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SV longevity test part 1

musicman1951

three-tu-tu, three-tu-tu
I'm not sure what this post is worth, other than to let you know I'm making good progress on the SV longevity test (Opuntia Beta 4.3). It's certainly lovely soap, but I'm beginning to think it's really expensive.

Honesty, it's really hard to tell, but I think I'm about half way through the tin. That's definitely a ballpark guess. I'm 200 passes in - that I'm sure of (pencil and paper).

If you're a three pass shaver that's about 68 shaves. I did 100 2 pass shaves face lathering.

The rest of the story in a few months.
 
What kind of brush ?
Bloom with hot water or no ?
Bowl lathering or face lathering ?

Myself I use synthetic brushes ,
do not bloom ,load directly from
container for 5 secs,
face lather and do a
3 -pass shave .Always ,
there’s enough remaining
lather for one more pass.
Already at 200x shaves ( 600x passes ).Not even at halfway of container .

Contrary to you me thinks is a quite
cheap for such a luxurious soap
( I live in EU ,average price of SV shaving soaps is about 34€ ) .
 
I would think at least 500 shaves would be pretty normal for SV, it's a larger puck and pretty dry and I find I don't need a lot to get a good lather.
 
It really depends how you use it. I generally get three months of daily use out of most soaps. I load them pretty heavy.
 
It'll be interesting to find out how long a puck of SV will last. I've seen that a 150g puck of Pre de Provence, which is the hardest soap I have, can go for 200-250 shaves. That is face lathering for three passes each time. People that load really heavy might get only 150 shaves.
 
It really depends how you use it. I generally get three months of daily use out of most soaps. I load them pretty heavy.

Are you talking soft artisan or hard pucks? There's a huge difference. I load fairly heavily too and soft soaps last around 3 months or so but most hard pucks go around twice that, I find. If we are talking about soaps heavy with non-saponified ingredients (butters and waxes) it can be even less than 3 months for me.
 
What kind of brush ?
Bloom with hot water or no ?
Bowl lathering or face lathering ?

Myself I use synthetic brushes ,
do not bloom ,load directly from
container for 5 secs,
face lather and do a
3 -pass shave .Always ,
there’s enough remaining
lather for one more pass.
Already at 200x shaves ( 600x passes ).Not even at halfway of container .

Contrary to you me thinks is a quite
cheap for such a luxurious soap
( I live in EU ,average price of SV shaving soaps is about 34€ ) .

And i will add:

- How hard is your water.
- What do you intend by "lather"? Because in youtube there are gentlemen that make lather x10 the thickness of others. There are gentlemen that you can see their skin through the lather or others that apply a non transparent but very thin coat like paint.
- How big is your face

"How many shaves you get from a soap", is one of the most futile questions in wetshaving, together with the blade preference.

Here's for a laugh what i just fished from the last 2 pages of a very long thread:

1.png


2.png



@Dabroc above, claims 0.3g per shave. So, go on and "draw conclusions". :lol1:


For the record, i am at 30 shaves (3 pass with lather to spare for 4+) on my Lea puck and i am not sure i have consumed 25% of it yet. I am keeping count. Of course, for €34, you buy almost 6 Leas. Or 7 Haslingers. Or even more Mognos. Or even more Proraso tubs. And again there is Vitos Red Extra where you can buy 4kg. So yes, compared to those, Saponificio Varesino is not cheap, IF you are in EU market. Compared however to soft croaps with water as first ingredient that cost €22 for 110ml (US artisans in EU market for example), SV would most certainly be cheaper.

At the end, consumption statistics, have a value, for yourself. Or for your twin brother living next door (=same water) who also lathers the same way as you and has the same brushes. :lol1:
 
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:biggrin1:I did state “ quite
cheap for such a luxurious soap “ ...

And me also thinks that none of the
Lea ,Haslingers,Mognos,Prorasos and
Vitos soaps are even close to be classified as luxury soaps.

Putting things into perspective ,
SV soaps are rather cheap
compared to other luxury soaps like
Nuavia,MdC ,Boellis,Czech and Speake,Eufros,Los Jabones De Joserra or AdP ( all being EU made soaps ).
 
