Are we there yet? Is everybody done now? Are we there yet? When will you post the results? Are we there yet?
Friends, Romans, Countrymen - oh hold on there are none of my countrymen involved this time.... I thought long and hard about how to do this and how to analyse the results and right now I cannot get enough time to really do it justice in terms of totting it all up - however I will, at some point in the near future. The moment you have all been working towards is here, today, now. First of all thank you all for participating and for the wonderful posts both public and private during the course of the challenge. Only ONE of you, who begged me, and swore on one of his razors not to divulge anything, got a single soap name out of me during the months we have been prepping and doing this challenge. That person kept the faith and therefore will remain nameless. So the reasons for doing the challenge were for me two-fold: Was to give you all a bit of fun - something to talk about and in this I think I met with success To see who would be able to tell the good from the bad, the expensive from the cheap. I "thought" that this would be easy for you guys and I was wrong. So with number 2. in mind this kind of turned into a surprise for me. In that some of the soaps you lot crooned about were the cheapest I had in my stash. Indeed only TWO of the 12 samples were of what I would call either pricey or premium soaps. Many were middle of the road in terms of value and some were downright cheapos - less than $2 a tube... I think that what I set out to prove and what I did in fact prove were two different things. I think I proved, and the numbers will one day tell us, that to have a good shave you don't need a $25 soap or cream. I think that I proved that some of the most "disrespected" soaps and creams were actually quite good or indeed very good. I think I proved that Cella, for the price, is the best soap of the lot (I had to get that one in...) So here goes. The soaps, and I know this is going to save you guys many many dollars as you won't need to buy expensive soaps any longer (I am crying with laughter right now as I know that regardless of price some of you will still buy expensive soaps and creams, myself included ) Scroll down.... A DERBY NORMAL (BLUE WRITING) B DERBY LEMON (YELLOW WRITING) C DERBY LAVENDER (PURPLE WRITING) D EVTERPA E KARO (KAPO) F ARKO EXTRA PERFORMANCE G INGRAM H PRORASO SENSITIVE SKIN I CELLA J BARRISTER AND MANN LATHA FIGGY PUDDING K WILKINSON SWORD L TAYLORS OF OLD BOND STREET JERMYN STREET FOR SENSITIVE SKIN Thanks for taking part guys and keep up the banter. I have found The Shave Den to be a goldmine of information and friendly help since I started my journey. No drama darlings in here - thank god
Some stats: Length of challenge 24th May - 21st December - 211 days Number of soaps - 12 Number of posts to date approx. 400 Samples sent - 144 with service spoon and keeper box Laughs and chuckles - un-countable
Cella is a great soap at any price and at about $30 for a 1kg block it is a winner for sure. I have a few TOBS soaps and they are all good.
Cella was a no brainer We pretty much all agreed that TOBS was the best out of the lot. "H" I totally missed I actually used it last night! The B&M Figgy Pudding did smell like Christmas I actually loved the scent of the ARKO,,, Thanks again, Steve for allowing us to participate. I personally found that I could get ALL of the creams to provide a decent, if not great, shave. This was very enlightening to me.
Was the Cella from the red tubs or one of the barber bricks? Because they are slightly different -- the red tub is sold as a cream while the bricks have had more moisture removed and are definitely a croap.
I think my sample of TOBS had gone rancid. I commented that L worked okay but smelled wrong. I used a sample tub of TOBS Jermyn Street not long ago and it didn't smell anything like that --it was quite pleasant. Other than that, interesting results. What I found most interesting was that I could get any of them to work and most had very little to choose between them. Differences were mostly incremental rather than anything night and day. Cella is definitely great though, in both versions...
Well, now I know to NEVER buy Ingram and sheesh, in 6 or 8 years, when I use all of my soaps, I might have to get some TOBS. Thanks for a fun time.
I actually have ordered some Ingram, and will also be ordering Jermyn St. and Cella. I'm quite pleased to know that so many inexpensive creams perform suitably. Thanks again. It was a fun experiment. Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
Thanks go out to @Vlasta and to the guinea pigs. No, wait, I meant participants, in this great experiment. It was fun to stand on the outside and watch it all unfold.
Guys Guys Guys - I finally got around to remembering that I never published my full results and then when I went to look some of the results are gone. Can I ask anyone who took part in the challenge to dig deep and see if they can find the sheet they filled in? I will analyse and publish the full results.
