My two Italian beauties arrived on the same day!

tsellati · May 22, 2015

With all the threads lately raving about triple-milled soaps and other hard soap and Italian soaps/croaps/creams I decided I had to see what all the buzz was about.

So, off went my money (a considerable sum with regard to any other soaps and creams I have :a47:

), and here is what arrived today -

Of course, I could not try Antica Barbieria Colla, touted as being one of the best if not the best Italian hard soap out there, without trying Santa Maria Novella as well (seen below).

Tim

tsellati · May 22, 2015

Now the real challenge is to decide which to try first, the ABC or the SMN :confused1

.

Tim

PMT · May 22, 2015

Looks like killer soap, I love the Italian stuff!

Royalpar1 · May 22, 2015

tsellati said:
With all the threads lately raving about triple-milled soaps and other hard soap and Italian soaps/croaps/creams I decided I had to see what all the buzz was about.

So, off went my money (a considerable sum with regard to any other soaps and creams I have ), and here is what arrived today -

View attachment 573376 View attachment 573377 View attachment 573378

Of course, I could not try Antica Barbieria Colla, touted as being one of the best if not the best Italian hard soap out there, without trying Santa Maria Novella as well (seen below).

Tim

Ok, heres the deal, you have purchased IMHO the finest soap, and the finest cream. I have both and love both, however having said that SMN will give you the finest shave on Earth. IMHO and YMMV

tsellati · May 22, 2015

Royalpar1,
Since you've already lost your 'virginity' to these Italian beauties what is your suggestion on how to lose mine :idea:

.

I am thinking to use my Shavemac 177 Two-Band Silvertip Badger brush or a High Mountain White Manchurian Badger Brush in a restored vintage Reine Borste handle for the SMN.

What would you suggest?

Tim

Bhugo · May 22, 2015

These look pretty cool. Congrats.

tsellati · May 22, 2015

And, I was thinking of using one of the following for the hard soap, an Omega 11126 Boar, an Omega 11047 "Mixed Midget" Boar & Badger, or a Semogue 620 or 1305 Boar brush.

View attachment 573407

Tim

Royalpar1 · May 23, 2015

tsellati said:
Royalpar1,
Since you've already lost your 'virginity' to these Italian beauties what is your suggestion on how to lose mine.

I am thinking to use my Shavemac 177 Two-Band Silvertip Badger brush or a High Mountain White Manchurian Badger Brush in a restored vintage Reine Borste handle for the SMN.

What would you suggest?

Tim

I have only used a Chubby 1 which i gave to my son 19 to use, he of course shaves once every 3 months as he likes his little scubby face. He has not yet caught the addiction of shaving each day. I then bought a Manchurian Badger directly from Simpson in Chubby 2. I love love this brush but do not have the experience in trying any other brushes. I can say that SMN is a hard croap and will last and last, i am not sure if you really need a very stiff brush. But I think i would lean towards the Manchurian because its "considered" the best.

tsellati · May 23, 2015

OK, just got finished trying my new SMN croap for the first time and I am in need of some troubleshooting assistance. Here is the scenario -

1. Soaked bristles of my Manchurian badger shaving brush for 10 minutes in warm/hot water.
2. Gently flicked out majority of water from brush and took 30 seconds to swirl the brush over the top of the soap.
3. Prepped face by lathering up with L'Occitane en Provence Almond Oil liquid soap.
4. Liberally hydrated my face with hot water to rinse off the almond oil soap and began face lathering with my badger brush.

Lather for the first pass was luxurious though not particularly voluminous. Dipping the tips of the brush in water and relathering my face did not dramatically increase the volume of lather on my face.

Very brief rinse of face and then I relathered my face for a second pass. This is when the problem arose. I could not get a good lather and looking at the bristles it looked more like I had just completed a touch up after my third pass :huh:

.

So I reloaded the brush and proceeded with my second pass. Had the same problem when I went for my third pass. Very thin lathering experience and I had to reload by brush a third time :death:

. I also noticed that after the third pass there was little or no residual slickness for touch ups - unlike the Speick shaving cream I used yesterday.

So, what went wrong? I expected my first experience with a high end Italian shaving soap to be transformative - it was not.

Should I have soaked the top of the soap in the tub with water before trying to load my brush. Should I have loaded the brush for more than 30 seconds, though I have never had to do this with any other shaving soaps I had. Did I leave too much or too little water in my brush prior to that first loading?

Any advice you can offer is much appreciated.

Tim

Royalpar1 · May 23, 2015

tsellati said:
OK, just got finished trying my new SMN croap for the first time and I am in need of some troubleshooting assistance. Here is the scenario -

1. Soaked bristles of my Manchurian badger shaving brush for 10 minutes in warm/hot water.
2. Gently flicked out majority of water from brush and took 30 seconds to swirl the brush over the top of the soap.
3. Prepped face by lathering up with L'Occitane en Provence Almond Oil liquid soap.
4. Liberally hydrated my face with hot water to rinse off the almond oil soap and began face lathering with my badger brush.

Lather for the first pass was luxurious though not particularly voluminous. Dipping the tips of the brush in water and relathering my face did not dramatically increase the volume of lather on my face.

Very brief rinse of face and then I relathered my face for a second pass. This is when the problem arose. I could not get a good lather and looking at the bristles it looked more like I had just completed a touch up after my third pass .

So I reloaded the brush and proceeded with my second pass. Had the same problem when I went for my third pass. Very thin lathering experience and I had to reload by brush a third time . I also noticed that after the third pass there was little or no residual slickness for touch ups - unlike the Speick shaving cream I used yesterday.

So, what went wrong? I expected my first experience with a high end Italian shaving soap to be transformative - it was not.

