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Loving cheaper soaps!

Whilst I think the higher end soaps are excellent and give a wonderful shave, I've been trying some of the cheaper ,popular soaps and creams, some of which are new to me.
So far these are cella brick, MWF, and Praso, sensitive and green menthol.
These are so good, that I wonder if there are great differences between cheaper and more expensive soaps. Apart from expensive scent oils in the higher end stuff. So far, my fav is proraso menthol. I've a poor sense of smell, but this croap gives my skin a lovely tingling feeling , not irritating my skin, but a nice sensation, reminding me of Meißner Indian flavour.

Just my thoughts on these good value products.
 
Improvements become exponentially less in relation to their increased cost. Law of diminishing returns.

There's a sweet spot on that curve where you get good performance before the heavy expenses for minor gains occur. Speick, Cella, Haslinger, Stirling, Mike's Naturals and La Toja fall into this sweet spot (depending on location, I suppose).
 
G

Guest2023

Like you said, cheaper doens't mean lesser quality. I've tried lots of modern premium razors(WR2, CG, Timeless, Carbon, H&S, Apollo, Seygus, Pardigm and many more) but Rockwell 6S and Razorock GC 0.84 can match any razors mentioned. It's all about how many you can produce at given time( some distinctive feature like finishing and polishing will raise the cost due to production time consuming. but it doesn't affect the shaving itself)

The same goes for shaving soap. Haslinger, Arko, Tabac and other cheaper soaps are as good as today's premium soaps that cost 3 or 5 time more. There are defnitely distinctive aspects like natural ingredient or sth else. but it doesn't affect lather itself.
 
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AimlessWanderer

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There's many great low price options. To name a few...

Edwin Jagger/Muhle mug soaps
Haslinger
The Goodfellas Smile mug soaps
Mitchell's Wool Fat
Erasmus cream
LEA shave sticks
 
I've been at this since... 2007 or so. I'm at a point right now, where I realize I'm happy with my "top drawer" of soaps. There's a range of price, but all of them I enjoy. Some more often than others. I have other soaps tucked away that I quite like, but these are the ones I enjoy the most and actively use. And I do need to get me a pamolive stick. I have just a little space left.

Le Pere Lucien - Rose de Pushkar
SV Desert Vetiver
Stirling Varen
Proraso Green
Razorock Santa Maria de Fiore
La Toja stick
Lea stick
 
The only "higher" end soap I will ever buy is Stirling, as I enjoy the product and want to support the business. After shaving with Cella and Arko more times than I can count, it really is silly in my opinion to spend a lot on shave soap, but to each their own.
 
The only "higher" end soap I will ever buy is Stirling, as I enjoy the product and want to support the business. After shaving with Cella and Arko more times than I can count, it really is silly in my opinion to spend a lot on shave soap, but to each their own.
Stirling is generally considered cheap, not high end. It's good soap, don't get me wrong, but one of the things people really like about it is that is very fairly priced.

You may or may not know that there are people on these forums that are spending upwards of $50 and even $60 or $70 on a puck of shaving soap.
 
Stirling is generally considered cheap, not high end. It's good soap, don't get me wrong, but one of the things people really like about it is that is very fairly priced.

You may or may not know that there are people on these forums that are spending upwards of $50 and even $60 or $70 on a puck of shaving soap.
Stirling Mutton significantly outperforms its cost imo. The beef base performs to its cost tho.
 
Price and performance are generally correlated in most things, but the correlation is not that close.

It is always fun to find ‘value’ (a product that punches far above it‘s price point)!

I am as happy with soaps like Haslinger, MWF, Cella, La Toja, PdP, etc. as I am with MdC.

That leaves more $ for other ’traditional‘ wet shaving kit!! :thumbup1::thumbup1::thumbup1:
 
I love ARKO and it’s cheap.

However, I also love Martin de Candre which has a steep acquisition cost but, lasts a long time so the price comes down some.

I also love a bunch of soaps in between.

We are spoiled with choices for every price, style, base, scent, etc. let the good times roll!
 
I haven’t dipped into high end soaps yet but I love the scent and performance of my mid range soaps like SMdF or Officina Artigiana Milano. So my guess is that you will get a top notch base with an extraordinary scent when you pay more.

Performance wise and if you don’t mind a more generic scent profile there are a lot of budget barbershop soaps that you can look into. Many already mentioned but just to add a few more:

Vitos Extra Super Coco
Vitos Tabacco
3P
Palmolive rinfrescante
 
I'm by nature a penny pincher, but I do make exceptions for things that bring me personal joy. The scent of certain products falls into the category so for example I keep a $30 jar of Trumper's GFT shaving cream in my collection even though my $4 tube of Old Spice shave cream provides about the same performance. GFT makes me happier though so it's my go-to product on days I want a little pick me up. Truefitt & Hill 1815 is a similar product I will keep repurchasing for it's scent alone.

That said my last three shaves have been some Williams I smushed into a camping mug because I could. Most Mondays I grab my Old Spice mug with an Arko stick smushed into it. Those have to be some of the cheapest soaps on the planet, but I use them and enjoy them.
 
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