Why are Italian's renown for shaving creams?

Proraso and Omega amongst others make great shaving creams. What is it about Italy that has resulted in them being the leading producers of shave creams?

 

Exactly, I thought Italy was known for its tallow soap concoctions....

 

Germany has a hell of a lot more creams than Italy, and so do Bulgaria, Russia, and India. Italy has some of the finest soaps, on the other hand.

 

I think what your talking about is Prorasso/C.O. Bigelow cream. It's a newbie staple because it's about the only product that you can get at local brick and mortar stores. Once you start trying other creams from England or artisan products, you'll find that the Prorasso really isn't anything to write home about. Don't get me wrong it's a good decent product ,but there is so much better out there.

 

aqua di palma, santa maria novella, domenico caraceni, acca kappa, vito's some of these also may be made by a mother co. and relabelled, of that i don't know.

 

I have to agree with the others. I think that many countries make many creams. There are tons around the world but if thinking about leaders I would have to say England comes to mind but that is just because of the big names that come from there and have been around for a very long time. That is just my 2 cents.

 

Like everything else around here we've entered the whole personal opinion realm. I find Proraso/Omega to be among the top tier of wet shave products. They are rarely discussed in that vane because A) they are so cheap and B) the scent is nothing fancy. In terms of work horse products that always result in great shaves they're right up there though.

I do look at Italy as being known for good products along w/ England and Germany to name a few. Whatever works for you is the 'best' anyway right? :happy088

 

There are so many great soaps and creams out there so for me it all comes down to scent. The menthol and eucalyptus scent Poraso has is refreshing, effervescent, and just gives me a lift when I use it.

 

I interpet the OP as simply having a emotional joy with Italian shave products and celebrating with a sense of wonder Italy for producing them.

Vendors like Gio Abrate of the now defunct Barberia Italiana and current Canadian vendor Joseph of Italianbarber connected Italian shaving products directly to the renowned Italian barbering tradition. That and other ways in which Italian men's toiletries and shaving good resemble one other, like similar scents, greeen , woody masculine, as well as Old World quality may mark them out as unique and specific to Italy.

That differs somewhat from say India because Indian creams are under license from or duplicate Western creams , Old Spice etc. The manufacturing is Indian but the product style , scent etc. is not really native.

 

For some reason I associate anything that comes from Italy as being very high quality. I'm not sure why, because obviously that's not always the case. But I see or hear the word "Italian" and I think, "Oh, that means it's really good." Either that or it means I'm about to get my head shoved into a pizza oven and yelled at for delivering letters from little Henry Hill's school about his truancy.

 

Yes it is with certain cream brands, such as Godrej, or Vi-John. These are 2 brands which are native and local Indian items.

 

Thumbs up for the Italians, they do manufacture excellent shaving creams and soaps as well as aftershaves...like Italian Floid; Spain manufacture two versions of the Floids: suave and vigoroso in the shaving cream department they have: La Toja and Lea; so the Italians are not alone in the manufacture of good shaving products.

 

The first two things that come to mind when I happen to think of Italian soaps/creams are the scents. Either almond or eucalyptus.

I've tried Proraso, Omega, Acca Kappa, and Cella, and just haven't been impressed by any of them.

I found English creams such as TOBS, & Trufitt & Hill to be much more to my liking.

Just recently I've tried the more popular French soaps, and must say I've been extremely impressed with their performance. Pre de Provence, l'Occitane Cade, Provence Sante. All 3 give me top-notch performance.

I would absolutely love to try some Martin de Candre soap to complete my "top 4 from France" experience, unfortunately the stuff costs nearly $70 with shipping, AND right now they are out of stock on the 150 gram size

 

Going out on a limb here perhaps, but maybe we should take a look at the countries with a tradition of having hairy men: Turkey, Israel, India, Italy, etc.

Any correlation there? Of course, the English creams don't follow this "rule."

 

Haha never thought of it that way. But could be true. However my family has always had thick hair on head and body. However I do say i am lucky because i do not have massive caterpillar eye brows like my father and brother.

There are so many creams from around the world that are wonderful. Find what you like and you are set. I love creams from around the world some of my favorite are from India, Russia, UK and of course America (TSD)

 

I think the main reason why many/some associate Italy with great shaving soaps and creams is due to the fact that you think of barbers you think of Italian barbers. In movies, the barber is almost always Italian! Even the barbershop my sons and I attend is run by an Italian family: a father, his three sons, his brother-in-law, etc.

 

My first choice would be Russian cremes.

 

I think we're lucky that there are still so many places who make great creams and soaps commercially. I'm sure someone will be able to enlighten me, but I can't think of any really great ones still commercially here in the United States. We have tons of great artisan vendors, but as far as running out to the store we're mostly limited to KMF, VDH and Williams. These, while good aren't the sanw as being able to pick up a tube of Tet-a-Tet in Russia, a stick of Wilkinson or Palmolive in the UK, etc. Which kind of really makes me glad for the interwebs and all the vendors and artisans available through it.