A serious question on Soap/Cream Reviews

I brought up the "canned goo" question because I constantly here it as a means to degrade or devalue probably the highest revenue generating product sold in the wet shaving industry. Yet, it seems to have failed miserably as I don't see hundreds of millions of users flocking to far more expensive commercial or artisan soaps instead. I'm not sure why consumers feel the need to call it canned goo, which is, of course, a negative review, and feel there will be no negative consequences similar to bashing artisan products.

I enjoy people sharing their thoughts in general- a big part of content on any given shave site is going to be review oriented. As soaps change more regularly than other variables with seasonals, LE, etc. they are always going to be a hot topic.

Fact is, we are all hanging out in a forum centered on what for most is a chore. Any sites out there on clipping toenails? You likely get my point. If not for these topics, the conversation would be very limited.

Having said that, as with anything, people will have their passions and the dialogue emotional. You haven't lived until you've debated the merits of Gibson vs. Fender. Or heaven forbid made in USA vs. crafted in Japan. Canon vs Nikon. Awesome times!

I myself often travel with foam. Particularly on in/out biz trips. I prefer soap but the convenience and fact that I used it for the majority of my life with little to no negative consequence makes it seem Ok. Please don't judge me though.

As mentioned, I do enjoy reviews; myself I look for people sharing similar taste and weight their opinions more heavily. Even still, doesn't make me rush out and buy their latest recommendation. Just add it to the list of possible [fill in the blank] to try.

PS Barrister_N_Mann is Awesome!

I enjoy shaving in general. I have shaved "traditionally", i still find that weird to say, since I was 15-16. I like forums because I can pick up snippets of history or people who are more knowledgeable in my areas of shaving interest. I then usually go to PM to discuss these issues. I also use it as a kind of news outlet on what's new and what's coming down the pike so i can take a look see for myself. As an example if it was not for forums I would not have discovered Koraat razors. I have bought a few of his razors and had many email exchanges with Ulrich on various topics of the trade and history of razor making, steel choices, unconventional honing methods etc.

I am just mentioning this so my previous posts are not interpreted as forum bashing or raise the question why do you read shaving forums

Certainly there can be a lot of ire raised by a negative review. The only soap I have been actually negative on and posted about was one that almost all would agree has been reformulated into expensive bath soap from a once great soap, or at least so it is said that it was once great. The one person who decided that I was wrong and just didn't know how to use it was a vendor who had a large portion of his stock in this brand. He directed me to a video of his on YT, which when I looked at a previous video actually showed him having a great deal of trouble with the soap and actually calling it a horrible soap more than a few times. So obviously there are going to be ulterior motives at the best of times, particularly when money is involved.

I'm fine with giving honest opinions and I know that what works great for me might not work very well for someone else and vice-versa but what I really dislike is the true fanboy posters who can't post on anything without a plug for their favourite product. Sure, I get it, they love XYZ but when every time someone asks about how good Stirling, or MW, or McD, or TOBS or whatever is they post that they don't like it because it's not XYZ it really starts to get old fast.

Don't know and don't really think about it much. I just see millions of threads about soaps, their worth, which is the best Italian soft soap, best Artisan soap. top 10 Artisan soaps, cost per shave, this vs that, heated debates, closed threads etc. I see this behavior more with artisan soaps then I do with commercial soaps. In fact people feel it's their prerogative to slam commercial soaps like Arko, Williams, Musgo etc but the debate gets really heated when that same vitriol is brought on artisan soaps. I don't write reviews on soaps, rarely if ever recommend any brand over another and don't really think it is that important. It's soap. And yes I think a lot of shavers get obsessed with their shiny new soap and buy 20 or 30 flavors of it and wax enthusiastic, insert it into as many soap posts as possible. Like the new toy on the block. The Tickle me Elmo of the year.

Yes, that is exactly the position taken in the Sharpologist podcast. People feel free to bash the inexpensive commercial products and I suspect because they are such large companies that there is little chance of negative backlash. This is true

I have no problem with aerosol creams, gels, carts or Gillette either. I have never posted anything negative about them so i don't see why that is even in the conversation.

I brought up the "canned goo" question because I constantly here it as a means to degrade or devalue probably the highest revenue generating product sold in the wet shaving industry. Yet, it seems to have failed miserably as I don't see hundreds of millions of users flocking to far more expensive commercial or artisan soaps instead. I'm not sure why consumers feel the need to call it canned goo, which is, of course, a negative review, and feel there will be no negative consequences similar to bashing artisan products.

El Sharpologist call it "can goo" lol......

Certainly there can be a lot of ire raised by a negative review. The only soap I have been actually negative on and posted about was one that almost all would agree has been reformulated into expensive bath soap from a once great soap, or at least so it is said that it was once great. The one person who decided that I was wrong and just didn't know how to use it was a vendor who had a large portion of his stock in this brand. He directed me to a video of his on YT, which when I looked at a previous video actually showed him having a great deal of trouble with the soap and actually calling it a horrible soap more than a few times. So obviously there are going to be ulterior motives at the best of times, particularly when money is involved.

