A tale of two shaves; a soap comparison

[kingfisher]

So, yesterday morning I lathered up some Martin du Candre for my morning shave, and this morning, some Provence Sante Green Tea soap. The particulars:

MdC. Having made my own lather almost every single day for coming up on two years, I am pretty confident that I get a good lather most of the time. Yesterday morning's lather with MdC was one of those "perfect" lathers. While I was shaving I felt certain that I was using the best possible lather; maybe the best lather I have ever made. Slick and protective. Astounding. The scent, on the other hand, I find very distasteful. The shave? Very good and irritation-free.

PSGT. As usual, the PSGT lather starts out quite bubbly, and each time a little more water is introduced, it immediately gets very bubbly. Working it long enough produces a smooth lather, but it is always kind of "fluffy," for lack of a better term. A thin layer of this lather is more see-through than a thin layer of the MdC lather would be. I added two drops of glycerin during the process, to see if that would make the lather more yogurt-like. It helped a little. Eventually I got what looked to be a pretty nice lather. The shave was good; the lather was not as slick and not quite as protective, but I got a comfortable, close shave. The skin feel after the shave is second to none. My face felt glassy smooth and hydrated during the rinsing process. The scent, in contrast to MdC, I find very pleasant.


Overall, the MdC is clearly the better soap, IMO. It's not really even very close. The scent, however, is not good. The perfect shaving soap, IMO, would lather like MdC and smell like PSGT. Too bad such a beast does not exist.

 

[Vlad]

MdC is always excellent lather to me, but I've never had anything but stellar performance from Provence Sante (Verlaine). I think of all my soaps it leaves me with the most comfortable-feeling shave, like my skin is the better for having scrapped the razor blade accross it.

About MdC scent: do you dislike all lavenders, or just this particular one?

 

[du212]

The scent of Martin de Candre is not only lavender, I think the bezoin is the powerful note, and this spicy note may not are for everybody.

For me the scent is addictive, I like the resin scents, the incense, benzoin, amber Myrrh,...

In the case of MdC, the scent is from the benzoin mixed with herbal notes, lavender but not the flower, the leafs, rosemary and minth

 

[kingfisher]

What du212 said.

I like lavender.


The resin or benzoin scent is so overpowering I can't even tell it has lavender in it.


The other thing is that I've always had a hard time getting a decent lather out of Provence Sante. I've talked about it on these boards ad nauseum, so we won't go back through it again, but for me it has always tended to produce frothy/bubbly/airy lather no matter what. I have only recently been able to get shave-worthy lather out of it. I love the scent, and I do love the post-shave skin feel.

 

[Seraphim]

A tale of two soaps?


"It was the best of shaves, it was the worst of scents.....", etc, etc... With apologies to Mr Dickens...

 

[EL Alamein]

Good tale. So when are we doing to group by on the MdC?

Chris