How do you think about soap base quality?

As grim mentioned above, if we keep it to $20 soaps and under then I don't have much to add as most of the soaps I use daily are more expensive. Their performance makes them well worth it though for me.

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.

SMN is the elite of the elite, a tick above everything else.

When I first came across XPEC, it had a LOT to live up to. About every cream review always put XPEC at the top (or SMN). Sometimes baum.be is mentioned. At first, I didn't like XPEC, somewhat about the scent but you can buy unscented. But after using it awhile, it just smells like Orange Juice to me and thats fine for the morning.

But the biggest downside was I had used it in a scuttle, and with warmth, it dried easily in the scuttle. So as long as you keep it just luke warm, not hot or warm, its fine. In fact, I used it today and have been using it almost every day this week. Its really top of the line stuff - slick, great residual slickness, great cushion.  Old Town Shaving calls it the King of Shaving Creams (with ABC the Queen or second and MdC a distant third). I don't see it that way. IMO, ABC and Boellis are a tiny bit better but these are nits. In any case, IMO SMN is the best of the best but XPEC is just a percentage point or two below it, and a lot of that is scent.

BTW, as noted elsewhere, none of these Italian soaps have lanolin in them and this seems to be a big difference between the Italians and the American "artisans".

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.

SMN is the elite of the elite, a tick above everything else.

When I first came across XPEC, it had a LOT to live up to. About every cream review always put XPEC at the top (or SMN). Sometimes baum.be is mentioned. At first, I didn't like XPEC, somewhat about the scent but you can buy unscented. But after using it awhile, it just smells like Orange Juice to me and thats fine for the morning.

But the biggest downside was I had used it in a scuttle, and with warmth, it dried easily in the scuttle. So as long as you keep it just luke warm, not hot or warm, its fine. In fact, I used it today and have been using it almost every day this week. Its really top of the line stuff - slick, great residual slickness, great cushion.  Old Town Shaving calls it the King of Shaving Creams (with ABC the Queen or second and MdC a distant third). I don't see it that way. IMO, ABC and Boellis are a tiny bit better but these are nits. In any case, IMO SMN is the best of the best but XPEC is just a percentage point or two below it, and a lot of that is scent.

BTW, as noted elsewhere, none of these Italian soaps have lanolin in them and this seems to be a big difference between the Italians and the American "artisans".

Thanks for the detailed reply. I think I'll stick with adding SMN for now. With my oily skin I do fine without having lanolin in my shaving soap. In fact, all the butters and other moisturizers is why I'm hesitant to try many of these newer artisan soaps. They seem to be trying to follow along the cartridge myth that more blades are better by saying that more butters/moisturizers are better.

Personally, I am very thankful that my favourite soaps contain all of these lovely moisturizing butters as my skin greatly appreciate them as opposed to most commercial soaps and a few 'artisanal' soaps that leave my skin feeling overly drying.
Good thing we have so many options to choose from for all of our different faces/skin.

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.

SMN is the elite of the elite, a tick above everything else.

When I first came across XPEC, it had a LOT to live up to. About every cream review always put XPEC at the top (or SMN). Sometimes baum.be is mentioned. At first, I didn't like XPEC, somewhat about the scent but you can buy unscented. But after using it awhile, it just smells like Orange Juice to me and thats fine for the morning.

But the biggest downside was I had used it in a scuttle, and with warmth, it dried easily in the scuttle. So as long as you keep it just luke warm, not hot or warm, its fine. In fact, I used it today and have been using it almost every day this week. Its really top of the line stuff - slick, great residual slickness, great cushion.  Old Town Shaving calls it the King of Shaving Creams (with ABC the Queen or second and MdC a distant third). I don't see it that way. IMO, ABC and Boellis are a tiny bit better but these are nits. In any case, IMO SMN is the best of the best but XPEC is just a percentage point or two below it, and a lot of that is scent.

BTW, as noted elsewhere, none of these Italian soaps have lanolin in them and this seems to be a big difference between the Italians and the American "artisans".

Thanks for the detailed reply. I think I'll stick with adding SMN for now. With my oily skin I do fine without having lanolin in my shaving soap. In fact, all the butters and other moisturizers is why I'm hesitant to try many of these newer artisan soaps. They seem to be trying to follow along the cartridge myth that more blades are better by saying that more butters/moisturizers are better.

I'm with you guys, no doubt. Europeans seem to get the task done right with just the right about of ingredients, while American ones live by the "more is better" philosophy. The former philosophy works much better for me and my skin. I wish it didn't matter but my shaves are evidence it does.

Btw, SharpSpine, some of your posts come across blank. Not sure why.

Btw, SharpSpine, some of your posts come across blank. Not sure why.

Apparently Tapatalk can't handle me Nero!

One note, It wasn't my intention to limit the discussion to $20 and below soaps, I meant only to comment that the ones I have experience with are in that price range.

Try contact the webmaster regarding invisible posts. It's each time one uses tagging, the whole post is blank. I have complained but was told it's not tapatalk but my phone or whatever

Try contact the webmaster regarding invisible posts. It's each time one uses tagging, the whole post is blank. I have complained but was told it's not tapatalk but my phone or whatever

as mentioned here, it's not an issue with our system. I'm not going to remove the tagging feature on the forum because tapatalk doesn't work well with it.

before we drag this thread too far off topic, if you have a tagging issue, post in the thread linked above..