SAW 24TH-31ST SAPONOFICIO VARESSIMO

Nishy

Nishy

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London
Hello this coming week is Saponoficio Varessimo (SV). Gorgeous scents, the mango and Mana Di Sicilia being amongst my favourites, although Dolomiti and others are beautifully fragranced too. This is a hard soap similar in to Tabac and also produces lovely slick cushioned lather. Please join in from tomorrow and share your experiences with this wonderful soap. Thank you!
 
One shall be joining in this week.. This turned up yesterday [emoji106]
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Pre: Proraso sensitive pre-shave
Soap: Saponificio Varesino - Felce Aromatica
Brush: Whipped Dog 24mm synthetic
Bowl: Woodhead Pedestal
Razor: Weber + Bulldog handle + Rapira Swede SS (3)
Post: WH, SV Felce Aromatica AS, Coral Skin Food

When I first acquired this soap I very much wanted to love it. Fern scent, excellent wooden tub, sounded perfect. However this is what I've found which I also experienced this morning.

First, the packaging:
Looks and feel fab this wooden tub. There's a plastic inner tub/sleeve in which the actual soap puck sits to protect the wood from water damage. Ok, good idea I thought. As soon as you start to load the brush the damn inner sleeve starts to spin, of course you can stop it by loading in other directions but its a pain in the tub. When you finish shaving the dilemma is the water inevitably will get between the sleeve and the wooden tub, so do you take out the sleeve and towel off any moisture? This is what I've been doing but boy is it difficult to get that sleeve out, it's like a suction cup. Turning the whole thing upside down sometimes does it but more often than not the puck just falls out the sleeve and everything just gets sticky. So maybe I'll just leave the sleeve in (which is what I did today as it was impossible to remove) and let the moisture dry out through the wood - exactly the opposite of what feels right to me. Another thing about the tub; being next to the sink it tends to sit in a puddle of water and soaks up from the bottom of the tub - probably not a good thing and has led to some discolouration of the outside of the tub.

Next the soap:
I'm convinced I must have a duff puck because everyone raves about the scent. For me it's less of the Felce Aromatica and more of the Faintly Aromatic. I can smell fern but only just and I wasn't aware of it really during the shave. Lather is weird, starts out frothy then creates a sticky film on the lather bowl. Eventually it produces a workable lather but not dense and slick like NSS last week. I feel the shave was let down by lack of slickness and body.

The Shave:
It was a bit unfair to start out with the Weber/Rapira Swedish combination as over the last few days I don't think they work together well but today's lather heightened the negative points. A scratchy shave.

The After Shave:
I do like SV's own Felce Aromatica AS. Great scent and a really nice feel on the skin. The stuff is thick (for an AS) and a little oily so it's kind of half way between an AS and an ASB. It doesn't have a great deal of conditioning though so I normally end up applying an ASB as well, as today.

So in summary. Not a great start to the SAW but maybe with some practice and daily use of this soap things will improve. Only time will tell.
 
fancontroller said:
Pre: Proraso sensitive pre-shave
Soap: Saponificio Varesino - Felce Aromatica
Brush: Whipped Dog 24mm synthetic
Bowl: Woodhead Pedestal
Razor: Weber + Bulldog handle + Rapira Swede SS (3)
Post: WH, SV Felce Aromatica AS, Coral Skin Food

When I first acquired this soap I very much wanted to love it. Fern scent, excellent wooden tub, sounded perfect. However this is what I've found which I also experienced this morning.

First, the packaging:
Looks and feel fab this wooden tub. There's a plastic inner tub/sleeve in which the actual soap puck sits to protect the wood from water damage. Ok, good idea I thought. As soon as you start to load the brush the damn inner sleeve starts to spin, of course you can stop it by loading in other directions but its a pain in the tub. When you finish shaving the dilemma is the water inevitably will get between the sleeve and the wooden tub, so do you take out the sleeve and towel off any moisture? This is what I've been doing but boy is it difficult to get that sleeve out, it's like a suction cup. Turning the whole thing upside down sometimes does it but more often than not the puck just falls out the sleeve and everything just gets sticky. So maybe I'll just leave the sleeve in (which is what I did today as it was impossible to remove) and let the moisture dry out through the wood - exactly the opposite of what feels right to me. Another thing about the tub; being next to the sink it tends to sit in a puddle of water and soaks up from the bottom of the tub - probably not a good thing and has led to some discolouration of the outside of the tub.

Next the soap:
I'm convinced I must have a duff puck because everyone raves about the scent. For me it's less of the Felce Aromatica and more of the Faintly Aromatic. I can smell fern but only just and I wasn't aware of it really during the shave. Lather is weird, starts out frothy then creates a sticky film on the lather bowl. Eventually it produces a workable lather but not dense and slick like NSS last week. I feel the shave was let down by lack of slickness and body.

The Shave:
It was a bit unfair to start out with the Weber/Rapira Swedish combination as over the last few days I don't think they work together well but today's lather heightened the negative points. A scratchy shave.

The After Shave:
I do like SV's own Felce Aromatica AS. Great scent and a really nice feel on the skin. The stuff is thick (for an AS) and a little oily so it's kind of half way between an AS and an ASB. It doesn't have a great deal of conditioning though so I normally end up applying an ASB as well, as today.

So in summary. Not a great start to the SAW but maybe with some practice and daily use of this soap things will improve. Only time will tell.
Click to expand...
Nice review fancontroller. I'm just prepping my shave for this evening. Some key questions. I returned my fern as it had hardly any fragrance to it. Since coming across Sterling's Ozark Mountain no fern scented soap has come close in the scent strength department.

Regarding the bowl, I own only one wooden bowl and opted not to have any more including with SV. I just leave my puck in the plastic sleeve and hand lather then face lather. It does spin slightly but a drawing pin through the bottom of the plastic sleeve resolves this.

Have you tried the anniversary edition or MDS fancontroller?
 
Nishy said:
Nice review fancontroller. I'm just prepping my shave for this evening. Some key questions. I returned my fern as it had hardly any fragrance to it. Since coming across Sterling's Ozark Mountain no fern scented soap has come close in the scent strength department.

Regarding the bowl, I own only one wooden bowl and opted not to have any more including with SV. I just leave my puck in the plastic sleeve and hand lather then face lather. It does spin slightly but a drawing pin through the bottom of the plastic sleeve resolves this.

Have you tried the anniversary edition or MDS fancontroller?
Click to expand...

Coincidentally I was looking at Sterling's Ozark last night and thinking this could be where I could get my fern fix from. I find Sterling does pack a punch, which is nice.

I wrote to SV asking if perhaps my soap was from a batch with little scent but never got a reply which kind of dulled my appetite for acquiring another. I had the same issue with a NSS soap and contacted Sharon and got an immediate response and explanation/investigation. So that's cast NSS in a much more favourable light.

I have thought about the 70th SV soap as it gets good reviews and it does come in a pretty tin (which won't stack) but TBH I can't be bothered, especially if it lathers like my SV Fern soap. I'm actually trying to reduce my soap count anyway.
 
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