I'm fine with giving honest opinions and I know that what works great for me might not work very well for someone else and vice-versa but what I really dislike is the true fanboy posters who can't post on anything without a plug for their favourite product. Sure, I get it, they love XYZ but when every time someone asks about how good Stirling, or MW, or McD, or TOBS or whatever is they post that they don't like it because it's not XYZ it really starts to get old fast.

People don't get that their review is just their opinion. It doesn't make it right or wrong. I don't even call them reviews, but testimonials. I have used some colorful metaphors in the past when people say stupid things just because I don't agree with their preaching.

Certainly there can be a lot of ire raised by a negative review.

Which in the big scheme of life is downright strange. When Consumer Reports says they cannot recommend buy Car X because ... it falls apart, has poor safety, etc. you don't see the car company having a little fit over it. Maybe they fix it and do better next time.

People don't get that their review is just their opinion.  

And this is where an issue might come up. Going back to my car analogy, one has come two expect that if an independent testing authority, such as http://www.iihs.org tests safety, the results ARE written in stone. When Consumer Reports says a car has a poor reliability record, given the sample size, it IS taken at face value by many consumers.

The problem here is that there does not seem to be an objective means to measure soap/cream performance yet you would think there should be. "Slippery" has a meaning. "Cushion" has a meaning. Yet there is no way to objectively measure it?

grim Interesting points. To be honest, slippery and cushion don't mean jack to me. They are terms that are thrown around so often, they just don't mean anything to me. I gauge my soaps and creams as effective or ineffective, I keep it simple, not too much to explain, they either work for me or not.

As much gear as I own and as many years I have been in the traditional shaving business, I don't feel like sharing reviews. I may post something and say, "got this soap it feels good", but that's as far as I'm going. I don't want anybody using my useless and personal opinion to buy something they may not like.

I enjoy reading testimonials, but I don't buy based on them, I just enjoy reading them.

The problem here is that there does not seem to be an objective means to measure soap/cream performance yet you would think there should be. "Slippery" has a meaning. "Cushion" has a meaning. Yet there is no way to objectively measure it?

grim, almost all reviews that one sees are qualitative analysis, yet what you are seeking is a quantitative analysis. The former is process oriented, whereas the latter is outcome oriented. Certainly it is possible to design laboratory experiments to quantify slickness, cushion and other variables related to shaving soaps, razors and razor blades. The question arises, however, as to how useful that information is in deciding what to purchase or what not to purchase, when the act of shaving itself is such a highly subjective and personal experience, not to mention fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things.

For example, if someone says, "This soap is very slick" is that less useful information than saying this soap measures a 7.3 on the Vargas Slickness Scale. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Certainly, there are some factors that deserve quantitative analysis, such as "Soaps that contain ingredient X increase your chances of getting skin cancer by a factor of Y%." That's useful quantitative data that I'd want to know about and would certainly influence my buying decisions. On the other hand, knowing that soap lather Z will lose 60% of its water content in 3 minutes and 12 seconds at a temperature of 76 degrees, causing an 84% reduction is slickness as measured on the Vargas Slickness Scale, is not more helpful to me than someone saying, "This soap dries too fast."

 Certainly it is possible to design laboratory experiments to quantify slickness, cushion and other variables related to shaving soaps, razors and razor blades.  

Yes, its mostly subjective but that subjective measure in our brains is gauging soaps against their peers. If someone thinks Soap A is more slippery than Soap B, then in fact they have, in their head, measured it.

Upon looking at the new SV shaving brushes, I saw they are mostly exotic woods. So I was looking them up and there is a hardness scale for wood, the Janka Hardness http://www.bellforestproducts.com/info/j...hgod4GIFDQ Woods like Cocobolo are very hard, much harder than Oaks and Maples we in North America associate with as hard woods. There is a Floor slip resistance test . Car designers look at drag coefficient to ensure the highest mileage or to be able to go faster.

There are machines that test how sharp a razor blade is - http://www.catra.org/pages/products/razors/redst.htm. There is a proposed Blade Sharpness Index (BSI) http://www.ucd.ie/mecheng/staff_pages/pd..._2007a.pdf A sharp blade measure 0.2 on the scale. A Dull blade 0.5 but the scale is not linear. There is the Rockwell Scale for blade hardness.

But nothing for soaps/Creams.

You would think if the wet shaving business were truly booming, some independent testing authority might spring up and do serious tests of some sort instead of Joe Smoe making a video out of his bathroom (no offense meant here to anyone) of the technical characteristics (not the scent) or me or anyone else saying - yeah, that one gets 10/10.