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Four-way comparison of some of our favorite soaps.

This is a very wordy and subjective soap comparison. For those of interest, the protocol, imperfect as it is, is provided below. You can scroll down to the bottom for the results. Spoiler Alert - there was no significant difference.

PROTOCOL:
Three shaves were performed on one day’s growth with each of the candidate soaps (Panna Crema/Lavandotta; Cella; Institute Karite; Klar Kabinett). Why these three? Panna Crema (“PC”) has burst on the scene and lathered up the wetshaving community. Similarly, Institut Karite (“IK”) and its shea butter formulation was/is somewhat unique and is highly regarded. Klar Kabinett (“KK”) simply blew me away. Of course we need a common denominator we can all be familiar with, for which I chose Cella.

For each soap, each shave was with a different razor and blade combination. Each blade is used for the first or second time in each test. Therefore, each soap was used with each razor/blade combination and lathered with the same brush (loading for 45 seconds-yes, I timed it).


The criteria assessed:
a. Protectiveness – blood or irritation and magnitude of AS burn.
b. Closeness
c. Glide – ease of movement of the blade against skin
d. Smoothness – tugging or pulling
e. WTB (where’s the blade?) – during the second pass in the moustache/goatee area, I think it is desirable to have the feeling that there is no blade in the razor. This is essentially an assessment of the efficiency of the first pass.
f. Lather thickness/cushion.
g. Post-shave feel of skin judged after AS but prior to aftershave balm application.

I do not assess scent: 1] I do not have a very discriminating sense of smell; 2] I don’t consider scent important (Arko excepted) and 3] there are few attributes of a soap that are more subjective than its scent.

Lather used for each shave is likely to be thicker than one would normally use. I believe that the term used is “ultralather.” In my view, the less water I add, the less error I introduce (when added, I will use a ¼ teaspoon measuring spoon). Intuitively, I think that the thicker the lather, the greater the chance to observe a soap’s attributes. However, I’m sure one can argue strongly against this approach, but…c’mon, it’s only a hobby.

For the aftershave test I consider the aftershave sting/burn, i.e., AS sting/burn. I measure out ¼ teaspoon aftershave in a measuring spoon.

Scoring from was from 0 to 4, including fractional values. Grades were recorded immediately after shave to get first impressions.

RESULTS
Overall average score, Klar Kab = Inst. Karite > Cella = Panna Crema.
Before objecting, one should be aware that the difference in score between the two first place and the two last place was a whopping 0.07 points. For all intents and purposes, this is a draw. I kind of expected this an earlier post suggesting that the top soaps are so good that one can be hard put to differentiate between their performance. What I needed to include was a Caswell-Massey soap as a negative control - i.e., would my protocol pick up a stinker.
Interestingly, the two non-tallow soaps get a slight nod over the tallow-type. This is the second comparison in which I observe this trend. After doing some research into the chemistry of soap-making I am not really surprised that non-tallow soaps can be the equal of the tallowed guys.
Thanks for listening.
 
I've come to prefer tallow soaps esp. Cella myself. Shaving soap was tallow based for hundreds of years before modern formulations came along. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

It does show however in your review some modern non-tallow formulations can work as well.
 
My personal ranking would probably be KK = Panna > Cella = IK. I don't aim to lather all the same, however. I just tuned each soap to the max I could get from it and compared those. So there ya go.

Stifling water will bias your results, I'm afraid. You can make soaps that do well with very little water and soaps that are much better, but need a good deal of water. I haven't gotten too deep into that, but it seems that Sodium Cocoate (And therefore some salt within it, probably Sodium Myristate or Sodium Laurate) tends to make a soap less water-hungry than some alternatives (Potassium Laurate and Potassium Ricinoleate being the most likely ones).
 
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