Barrister and Mann: Soft Heart vs Excelsior

[Raymond Foo]

I can only find official information on Excelsior but not Soft Heart or when comparing both. BM choose Excelsior because it is the harder soap which helps preserve it longer, and performance wise is great. What about Soft Heart? What I get from the name is that it might be softer than Excelsior, does that makes it meets bottom faster? Anyone that has experienced both, please let me know the differences. Thanks.

 

[Barbarian80]

I prefer PP8 (softheart) over excelsior. It is the best soap base i've ever tried. I haven't kept track of my shaves, but it "feels' like my brushes eat PP8 quite a bit faster than excelsior. I prefer the feel of PP8 on my face. The feel is far more velvety silky/ smooth than anything else i've tried. Certainly doesn't bother me that a tub of PP8/softheart doesn't last a million shaves, but that's something the B&M owners have to consider in their business model- and sounds like it has bothered Will so much that the base is in a transition. I believe all of his new seasonal soaps are done in the modified softheart base where Will figured out a way to make PP8 harder. I haven't tried it yet, myself because the scents he's offered it in haven't tickled my fancy. But i assume that at some point in the future B&M will officially change the base from modified softheart to ????. Who knows- maybe he's still tweaking it.

 

[SharpieB]

Soft Heart is an amazing base as barbarian80 mentioned above. Unfortunately I can blow thru a tub in 20-ish shaves. The stuff is soft.

It is worth $1 a shave for me though as it is that good. If it was harder and performed the same, it might be all I would buy.

 

[sugardaddy]

Will did change the lye ratio in soft heart and it kept it great, but makes it less soft. He might switch his main base to that.

(Sent from mobile)

 

[RayClem]

I had heard some reviews of Softheart that indicated that it was an improvement on Excelsior, so I purchased a tub and put to the test. I did a "face off" between the two soaps. I produced a bowl of lather from each of the soaps and applied each lather to opposite sides of my face. I then did my standard four-pass shave plus a 5th bonus lather for face conditioning. I could not tell any difference in the performance of the two soaps.

Since the formulation change of Softheart, it is similar in hardness to Excelsior so loading time was similar.
Both of them lathered easily with no significant difference in the time required to produce a smooth lather free of large bubbles.
Both provided similarly excellent primary and residual slickness.
Both provided sufficient cushion/protection to enable me to get an irritation free shave on both sides of my face.
I monitored the post-shave feel for the next 24 hours. I could not tell any difference between the two sides of my face at any point during that time. After about 12 hours, the post shave feel started to fade and was essentially gone by 16 hours for both soaps.

Based on the side-by-side comparison, I consider the performance of Excelsior and Softheart to be elite. However, I do have several soaps that I consider to be super-elite as they provide me with everything that the two Barrister and Mann soaps provide, but the post-shave feel will last from 16-24 hours.

Thus, I recommend both Excelsior and Softheart soaps, but do not see any performance reasons to prefer one over the other. Some individuals might have a preference for one over the other, but any difference would be small.

 

[Hannah's Dad]

I had heard some reviews of Softheart that indicated that it was an improvement on Excelsior, so I purchased a tub and put to the test. I did a "face off" between the two soaps. I produced a bowl of lather from each of the soaps and applied each lather to opposite sides of my face. I then did my standard four-pass shave plus a 5th bonus lather for face conditioning. I could not tell any difference in the performance of the two soaps.

Since the formulation change of Softheart, it is similar in hardness to Excelsior so loading time was similar.
Both of them lathered easily with no significant difference in the time required to produce a smooth lather free of large bubbles.
Both provided similarly excellent primary and residual slickness.
Both provided sufficient cushion/protection to enable me to get an irritation free shave on both sides of my face.
I monitored the post-shave feel for the next 24 hours. I could not tell any difference between the two sides of my face at any point during that time. After about 12 hours, the post shave feel started to fade and was essentially gone by 16 hours for both soaps.

Based on the side-by-side comparison, I consider the performance of Excelsior and Softheart to be elite. However, I do have several soaps that I consider to be super-elite as they provide me with everything that the two Barrister and Mann soaps provide, but the post-shave feel will last from 16-24 hours.

Thus, I recommend both Excelsior and Softheart soaps, but do not see any performance reasons to prefer one over the other. Some individuals might have a preference for one over the other, but any difference would be small.

Excellent analysis.