A serious question on Soap/Cream Reviews

A great suggestion LegalEagle1. Something like the ratings system used on Fragrantica for fragrances would be especially helpful (it has a love/like/dislike rating along with specific performance characteristics). I read those to get a general sense of how a product is accepted by the community, but I also take into account the opinions of long form reviewers that I follow, such as Kafkaesque and Claire V, who have excellent taste and whose writings are always a joy to read.

I plan on including a "what products to avoid" section of my luxury soaps/creams roundup. And when I do, I expect folks such as yourself to defend me from the hordes of fake accounts that will inevitably be targeting me for a lynching.

Do you have a preference of rope to be used? I'm kidding of course but grim makes a good point - I think there is such a strong sense of YMMV in the shaving community that when we see someone going on about a product you've tried and don't like for one reason or another you tend to just shrug your shoulders or roll your eyes and think YMMV. For the truly awful stuff out there I think you have to look for what isn't said. Its a little harder like trying to disprove a negative but if nobody says a word about a product thats out there then I would suspect its not a great product. Think in terms of that Star Trek episode where Kirk (I think) finds and destroys the cloaked Romulan ship by looking for background stars that aren't there.

SCShaver I agree on the myersol AS (metisol) - its brutal and only works for me if I follow it up with the emulsion but at the price point I can get several bottles of absolutely fantastic Chatillon Lux that feels good, conditions and smells great and I can talk to the person who makes it! (thats you hawns ).

I like the Ogallala line of soap and toner and I know that not too many folks here at DFS feel the same way - I'll grant you that the soap performs better if you drop a dollop of shaving creme into it to super-lather it up but the toners are nice and I really like the smell of the stuff (not the sandalwood) so thats purely a matter of personal preference. I know lots of people like some of the high end EDCs which I personally don't care for - I'm not going to do a review flaming Green Irish Tweed though.

I'd love to see a list of products various reviewers think ought to be avoided - it would be interesting to see where my thoughts would line up and where they wouldn't. I'll kick it off with one product I don't like - first I love bay rum but I do not like the Taconic brand of bay rum soap or anything else for that matter. There, I've said it.
Mark

Marko I will only say that in this instance, I prefer a rope made of silly string and a knot with a slip .

Marko I will only say that in this instance, I prefer a rope made of silly string and a knot with a slip .

Awww, what fun is that

As a group of amateurs, I think most of us only really get excited enough to write a review on products we like.

When writing my review for sweet comb, it took FOREVER, it was a nice soap to be sure but not something that got me super excited about. But I wanted to give my honest opinion about it so I went about it as objectively as I could. On that same vein, I don't think readers really got excited over my review either so conversation on it went dead pretty quickly...despite me spending more time than I should have writing it. And part of me regrets wasting so much time on it.

My review for my Varlet Beehive, however, was on fire. The brush blew me away so much so that the review pretty much wrote itself (including pictures!) and the community really got behind it in conversation which was rewarding....

Now if writing reviews was my profession, I think I'd be much more apt to write not-so-glowing reviews more easily and willingly; but as it stands I don't know if I would waste time on a mediocre product review if i wasn't asked directly for one.

Marko No fun for the mob, surely. But that's my preference :p.

A lot of good opinions. To be perfectly clear ...

I am NOT advocating a list of "consumables to avoid". That would serve little purpose because of the YMMV thing.

Scent is a BIG issue since its personal preference. For example, if you don't like Fougere scents, then for you MdC Fougere could be a poor choice.

I totally get the fanboy thing. Fanboys exist everywhere. There product, model, seller of choice can do nothing wrong. I tend to ignore fanboys (myself included ) as they are easy to identify, if they are over the top. And you know the one's over the top. In of itself, there is nothing wrong with being a fan of a product. That is human nature. It's the over the top fanboys that make it difficult for everyone.

I am NOT advocating writing just "negative" reviews for the sake of the review. That serves no purpose either. Its only if you use something and find it lacking and do a review anyway, that I believe it should be mentioned. I once mentioned that a certain, well known, inexpensive product was - meh and the fanboys came out of the word work. I am sure the membership here is much more polite

I get the point about if you only buy stuff you like, then its bound to be at least OK.

Any other ideas?

as it stands I don't know if I would  waste time on a mediocre product review if i wasn't asked directly for one.

That is an excellent point.

Hmm. Very few people begin trying a new product with the expressed intent of reviewing it whether it is good or bad. I suspect that if we followed that guideline, almost nobody would write negative reviews lol. Perhaps that is what is occurring as they are rare except by way of lists or brief mentions.

Still, I've thought about this, and I think it would be worth getting into the habit of writing more negative reviews. I always appreciate when a reviewer is able to articulate their opinion on why a product is lacking. It works wonders on cutting through unwarranted hype.

I just can't believe how jacked up people get if their pet product isn't universally loved, or given the recognition it deserves.

My God, people it's just shaving.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk