Lea Classic soap puck - first soap in years that gave problems

I have been fortunate - very fortunate.

None of the soaps I have used the last year or so have given me problems.

Today I used Lea Classic hard shaving puck, and even after loading with a 1305 Semogue boar for 3-4 minutes semi dry loading, removing the bubly first proto lather, and applying a great deal of lather to my face, the lather felt thin, somewhat bubly and subpar. Gave the puck an extra overloading, I must have swirled the brush for 4-5 minutes on top of the bloomed puck..


Result was still a poor unprotective lather, that never really gave me the needed coverage on my skin. Lather flew everywhere, but not on my face. Dried out very quickly in flakes, even though I hydrated it more than I have been doing with other soaps.

Will try with a badger next week for testing purpose. I know Lea Classic has fans, ans that it has similarities with MWF and Haslinger, and can be tricky to lather properly. But I always overload my brush with soap and as said I loaded this soap for 4-5 minutes, swirling the brush until I got tired in my arm, and still the lather it gave me was poor, even after a good deal of proper hydration with water and air (I face lather always now)

Any fans of this soap ?

Claus...I haven't tried the soap. That being said, the LEA cream seems to have more fans than the soap.

(06-10-2016, 04:32 PM)Steelman Wrote: Claus...I haven't tried the soap. That being said, the LEA cream seems to have more fans than the soap.

I own the Lea classic cream too, it's a pretty nice cream, nothing special  but nice none the less.

The soap however....pheeeewwwww......loading it until I tired my arm, brush was full of soap, face full of soap, hydrating it drop by drop - didn't get the tempo right, first dry flakes of soap fell off my skin, then suddenly the lather was bubly and runny (tto much water, even thogh I added water 5-6 drops at a time)

This hard soap is more difficult to get right for me than MWF soap and Hollandaise sauce together

Thanks for the warning. There's enough universally praised soap out there that I'm comfortable avoiding stuff with even a few bad reviews - like LEA soap.

I have a LEA shave stick,  from when they where using no tallow.  It's OK for traveling, but not mind blowing.

I've never tried the Lea puck and I don't think I will.

Instead, I really like the stick of the company that contains tallow and lanolin. Excellent performing soap.

I really dislike the LEA puck. The only way I was able to achieve what I consider a shareable lather was by super lathering it with the cream.


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Sorry to hear, Claus and others. Thanks for sharing though.

I know the Lea Classic hard soap puck has a couple of fans, like a user called NAV, who loves it.
He bought like 15 backup pucks of it.

But even for him this was tricky to get to lather correctly at first, he neede 3-4-5 shaves to dial it in. Once he had it dialed in, he loved it, even more than his favourite MWF soap.

From what I could find online, I'm far from the only one having trouble with this Lea Classic puck.

Some even suggests, that there have been made some less than stellar pucks, dud pucks, that simply can't lather correctly, while other pucks seem to lather with more ease.

I got a really bad unprotective lather from it, and as a result the shave was mediocre to poor. My underlip is buring a bit today, and this is almost 2 days after the shave now.

Will give this puck a fair chance and use it next week with one of my favoruite badger brushes and see if the lather is the same poor quality.

I love the Lea Classic woden bowl by the way, so will not sell this, but reuse for it another soap - will use the Lea Classic puck for my new badgers brushes, when I give them their maiden palm lathering. 

Unless the shave with the Lea Classic next week is far better, the Lea Classic is on my NOT RECOMMENDED soap list.

I have actually used this Lea shaving soap in a superlather, but can't remmeber when, but it gave me a great shave back then. Maybe my puck back then was better than the one I have now or the superlather cream just hid the poor performance from the soap puck ??

(06-11-2016, 06:43 AM)merkur man Wrote: I really dislike the LEA puck. The only way I was able to achieve what I consider a shareable lather was by super lathering it with the cream.


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I have actually used this Lea shaving soap in a superlather, but can't remmeber when, but it gave me a great shave back then. 
Maybe my puck back then was better than the one I have now or the superlather cream just hid the poor performance of the soap puck ??

Just saw this thread and thought I'd comment...

I've now been using LEA classic soap for a while now and it remains in my top 3 soaps along with MWF and Speick (current rotation of 70 and having used around 120 different soaps all up).

The way I lather up the soap is basically shake out excess water from boar brush and load up until there's lots of bubbly pro-lather.
Don't discard this...Just work it on your face until it thickens up (and it thickens up a lot!).
Then you can add dribbles of water as desired.

