School me on Italian soaps

[shavefan]

So lately soft Italian shave soaps have my interest peaked and I'm looking for thoughts/suggestions.

I'm interested in the best performers. I don't care about scent or price.

My favorite soaps are tallow based (i.e: Mikes, Speik, Valobra variants...) I have one Italian soap (Razorock, Captains Choice) that I don't hate but its not my favorite either.

I also want to avoid anything that takes 7 (kidding) steps to get a good lather (soaking the puck, distilled water, etc. etc...)

Anyway, what are the best choices?

 

[lafrancis]

Most tend to be soft in texture, Saponificio Varesino and Valobra excepted, and most are very good. Saponificio Varesino and Pannacrema (both Pure 2o and Nuavia) are two favorites. Antica Barbieria Colla is also excellent but pricey, as is Nuavia. l also like Tcheon Fung Sing (don't let the name fool you, it's Italian) which is underrated. Cella is another popular soft soap.

 

[Joma12]

Cella is an amazing and no-nonsense croap. Very slick in my opinion. Enough for me to consciously make an effort not to get it on my hands when shaving. No YouTube videos, no pilgrimage, no ritual sacrifice to get it loaded and lathered.




Takes me no time to whip it up with a cheap brush

 

[rhtoras]

Proraso,cella and figaro are good options.

There is also a dovo shave soap(hard cream soft soap) made it in Italy.
It is also called "fiori and frutti" shave soap.
This is one of the very very good soaps around there.
I own both eucalyptus and mind scents and they are superb.

I also like omega shave soap.
There is also a pino silvestre soap which is quite good.
A lot people like TFS soaps but i find them mediocre performes.I say this because youbkight like them...


P.s.If you could find wilkinson shave soap(Italian version without dimethicone) it is as good as omega with a "dentist" scent.

 

[Jopete]

There is also Vitos, Boellis Panama 1924,
Antica Barbieria Colla, if you would consider creams and don't care about the price, Santa Maria Novella and Acqua di Parma are my favourites.

 

[Brutus]

In my stable:

Outstanding.
Valobra hard soaps (blue container) - 4 scents
Valobra semi-soft (available in small brick and also 1 kg (2.2 lb) large brick) - 2 scents
Cella semi-soft (in brick and small orange tub)

Good.
Italian Palmolive creams - 2 scents
Proraso creams and semi-soft soaps - 4 classic scents plus some new ones

Unremarkable.
Figaro creme in tub ("creme" according to the label, but only slightly softer than Proraso in tub).
Figaro is unremarkable, and I am currently only using it because I thought I had discarded all tubs previously, but my wife stashed one away somewhere from where it resurfaced only a few days back.)


Curious about Santa Maria Novella, Acqua di Parma, and Vitos, but have not enough space in my cabinet and first would have to eliminate one of the 12 stalwart brands (most of which I have in more than one scent) in my rotation. As I do not expect any earth-shattering revelations from Vitos and expect it to be, like Omega creme, a stand-in for Proraso, I put Vitos on the back-burner for now.


B.

 

[polishaver]

Saponificio Varesino is reasonably priced for a high end soap. It's my favorite Italian soap! It's triple milled, but not as hard as Valobra.

 

[cyberdog]

I'll second the Proraso, one of the first soaps I tried when i returned to wet shaving. Lathers easy, good slickness, fairly inexpensive. I'm partial to the red (sandalwood) and recently the green (eucalyptus), which I actually didn't expect to like, but was given a tube of CO Bigelow (repackaged Proraso Green) and find it refreshing and now a favorite. White may even perform better, but doesn't do it form me as much scent wise, but it does have a big menthal kick.

 

[Shiloh]

Another vote for Cella...a solid performer that everyone should try.

BTW...I also have the Razorock/Captains Choice. I love the fragrance, and it's a decent soap, but it's a veggie soap, and I prefer the tallow-based soaps (like Cella), so it doesn't get much use from me.

 

[McKinneys]

Proraso, Cella and the Valobra soft soaps are all easy to later and excellent shave soaps. I prefer the white Proraso soap over the green as it hasn't that strong menthol kick, but a very nice, fresh and mild cooling effect.

 

[Steve56]

My advice is as always for people exploring soaps and creams, start at the top, they're not expensive except relative to other soaps. For Italian soaps and creams that would be ABC hard or soft soaps, Czech and Speake, I Coloniali mango oil, XPEC (the current version I did not find exceptional), and Santa Maria Novella v3 (which I have not tried since I don't care for menthol-eucalyptus scents, but it does get rave reviews).