Should I have soaked the top of the soap in the tub with water before trying to load my brush. Should I have loaded the brush for more than 30 seconds, though I have never had to do this with any other shaving soaps I had. Did I leave too much or too little water in my brush prior to that first loading?

Any advice you can offer is much appreciated.

Tim

Hi Tim

The following is what i do which is a partial of the Marco Medthod and the rest the RoyalPar

1. Place your brush in the scuttle to soak for a few minutes while you are putting the pre shave oil on your face. I never used this oil but would assume its fine, i use TH or LPL oil.
2. Wet your face with the warm water
3. shake out your brush 3 hard flicks , most of the top water will leave the brush, I use a badger brush
4. i do about 30 swirls on the SMN, including pushing down once or twice.
5. i swirl over my scuttle so any residual soap falls into the scuttle.
6. I lather 100- 120 swirls in the scuttle.

ensure sure your face is damp not dripping, and take your brush, dip it into the scuttle to pick up your lather, and then face lather to add the foliating features of the brush and soap. i then paint the lather on my face.

Doing it as above i have enough lather for 4 passes and touchup. i have never added more water. This croap does NOT take alot of water, there is enough in your brush and what drips from the puck and after 120 twirls you will have an amazing concoction.

try a practice lather and let us know

Royalpar1 · May 23, 2015

also i just noticed you are using a liquid soap which may be not mixing well with the SMN, try it without the liquid soap and just shaving oil, or without any oil. Just noticed we have the same brush, so that is not the issue, i think it may be :

1. Liquid Soap
2. too much water
3. not enough swirling

paintflinger · May 23, 2015

Sounds like too much water in between all the face rinsing and extra dipping for that voluminous lather.

tsellati · May 23, 2015

OK, what I am taking away from the review of my technique is the brush and/or my face might have been a little too wet. Also, I will not use a face soap and instead just use a pre-shave oil or just well hydrate my face and lightly tamp it with a towel so its still damp, but not dripping wet.

The other thing that you may have missed is that I tried to generate my lather entirely from directly face lathering. I did not use my scuttle. Would you suggest in the future using this SMN croap just for bowl lathering with just a bit of face swirling to get the exfoliating effect?

Alternatively, if I want to retry direct face lathering while minimizing the amount of water in the "equation", I may give my Semogue 620 boar brush a try.

Looks like I am going to put off giving my ABC soap a try until I nail down the technique for really enjoying my SMN croap.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Tim

BSAGuy · May 23, 2015

Nice soaps. Congrats and enjoy.

paintflinger · May 23, 2015

tsellati said:
OK, what I am taking away from the review of my technique is the brush and/or my face might have been a little too wet. Also, I will not use a face soap and instead just use a pre-shave oil or just well hydrate my face and lightly tamp it with a towel so its still damp, but not dripping wet.

The other thing that you may have missed is that I tried to generate my lather entirely from directly face lathering. I did not use my scuttle. Would you suggest in the future using this SMN croap just for bowl lathering with just a bit of face swirling to get the exfoliating effect?

Alternatively, if I want to retry direct face lathering while minimizing the amount of water in the "equation", I may give my Semogue 620 boar brush a try.

Looks like I am going to put off giving my ABC soap a try until I nail down the technique for really enjoying my SMN croap.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Tim

Tim, keep on face lathering. No soap should be relegated to one or the other based on some perceived benefit. When reading your original post it sounds like you nailed the lather from the get go and then proceeded to over hydrate the lather. Lather does not have to be voluminous to be effective. Ask yourself, is it slick and does it allow multiple passes even after a stroke? Is it drying out? The question should never be, does it look fluffy enough.

Also, you should still be making sure to get your beard/skin hydrated and prepped (the soap you were using likely wasn't an issue for he lather and imo, pre-shave oils are superfluous to the shaving experience), definitely don't skimp on hydrating it.

Royalpar1 · May 23, 2015

I do not face lather, palm lather or hand lather, many people do. I always use my scuttle or a bowl when travelling and build my lather in the bowl. I build a great lather that lasts thru 4 plus passes. I do not know enough about face lathering to address it, but from a bowl lathering point of view you can get exactly what you are looking for with much less water.

ackvil · May 23, 2015

I have not used these two soaps but here is my two cents since I have used many Italian soaps, hard and soft.

The first thing is I have a wet face in between each pass. It is not dripping just wet if you get what I mean. I take my hands did it in water and apply that to my face.

The one thing I do is to load the brush with a tremendous amount of product. That results in my getting a great shave every time. Perhaps this post mayhelp you.

franz · May 23, 2015

Lovely packaging/presentation on your two new soaps. You're right, they are beauties. :thumbup1:

surfshaver · May 23, 2015

Hi Tim! So I just tried my SMN for the first time, and guess what? I had more or less the same problem. I didn't get enough product loaded for three full passes. However, one difference was that the lather quality for me was fine.

I think the issue is that SMN is not quite a soft soap and not quite a cream -- it's right in the middle. So the second time I loaded, I pressed all the water out of the brush and shoved it harder into the cream than I would with a an italian soft soap (say like razorock xxx).

If I did this with a soft soap, I would get more product than I needed, and it would be wasteful. However with SMN it seems to be necessary. Once you get the brush really loaded with product, start trying bowl lathering first, because there you have more leverage and you can control adding water more precisely. Then once you have a really good thick lather, wet your face and do a final swirling/painting on your face. If the lather doesn't have that wet "sheen" yet, wet your brush a little and then paint it on until you get the amount of wetness you desire.

This is how I do it regardless. I figure once you get the hang of getting the lather right this way, you can skip bowl lathering and do it directly on your face.

Hope you like the ABC. I have a sample, which I use only on special occasions. It's that good!

williabe · May 23, 2015

Looks nice. Another item on the "to buy" list! :thumbup1:

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My two Italian beauties arrived on the same day!

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