Last edited:
:biggrin1:I did state “ quite
cheap for such a luxurious soap “ ...

And me also thinks that none of the
Lea ,Haslingers,Mognos,Prorasos and
Vitos soaps are even close to be classified as luxury soaps.

Putting things into perspective ,
SV soaps are rather cheap
compared to other luxury soaps like
Nuavia,MdC ,Boellis,Czech and Speake,Eufros,Los Jabones De Joserra or AdP ( all being EU made soaps ).


I would prefer to have a double blind test, scentless to see which is the "luxurious" in performance. Because luxurious in scent is another thing. The youtube is full of "cheap vs expensive beer/wine/vodka" experiments and there is good reason why double blind tests are made where something objective must come out.

Or, to reverse the argument. What is the point to worry about price if you intend to buy a "luxurious" product. Because if you do worry about price, then the counter-argument, is that with the money you spare from 1 Kg of Vitos, you can buy a €20 aftershave or eau de toilette, that will linger for more hours than your soap.

Or, to put "luxury" in other perspective and to quote SV's creator, if you don't consume your luxury soap as soon as you get it, you don't lather so much with luxury anymore, as much as with "oxidized luxury", since the oils start oxidizing as soon as the soap leaves the factory. Benefit of not having preservatives.

As for the rest of the brands you mentioned, i wouldn't know. MdC has no moisturizers, yet people call it "the best soap i have ever shaved with" anyway. This says something about mind of people and luxury.

YMMV
 

If SV was priced €15, like it was sold to italian forum members few years ago, would it be called "luxury" today? I think not. If Ach Brito Mogno, took the same soap that sells for €4 and added tiny amounts of 4 exotic oils and sold it for €30 , is it probable that it would be called "luxury" and people rave about it? Probably.

The consumer who isn't interested in money, shouldn't care about any of this. The one who does care about price, ultimately should respond to himself: "What is more than enough for me?". If you butcher yourself with Proraso, obviously that is not enough for you. When you find something you don't butcher yourself, then the question remains: Do i like the scent? That should be the real luxury. The rest is all about feeling better because you bought the most expensive or just trying things out until you get tired or trying 1000 different scents. Frankly, it is more logic to spend money trying scents in aftershaves or EdT rather than soaps. You can always spray yourself with your favorite cologne before shaving and enjoy a scentless soap more than a soap you don't like so much the scent.

If one can't find anything satisfactory other than the "Mdc, AdP,SV", more likely it is either someone with extremely sensitive skin, bad technique (the bad worker blames his tools) or simply someone who is convinced that it is normal to pay €50 to have a "superb shave". Which has to do with psychology,rather than reality.
 

Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
As for the rest of the brands you mentioned, i wouldn't know. MdC has no moisturizers, yet people call it "the best soap i have ever shaved with" anyway. This says something about mind of people and luxury.

YMMV

It sounds like that, without having tried the luxury soaps memtioned, you are assuming that there’s little difference or that difference is not worth the price. Indeed, to each his own.
 
Personally ,I live in Greece and work
6 days of the week under it’s burning sun.Skin care is all about how
myself defines luxury .

For me a luxury soap is the one that
does not contain certain ingredients,
while it must contain certain others.
The scent profile is actually the last
thing I check in a soap.

I ‘ve tried many different soaps.
Trust me ,if your skin is not under
constant enviromental stress ,
like sun radiation,dirt and dust,insect bites,etc and with the addition of
occupational stresses like welding radiation and fumes ,grinding sparks,
machine oil & diesel spills and sprays ,pesticides and fungicides and all
the rest of the goodies an outdoor handyman is dealing with on daily basis,
it can be very difficult to compare and appreciate a really good ,luxurious shaving soap.

Price is not an object ,as long as my face gets regenerated and rejuvenated
enough .
And myself I’m pretty much aware which shaving soaps ,except producing
superb lather ,treat my skin like king .

SV are still very cheap shaving soaps,
for what they offer.
But ,most probably
not everyone has the
ability (or chance if you prefer) to fully appreciate them .

P.S. I make my own after shave lotion
and very rarely i use EdT or EdP .
 
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It sounds like that, without having tried the luxury soaps memtioned, you are assuming that there’s little difference or that difference is not worth the price. Indeed, to each his own.

