This all started at the tail end of last year, I asked Sharon if I could get her regular soap unscented as I wanted to add my own almond (marzipan) scent to it. To cut a long story short I ended up doing a blind trial of two of her soaps with the same marzipan scent, only known as X and Y to me, one was her regular stuff and the other one an experimental olive oil soap.
It didn't take long to figure out which was which, as X was a much softer soap, it's subsequently been described as a well worked putty or a stiff scream, which I agree with entirely.
Initial results weren't good, a 20 second swirl in the tin with a damp brush produced a lather that had great slip and glide, but no volume and a bit dry. At first I put this down to insufficient loading because of the small tin, a problem I've experienced not only with Sharon's soaps but with the majority of other makers as well. So it was transferred to a much larger container and retried, but I found no real improvement.
Now conventional wisdom say's add more product, look at any of the 'Please help my lather' threads and they all say add more product, swirl for 20-45 seconds, you need longer on the puck, etc, etc. So I tried 30 seconds of loading and the results were worse.
The soap is just so dense and creamy the bristles could barely move, so no whipping action was occurring, it was like shaving with butter cream, great slip and glide but not enough volume, which is where I was at when I first started out with X and thought I couldn't load enough due to the container size.
This is when it hit me, maybe less is more!
So the next morning, only a 5-6 second swirl in the tin produced a real bit of volume and the slip/glide did not suffer at all, this was counter intuitive and a hard habit for me to break. Just for the record I only face lather, no bowls for me and the brushes I've used are a re-knotted 404 with a 22mm TGN Super Silver Tip set a 50mm (this is quite floppy and less dense compared to) my M&F Blonde Badger and LeTuft custom silvertip, both 22mm knots set around 47-48mm.
Following more experimentation I've pushed this further now realizing that this soap can take a huge amount of water more than most things that I've tried and indeed it actually benefits the more it has. Again this is difficult to unlearn, as you usually worry about going beyond the sweet spot and ending up with something like milk. So where it's normally a few extra drips on the brush or just dip the tips in the water, I've been dunking a good portion of the brush in water when building the lather.
Soap X has continued to deliver, I've been alternating between X and something else everyday to get a real feel of how it compares. The something's have all been highly rated by other people and include Trumper's Coconut cream, Castle Forbes Lavender, Proraso cream (old style), P.160, Razorock R160, Cella, Vitos, LaToja, Valobra, MWF and Martin de Candre.
X is by a country mile my favourite, it loads easily and doesn't need much to create a fantastic rich creamy lather that's slicker than one of BP's oil spill's. The really great part is that it stays wet on your face, I find a lot of the others dry out far too quickly and the razor begins to drag, obviously this is in part due to X being able to take a lot of water and the olive oil content.
It's not Mr Whippy lather like some, but it doesn't need to be, as the performance outweighs the volume and I think some of the Mr Whippy types use that effect to mask failing's in slip and glide. Whatever is in it works a treat, my skin condition after a shave is really good, no dryness whatsoever, it actually leaves a nice slippy feeling when rinsing.
Just for fun I tested how far it was possible to push the hydration of this soap and the answer is a very, very, very long way. The last test I did was completely unfair in the extreme, but it was an experiment.
Brush was soaked in hot water (dropped in the sink), I shook it lightly only twice, which is half what I normally do so it was very wet. I loaded the brush from the tin for only 4 seconds and proceeded to face lather.
30 seconds later and I'd got a great load of lather, certainly enough for 2 maybe 3 passes and it was plenty thick enough. 1st pass was a delight no problems whatsoever, as good as ever, I didn't push it too far with this 1st pass as I did need a shave before work, so with that done the 2nd pass didn't matter.
I then added a lot of water, first dripped onto the base of the knot so it would run up the inside, then poked my finger down the knot from the top and added more drips into the heart of the knot and finally dunked the tips in the water (about a third of the knot submerged in the sink) and proceeded to re-lather.
Now this was a ridiculous amount of water, you should have seen the state of the bathroom floor it was going everywhere and it did start to collapse, but... and this is the amazing bit with a bit of work it still produced a workable lather, not Mr Whippy but a nice enough, thin and runny (think double cream) layer, which I find is actually very desirable for 2nd and 3rd passes.
Like I say this was a totally unfair test, as I wouldn't expect anything including the great MdC to produce any form of lather at all from a 4 second swirl in the tin, even with the right amount of water for a 1st pass let alone a second pass with a gallon of water added.
The amount of rich thick lather generated from such a small amount of X was astonishing, less is most definitely more.
X isn't conventional, it's not like any of the usual suspects that we all use and it only takes a ridiculously tiny amount to produce lather that other soap's and creams could dream of. I totally agree with some of the other testers comments about how quickly the lather whips up, it's not only much faster than Sharon's other soap's, but pretty much everything out there.
Is it the best soap/cream in the world, maybe not! Is it the best in the world at anywhere near the intended price point I would say for me yes it is and I've already begun to hoard a lifetime supply. Of course YMMV and interestingly I've noted that at least six testers have trialled this and only two have used it in the same way, both getting the same results. Perhaps soaps and creams should come with a instruction booklet, as we've had, spread it on your face neat, a lump in a bowl then covered with water till dissolved, bowl lathered, face lathered and everything in between. No wonder we say YMMV.
Sorry for the long winded post, but this kept growing as I recorded my findings as I went along during the testing.
I'm sure Sharon will be along to fill in the missing blanks and answer any questions, but take it from me that when this is generally available, grab yourself some.
