Soaps from foreign lands

[BMblB]

I just returned from a Mediterranean cruise and managed to snag a few shave soaps while I was there.

An organic olive oil soap from Greece. I'm thinking since it is olive oil based it may not lather too well. If not, I'm sure it will be a fine bath bar.

This is an interesting one. I got it at a store in Italy called "Acqua e Sapone" (Soap and Water) that sold soaps, perfumes and cosmetics.

It was cheaper than Proraso Green (the only other shave soap they carried). Proraso was 2.35€, while this was only 1.45€.

It's a croap and the scent is like Cella x 3. Performs like Cella too. And look who it is made by! Most Tcheon Fung Sing soaps are $12-$20 for the same quantity.

The Aqua Di Parma was more expensive than I was looking for, but my wife liked the scent so she told me to get it.

Herr & Man is made in Italy. It's a hard soap in a plastic tub with a nice herbal/citrus scent. The store owner recommended it to me. I used it once, but the water on the ship and/or my brush were not optimal for the soap.

Cella was 17€ for a kilo brick. Vitos was 16€ for a kilo. I was tempted to buy that but didn't want to put my luggage over the weight limit.

Spain was a bust soap-wise. We were in Barcelona on Good Friday so 90% of all stores and shops were closed.

 

[Steve56]

Thanks for the interesting post!

Cheers, Steve

 

[Ad Astra]

An interesting look ... "Figaro" barber soap


AA

 

[BigJ]

Interesting products! Thanks for sharing.

 

[RT Smoothie]

I sure hope that the Greek soap performs well for you lather-wise. Olive oil in a large quantity tends to render a shaving soap difficult to produce good lather although it will give good skincare.

 

[BSAGuy]

That looks like a great batch of soaps. Good luck with using them.

 

[lancre]

We'll be looking forward to your impressions when you use them.

 

[sarimento1]

thanks for the post!
you definitely missed out on great buys for Cella and Vito's kilo bricks!!
they are twice that cost, shipped, to the States!

 

[BMblB]

thanks for the post!
you definitely missed out on great buys for Cella and Vito's kilo bricks!!
they are twice that cost, shipped, to the States!

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I already have a Cella brick (or what is left of it), so that wasn't a consideration. I was worried that the additional kilo of Vitos would have put my luggage over the weight limit. That would have cost an additional $100, far more than the savings on it.

 

[SGWB]

Olive oil, coconut oil, and sodium hydroxide. My bet is it will perform like Cremo. Slick and moisturizing with no lather.

 

[Jarrod]

Definitely used some KOH-free soaps w/ olive as the first fat and no problems keeping stable enough for a lather with superior wetness/slickness to almost all palm/beef derivatives. At Cosmoprof last month I'd a fascinating conversation about this w/ a European soapmaker on why this can be. It went over my head and pity 10th gr. chemistry was spent too often succumbed to hormones, but there's something about a particular protein present in the olive oil trees which varies in the olive oil from 0.1% to about 1.5% of volume for generally really old olive trees. There's a lot of Greek soapmakers w/ olive oil base and no KOH making shaving soaps (and all seem to lack the ability to export beyond EU), surely some of them are using the oil from ancient trees.