How do you think about soap base quality?

B&M going in the trash is absurd, unless you really don't like the scent in which case you could easily sell it. Anyway here's my list:

I did sell it. Took about a minute.

The beaudeliare was glissant, the Seville white tub was white label then. I'm surprised you didnt care for the slickness of glissant. Beaudelaire is my favorite scent btw.

Seville really caught me off guard because I expected an American Barbershop scent and not something so green. I tried it a couple of times, and it made my skin feel sticky. Post shave, my skin wasn't calm. It was slightly irritated. It felt similar to Arko...slightly drying and not moisturizing.

I still need to give the Baudelaire another chance. I made a test lather with it and it felt similar to Seville. I tried to keep an open mind about these soaps because of the rave reviews they receive. But, my lineup is not an easy one to crack and average soaps just don't cut it.

To me, a soap is a good one if it leaves my skin well moisturized and conditioned even after using an alcohol-based aftershave.

Talk about YMMV
Soap
1. Barrister and Mann
2. Tallow + Steel
3. L&L Grooming
4. Mystic Waters
5. Mike's Natural
6. LASSC
7. Reef Point Soaps
8. The Holy Black

Cream/Croap
1. Cyril R. Salter
2. I Coloniali
3. Tabula Rasa
4. TOBS
5. GFT

Obviously not everyone agrees on this and people will definitely have differing opinions on the scents but how, based purely on base performance, you could relegate any of those soaps listed on this thread to the trash can is beyond me.

For me, the TOBS and DR Harris is likely due to my inexperience with creams. The Dr. Jon's was the consistency, loading had it coming up on the brush in clumps, which took way too long to work out.

Seville really caught me off guard because I expected an American Barbershop scent and not something so green. I tried it a couple of times, and it made my skin feel sticky. Post shave, my skin wasn't calm. It was slightly irritated. It felt similar to Arko...slightly drying and not moisturizing.

I still need to give the Baudelaire another chance. I made a test lather with it and it felt similar to Seville. I tried to keep an open mind about these soaps because of the rave reviews they receive. But, my lineup is not an easy one to crack and average soaps just don't cut it.

To me, a soap is a good one if it leaves my skin well moisturized and conditioned even after using an alcohol-based aftershave.

Do you have a bergamot allergy?

[

Do you have a bergamot allergy?

No.

There is a lot of variance in our answers.  Heck, one of my top tiers was put in the trash bin by someone else.

As I think about it, I'm not surprised as there are so many variables:

• Water - our members are from all over the world.  Though a majority are in the US, we have a lot of variability in water in the US.
  
  Razor used - soaps that work fine with my mild Merkur razor head may not work well with my R41.  Now that I'm using a straight razor it's much more picky.  If I don't have really good lather from a good brand with my straight then it gets ugly quickly.
  
  Variance in soap batches, especially among artisans.  There is an artisan who is consistently rated among the best.  I purchased two tins from him and threw them away.  I don't want to name names as there has been so much positive press for this artisan that I have to think he had a bad batch.  I've started making some soap, none of which has been shave worthy, and there are plenty of ways to get off track.
  
  Other variables I haven't thought of.
  
  

 By that I mean the performance of the soap unrelated to the scent. ... I have used any soaps that cost more than $20, possibly $25 other than Castle Forbes shaving cream.

Some of my tier 1 soaps:

Tabac
B&M
Stirling
Soap Commander
Fuzzy Face
Music City Suds
Castle Forbes shaving cream
Wet Shaving Products tallow based
TFS (No one talks about TFS much.  I'm not crazy about their scents, but the soap is awesome.)

I tried asking this same question elsewhere and was promptly, and rightfully, told that without a basis to compare, its a meaningless exercise. I assume you meant you haven't tried anything that cost more than $20. OK, then isn't the question here ...

What soaps costing <$20 are Tier 1? But that doesn't mean much either because, for example, Haslinger is 60g? So its really much more expensive than on the surface. A tube of cream can cost $13 or $30 for a tub, but to go along


Mystic
Mike's
GFT
RT 66
Haslinger (which is really far more expensive if bought in the US)
CRSW

Removing the $20 limit and this game changes radically but as I was admonished elsewhere, one can't really comment on something if you've never used it. For example, XPEC, IMO is superior to 95% of all soaps mentioned in this thread with the 5% allotted for the few mentioned I haven't tried yet. But amazingly, XPEC is rarely, if ever, mentioned on this forum.

grim, how would you compare XPEC to SMN? I'm thinking of adding SMN to my den (tried a sample and it's amazing for me). My biggest barrier for XPEC is the scent which seems quite polarizing.

I tried B&M Baudelaire this morning and it was an improvement over Seville. I now consider it a Tier 3 soap. What baffled me about this one is that it wasn't particularly slick, but it had good glide. In my experience, the two usually go hand in hand. Post-shave feel was just average, but an improvement over Seville.

Another thing I've noticed about the soaps listed on this thread. They are almost all artisan soaps. That seems to be the trend lately.