it that it’s genuinely good for your skin. The box says it makes an excellent bath soap, which is true, but don’t let that throw you off if you’re shopping for a shave soap. It works for that too.
The fragrance is wonderful. Fresh, citrusy, a little floral, not fougère-ish at all, maybe a hint of green but not much. That’s just my nose in the moment, not a claim I’d stand behind after months of use. It’s more citrus and floral to me, and that’s part of why I wanted to pair it with the Brut, I think it’s going to play off it well.
These kits come with their own King C. Gillette blades, but I’m using an Astra green blade instead.
Blooming vs. Boar
If anyone’s looking at Van Der Hagen, I want to prove these are wonderful soaps. They really are. When you’ve been wet shaving a while you spoil yourself with the expensive stuff. Proraso was one of the first I tried, and this was too. I figured out pretty quickly it’s excellent as a face soap.
Since it’s a puck, you can bloom it, drop it into hot water, just enough to cover it, and let it soak 5 to 10 minutes to soften the outside so it lathers easier. With a boar brush, though, you don’t need to bother. Boar’s thicker, more backbone, the bristles don’t bend as much, and it lathers right up without any soaking.
Van Der Hagen will always have a soft spot in my heart. For a lot of wet shaving veterans, this is one of the first soaps or brushes they ever used. If you’re using the badger brush instead, I’d absolutely bloom the puck first, otherwise you’re sitting there for 10 or 15 minutes lathering just to get enough soap off the puck, and the bristles take a beating doing it.
You can find three packs of this online for about $15 to $20. My local Stop and Shop carries the singles for that $5-and-change price. I’ve got a ton of these sitting around. There’s also a version in an orange box that I believe is their shave butter, packaged as a puck rather than a tube, with raised edges on it, kind of like a Williams bar. I might use that one for the full Van Der Hagen video down the road.
Face Wash First
You’ve got to soak the boar brush too, in warm water, not hot. Depending on the adhesive used on the knot, hot water can actually damage it.
I don’t remember the exact glycerin number off the top of my head, it’s on the packaging, somewhere around 10 percent I believe. Each shave soap contains over 10 percent glycerin, which is very good for lathering and also for moisture retention after the shave. This stuff is plenty slick.
In case you’re wondering why the King C. Gillette handle looks the way it does, that’s called knurling. You’re technically supposed to hold it right at that grip section and shave that way. You don’t have to. A lot of people use long handle razors, myself included. Hold it however works for you.
The only thing I don’t love about the Van Der Hagen brushes is that they shed. This soap really does throw people off. I love it for washing my face too, hot water as I can stand it, because it opens up your pores, and this stuff has so much glycerin it softens your skin right up and gets it ready for the shave.
Got to be careful around the mustache. I don’t like dead silence in my videos, but I’d rather stay quiet for a second than lose mustache hair I want to keep. The lather you get off this doesn’t dissipate. It’s well made. The box says they use a unique kettle process, I’ve tried looking up what that actually means and never found a straight answer.
With this much water and soap involved, dry hands are your best friend. Wet hands and you’ll slip, and that will hurt.
I really like the Van Der Hagen soap. I really do. A lot of guys turn their nose up at it because it’s the cheap stuff, and in a way it is, but for what you pay and what you get, it performs. I wet my face again, loaded the brush without adding extra water, used my chin hair to help build up the suds, and went in for the second pass.
My shave came out pretty good. This brush sheds a lot, more than I remembered, so be ready for that. It does come pre-treated, boar and especially horse hair carries a pretty pungent scent out of the box that you have to work through over time, but the pre-treatment cuts that down to just a faint hint, and it fades with use.
Here’s another angle on it too: say you’re traveling and you lose your luggage. You can walk into pretty much any big box store, grab all of this, and put together a real shave with what’s on the shelf, even if it’s the cheap stuff.
Van Der Hagen luxury scented soap. Good for face wash, good for the shower, good for shaving. Worth a try if you’ve never used it before.
That’ll do it, everybody. God, I love Brut, reminds me of my grandpa, he was a Brut man. Thanks for watching, especially if you made it all the way to the end. Hope you got something out of this one. Till next time, take care of one another.