The best soapmakers in the world

It was a good price. Not a huge fan of the sweet almond (cherry/marzipan) scent, but that's pretty much par for the course with most traditional Italian soaps.

Red is better.

I've never tried it, but it's a pretty safe assumption. They are the same soap, but the red has added glycerin, which is bound to add some additional slickness, which in my experience, is never a bad thing when it comes to shaving. If I ever did a head-to-head comparison, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference, or I would find the difference to be marginal at best. If the red was that much of a superior product, they wouldn't sell the green at basically the same price.

The other red vitos 'extra Coco' (now discontinued, but still available) has added coconut oil in addition to the added glycerin and is coconut scented.

At the end of the day, if I like a scent enough, I can overlook some shortcomings in a soap. The converse is true too, if I like the performance, I can usually overlook the scent, as long as it isn't objectionable.

Vitos is tallow based. That gives it a leg up on its non-tallow competition, for me, anyways. It's hard to beat a well made tallow based soap. It's a solid performer, but not what I would consider a top tier soap. It's still a great value for the money.

I'll be the first to admit that my exposure to soaps is limited, compared to other people's collections. My interest in the hobby is geared towards hardware, not consumables. Give me a steady supply of tallow Mitchell's Wool Fat and I'm a happy camper. Toss in the occasional puck of Saponifico Verisino, and I won't go hunting for other soaps. That being said, I don't mind occasionally using other soaps and shaving creams, but I probably won't go out of my way to recommend most of them.

I would even go so far as to say that a person can get better shaves from an average/mediocre soap if they stick with it and learn how to get the most out of it, than they can from a large rotation of better quality soaps. Ditto for razors. It kind of sucks the fun out of the hobby though if you go that route.

 

Yeah, I kind of (but not really) regret not ever trying the "King of the shave sticks" before it was gone. They also made the soaps for Fine and Tabac if I remember correctly.

I love the concept and convenience of shaving sticks, but they tend to irritate my face, similar to razor burn, even when I presoak them to soften the end. I have no problems with them grated or mashed into a tub though. Arko seems to be the only one that doesn't irritate my face immediately, probably due to how soft it is, but it did after several consecutive uses. Quite vexing really, since I'd love to be able to just toss a few different ones in the dopp bag for travelling.

 

America is also full of 'Artisan' D.I.Y. soapmakers who churn out cheap hand soap and sell it as shave soap, dragging the overall rating down, which is why I didn't list America as #1 or even #2.

Other countries don't seem to have the same problem, probably because their people are less inclined to churn out crap to sell to the gullible and uninformed.

If this thread was just about which country produces the best, yes, America would probably win, due to the sheer number of very good soaps available from American makers. But that wasn't the criteria I used.

 

Fair enough.