Once you've tried the upper end, and samples can be had, then you have a proper 'yardstick' for evaluating other soaps, even if you don't continue to use the high end soaps, or consider other soaps a better value. I believe that if I had done this, I would not have had the large inventory of mediocre soaps that I've sold, PIFed, or are just sitting and would have saved enough money on the mediocre soaps to pay for the top tier ones.

Don't get me wrong, I use a lot mid-tier soaps too that are good for SR use (mainly slick), but you'll be better able to pick your favorites if you've used the top-tier first.

Cheers, Steve

 

[shavefan]

Thanks for all the feedback!

I should add that when I started DE shaving about 4 years ago I tried Proraso (Red & Blue) and wasn't that impressed. (I know, flame suit on...). I'm also not a fan of heavy menthol/Eucalyptus as it causes some irritation, for me.

Looking around the web and reading some archived posts I'm considering Boellis Panama, PannaCrema & LpL Tallow.

Saponificio Varesino 70th anniv. & ABC have me interested but it's veggie based so I'm on the fence... I'm on the PannaCrema passaround list so i'll get a chance to try that one

 

[Steve56]

Yep, I knew I was forgetting one - Boellis. LpL is French btw.

Don't worry about ABC being veg, it outperforms nearly every other soap tallow or whatever.

Cheers, Steve

 

[shavefan]

Yep, I knew I was forgetting one - Boellis. LpL is French btw.

Don't worry about ABC being veg, it outperforms nearly every other soap tallow or whatever.

Cheers, Steve

Oops, LpL is indeed French...

I need to track down samples.

ABC gives me pause as it's got spearmint, peppermint, wild mint, and menthol. That's a lot of cooling power and my face has reacted a bit negatively to heavy mint/menthol products. It might be more than my skin can take. I know it gets rave reviews but before I slap down that kind of coin, I need to be sure

 

[germanshaver]

Hi! Do not hesitate and overlook veggie based soaps (without tallow) , some are better performers and deliver a better postshave skin-feel than shaving soaps with Tallow, Lanolin, Shea Butter, Kokum Butter etc. This, for me, applies to Saponificio Varesino (though containing shea butter) and Abbate Y La Mantia shaving soaps.

Cheers
Christian

 

[Steve56]

ABC gives me pause as it's got spearmint, peppermint, wild mint, and menthol. That's a lot of cooling power and my face has reacted a bit negatively to heavy mint/menthol products. It might be more than my skin can take. I know it gets rave reviews but before I slap down that kind of coin, I need to be sure

ABC soaps do not have any menthol or mint in them. The ABC Apricot Hull balm has wild mint and menthol which is barely noticeable if at all, and no peppermint (though it's possible my farsighted eyes missed it on my bottle). The Apricot Hull balm is very similar to Myrsol Emulsion but less mentholated and Emulsion isn't that strong. It's also a thicker product than the ABC 'milk' ASBs.

The soaps both hard and cream contain the same ingredients in the same order, I think the main differences are the fragrance and the cure.

Here are the cream ingredients: stearic acid, aqua, cocos nucifera oil, potassium hydroxide, prunus amygdalus dulcis (sweet almond) oil, parfum, sodium hydroxide, potassium carbonate.

Cheers, Steve

 

[Black Adder]

Vitos is amazing. This includes almost their entire line:

Vitos - Gifts&Care

The kilo with the coconut oil is top-notch; very slick, easy to lather and with a great post shave effect. The eucalyptus cream comes in a big 500ml tube, but I'm on my second one and it too provides superlative shaves. The tobacco cream is a bit of a disappointment. No tallow or lanolin, and it's difficult to whip up and keep a good lather. To me, Vitos beats Cella by a mile. The whole line seems to be made for providing good shaves.

Don

 

[shavefan]

@Steve56 I got my ingredients list for ABC here...

Antica Barbieria Colla Almond Oil Shaving Cream

 

[Steve56]

That list is wrong, notice that there's no fat or lye. I copied the ingredients I posted directly from my cream 'pot'.

Those ingredients look more like the apricot balm. I am assure you there's no mint or menthol in the soaps.

Cheers, Steve

 

[shavefan]

Many thanks Steve! I'll pop a note to Phil, bad data leads to poor decisions... Cheers!