Dear sir, the most expensive product i have tried, is Truefitt Hill 1805. For MY skin, it is certainly not worth the price, if not for the scent. About MdC, unless science is an opinion, the lack of added emollients/moisturizers (other than glycerin, which exists in 90% of the soaps), is in the declared ingredient list.

Of course, then there is this:


I have seen people buying $1000 Intel CPU, which had 2 more cores that 99% of the programs wouldn't use and the users wouldn't use them either, swearing that their CPU was "feeling faster". Even though all real program benchmarks would say otherwise, because if one program uses 4 cores at higher frequency, having 8 at lower frequency yields nothing, on the contrary, it's slower. STILL, they "felt" their PC snappier. Because they paid $1000 for it. The answer is in the link above.

With soaps, benchmarks don't even exist, so whatever floats one's boat. You can have 5 ingredients, you can have 20 and say that they are the same. And maybe they are for someone. But logic says that a soap with no added emollients, might be mechanically perfect, but will by more drying than a soap that has at least 1. Also, having 10 in small doses, doesn't mean they might be better than 1 in larger dose. Or even yet, someone might not need much post shave, so this is why he doesn't find drying a soap with 0 emollients.

By the "price is better" logic, the best soap out there is Aqua di Parma, as it is the most expensive, unless i am mistaken. It is not even close to those other, so called "luxury soaps".

Since i like google translate and have a bit of a talent with languages, i visit several european forum shave sites before buying something. For instance, one interesting fact i found:

The ingredients list of TFS Figaro, is identical or almost identical to Razorock soaps that sell x10 the price.
The Goodfellas croaps, are also probably made by TFS.
The french forum had a special TFS edition made for them, with an advanced scent, sold for less than normal soaps.
The Goodfellas soaps, sold at €4.50 (or 9 for 120g) have the same ingredient list as "Bignoli soaps" that sell for about double the price. Bignoli is probably the OEM for Goodfellas hard soaps.
The "Officina Artigiana Milano", is a second brand of Goodfellas and probably the same ingredients, created to sell at a more expensive price point, because the regular "Goodfellas" line was already out and they couldn't just increase the price vertically. So they created another brand, that sells for €19 (the regular line is sold at €9).
Truefitt Hill 1805, i had bought a few years ago at about €16. Now it is sold at about €29.

One can draw his own conclusions. I had heard the same about brushes: "You can't understand the more expensive brush until you buy it". Well, i did, 2 Simpsons and a $200 silvertip and my Yaqis beat them all. YMMV. Like i said, there is no benchmark in wetshaving. One can believe literally anything.
 
I have soaps from TGS ( all with the
AJ-1 formula ) and both the Officina
Artigiana soaps.

Except the quantity difference,
there’s also a quality difference.
Do they justify the price difference?
Depends who is making the question
and who is answering!
 
Personally ,I live in Greece and work
6 days of the week under it’s burning sun.Skin care is all about how
myself defines luxury .

For me a luxury soap is the one that
does not contain certain ingredients,
while it must contain certain others.
The scent profile is actually the last
thing I check in a soap.

I ‘ve tried many different soaps.
Trust me ,if your skin is not under
constant enviromental stress ,
like sun radiation,dirt and dust,insect bites,etc and with the addition of
occupational stresses like weldind radiation and fumes ,grindind sparks,
machine oil & diesel spills and sprays ,pesticides and fungicides and all
the rest of the goodies an outdoor handyman is dealing with on daily basis,
it can be very difficult to compare and appreciate a really good ,luxurious shaving soap.

Price is not an object ,as long as my face gets regenerated and rejuvenated
enough .
And myself I’m pretty much aware which shaving soaps ,except producing
superb lather ,treat my skin like king .

SV are still very cheap shaving soaps,
for what they offer.
But ,most probably
not everyone has the
ability (or chance if you prefer) to fully appreciate them .

P.S. I make my own after shave lotion
and very rarely i use EdT or EdP .
Thank you for a great post. I do find S.V. to be a great shaving soap, one of the very best. To me the ordinary Nivea cream in the blue tins is great as after shave lotion.
 