Coincidently, I used LEA today and had a damn fantastic BBS, not to mention the phenomenal post shave!

(11-12-2016, 06:11 AM)nav Wrote: Just saw this thread and thought I'd comment...

I've now been using LEA classic soap for a while now and it remains in my top 3 soaps along with MWF and Speick (current rotation of 70 and having used around 120 different soaps all up).

The way I lather up the soap is basically shake out excess water from boar brush and load up until there's lots of bubbly pro-lather.
Don't discard this...Just work it on your face until it thickens up (and it thickens up a lot!).
Then you can add dribbles of water as desired.

Coincidently, I used LEA today and had a damn fantastic BBS, not to mention the phenomenal post shave!

I'm glad you found out how to make it perform.

I have no doubt, it works great for some Gent's, I just did not have the patience for another MWF patience soap in my den.
MWF is a keeper, although it's the most challenging soap, bar none, in my den, to make great lather from. With patience, I can now always make great lather wth my MWF puck, but it usually takes me 6-8 minutes to build the lather to a quality, that I like.

I gave up on Lea Classic, on two different pucks bought 1-2 years a part, because I didn't want yet another 6-8 minute puck in my den.
And I did on one occasion try for what felt like 10 minutes, and never got a lather, that came close to what I get from MWF, with the needed patience.

I have used the LEA classic hard soap puck and not found it overly difficult to use. If it makes a thin runny lather and dries quickly for you,  possibly you are using too much water to begin with? Never understood the difficulties people have with the Musgo Real hard puck either for that matter. MWF is indeed a persnicky soap to use and for that reason I prefer Haslingers Sheeps Milk. All a case of YMMV.

Bob

I have the Lea Classic cream and I love it. It sounds like I'd better stay away from the soap.

As I had not used the LEA Classic shave soap puck in a while and to make sure my memory wasn't playing tricks on me I just face lathered up and shaved with it. I used a 2 band silvertip brush and can't really fault the lather created. It did not dry out and gave me a comfortable 3 pass straight razor shave. My only thought is to use a dryer brush, load lots of product adding small amounts of water as you go.

Bob

While it isn't my favorite soap, I do like it and find the performance more than acceptable. The puck performs above its price point in my opinion. As with everything...ymmv

I wanted to buy it but can't bc of the lanolin. Like soooooo many others.

(11-13-2016, 09:58 AM)BobH Wrote: As I had not used the LEA Classic shave soap puck in a while and to make sure my memory wasn't playing tricks on me I just face lathered up and shaved with it. I used a 2 band silvertip brush and can't really fault the lather created. It did not dry out and gave me a comfortable 3 pass straight razor shave. My only thought is to use a dryer brush, load lots of product adding small amounts of water as you go.

Bob

Bob,

I have tried with a very dry brush, with a dripping wet brush, with a badger, with a synthetic and with a boar - I could not get anything close to an acceptable lather from my two Lea Classic pucks.

Speculation lets me to believe, there must have been a couple of different versions of this puck on the market - and mine both were duds.

Of course it could just be me, but I feel I have enough experience to believe this is not the case.

(11-13-2016, 11:57 AM)CHSeifert Wrote:

(11-13-2016, 09:58 AM)BobH Wrote: As I had not used the LEA Classic shave soap puck in a while and to make sure my memory wasn't playing tricks on me I just face lathered up and shaved with it. I used a 2 band silvertip brush and can't really fault the lather created. It did not dry out and gave me a comfortable 3 pass straight razor shave. My only thought is to use a dryer brush, load lots of product adding small amounts of water as you go.

Bob

Bob,

I have tried with a very dry brush, with a dripping wet brush, with a badger, with a synthetic and with a boar - I could not get anything close to an acceptable lather from my two Lea Classic pucks.

Speculation lets me to believe, there must have been a couple of different versions of this puck on the market - and mine both were duds.

Of course it could just be me, but I feel I have enough experience to believe this is not the case.

I think that there are some soaps that are just more amenable to the way a person naturally tries to lather them and others not so much. For me the not so much ones would include MWF and the current Williams. With so very many soaps out there why waste time on a soap that is giving a person a hard time, life is too short unless you are into challenges that try your patience. For me the LEA Classic puck soap is alright but I prefer the lather I have been getting from the Palmolive shave sticks grated into a container, I do use the stick when traveling though, yet other dislike Palmolive I am sure.

Bob