I have soaps from TGS ( all with the
AJ-1 formula ) and both the Officina
Artigiana soaps.

Except the quantity difference,
there’s also a quality difference.
Do they justify the price difference?
Depends who is making the question
and who is answering!

You sir, have a talent for a soap sommelier!

Officina artigiana: Aqua (Water), Stearic Acid, Cocus Nucifera Oil, Castor Oil, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Argania Spinosa (Argan) Kernel Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Parfum (Fragrance), Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Oil, Vitis Vitifera Seed Oil, Sodium Hydroxide, Linalool.

Regular Goodfellas AJ-1: Aqua (Water), Stearic Acid, Cocos Nucifera Oil, Prunus Amydgalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Parfum (Fragrance), Argania Spinosa (Argan) Kernel Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Oil, Sodium Hydroxide, Limonene, Linalool

The only difference is the presence of "vitis vinifera seed oil" (grape seed oil) in the 3rd position from the end. I certainly wouldn't have noticed the difference! I can't tell the difference between much more different soaps! :laugh: Oh yes, the Officina has also castor oil and the fragrance moved down further.

I only have 1 AJ-1 bought months ago, that i haven't used yet. It was sold at €8 for 150ml. Because the scent was "Pine", so they sold it cheaper. The others sell at €9 for 100ml. This says a lot about what you pay at the end, doesn't it. And the first ingredient is water... Which is why i tend to prefer hard soaps and very cheap creams. At least, if you pay for water, do it for something really cheap. :laugh:


Going back to the original issue. I would say, without doubt, if you want "lesser luxury" (because Aqua di Parma is the real luxury) and care about money too, better SV than Officina Artigiana, that is for sure!
 
And i will add:

- How hard is your water.
- What do you intend by "lather"? Because in youtube there are gentlemen that make lather x10 the thickness of others. There are gentlemen that you can see their skin through the lather or others that apply a non transparent but very thin coat like paint.
- How big is your face

"How many shaves you get from a soap", is one of the most futile questions in wetshaving, together with the blade preference.

Here's for a laugh what i just fished from the last 2 pages of a very long thread:

View attachment 1279662

View attachment 1279664


@Dabroc above, claims 0.3g per shave. So, go on and "draw conclusions". :lol1:


For the record, i am at 30 shaves (3 pass with lather to spare for 4+) on my Lea puck and i am not sure i have consumed 25% of it yet. I am keeping count. Of course, for €34, you buy almost 6 Leas. Or 7 Haslingers. Or even more Mognos. Or even more Proraso tubs. And again there is Vitos Red Extra where you can buy 4kg. So yes, compared to those, Saponificio Varesino is not cheap, IF you are in EU market. Compared however to soft croaps with water as first ingredient that cost €22 for 110ml (US artisans in EU market for example), SV would most certainly be cheaper.

At the end, consumption statistics, have a value, for yourself. Or for your twin brother living next door (=same water) who also lathers the same way as you and has the same brushes. :lol1:

500 shaves :pipe:

I was on a thread where one person claimed over 3g per shave, no that isn't going to happen. 3g of soap is far more than your brush is going to hold. I want to see the puck on the scale before and after because it was a ridiculous claim, which the poster could not substantiate.

SV is definitely not cheap, but at the end of the day it is a luxury soap, like Nuavia and MDC so you are going to pay more for it. (Note: I didn't read your posts on luxury brands after, but much of it has to do with scent ingredients raising the cost. Small differences in oils used can make a huge difference in end cost).
 
500 shaves :pipe:

I was on a thread where one person claimed over 3g per shave, no that isn't going to happen. 3g of soap is far more than your brush is going to hold. I want to see the puck on the scale before and after because it was a ridiculous claim.

SV is definitely not cheap, but at the end of the day it is a luxury soap, like Nuavia and MDC so you are going to pay more for it.

Dear sir, i am sure if one tries, he can manage to put 3g in a bowl. What he does with it, is another story! :laugh:

SV isn't luxury. MdC costs almost the double. It's simply in the upper part of the price spectrum. AdP and MdC are the real luxury products. And you don't count shaves when you pay luxury. It is like buying a Ferrari and then worrying about how much gas you consumed for a ride. :lol1:
 
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