The Best Shaving Soaps of 2021

Another perspective is that Sharpologist provides bad advice to the people most in need of sound advice; worse, at times in exchange for personal monetary gain (aggressively pushing OneBlade for example).

It is one thing to advocate bad products to an experienced customer that should know better: it quite another to dupe innocents presenting their experiential base as negligible (REM the Goldman Sachs memos during the 2007 crash where they laughed at the “Muppets” they had conned?). Preying upon the ignorant for personal gain is utterly despicable. 

Thus, why so furious over Sharpologist and his self serving advice presented as public service.

I find it interesting the differences between this article, Facebook groups, and what we see on Amazon.
https://sharpologist.com/best-shaving-so...ool-shave/

dominicr, what are the differences that you see on Facebook groups (I'm not on FB) and Amazon?

(Longish response but of interest to me since I’m a relative newbie but I am someone who has dived down other hobby rabbit holes in the past): Tough crowd here. But, then, I get it: the finest tuned, the subtle, and (sometimes) the recherche almost invariably are on top for the hardest core critics and enthusiasts in hobbydoms. I found the Sharpologist list somewhat “surprising”, as I said, because, as HighSpeed pointed out, I think it has a different audience. I think it more as a popularizer kind of website. I’m used to popularizer websites to have entirely different top 10 lists than what I feel, at least once I’ve gotten even somewhat deeply into a hobby (e.g., I’m rather a Scotch whisky anorak and the “top Scotches” lists that I see all the time are almost invariably pointless – at least, to me). I do know that I, for one, came across Sharpologist when I first got sucked into this shaving black hole and well before I found DFS. Maybe some have a different gripe with Sharpologist as being a person ostensibly in the “community,” and I certainly confess that don’t know about the issues DanLaw fairly flags. However, type “best shave soap” into Google and Sharpologist will be there at the top; compare the Sharpologist list to the other top results or against the kind of lists one would see in "gadget-type" websites or men's "fashion" websites. They are replete with, for example, Mitchell’s (number #1 on the next Google link, which is Business Insider), TOBS, Proraso, Arko, DRHarris (my shave yesterday), Truefitt & Hill, etc. But as a whole, and perhaps outdated, I do think it not unimpressive for the top-ranked Google “soap” search result to have A&E, DG, GD, WK, BM, etc, on it. And the discussion of soaps in the article, seems to me to not be a bad starter for the average person out there. Perfect? Obviously not. But comparatively, and were I complete newbie or the average shaver beginning to get interested in upping my game, it’s far from a crazy place to start and more informative and better than what else Google will spit out. Obviously, even I recognized its failure to include Ethos (what an impact Dragonsbeard has had so quickly!), and there are a few on that list that might not get a majority of votes on a full DFS poll. Yet most would make it in some measure. So, to me, interesting, and if you’ve read this far, thanks for considering my musings.

Haha being a peasant, prefer arcane to recherché; great read. Bravo on substance and style

While I don't necessarily agree with his list, and I would have preferred he call it his personal top 10, rather than a BEST list, I think everyone in this hobby understands at this point what YMMV stands for. I would encourage everyone who so vehemently disagrees with Mantic's list to post your own lists, here on this forum at a minimum. I don't think it's fair to attack him for giving his own opinions.

To be fair, Sharpologist is clear that he is not independent and that he is an affiliate or participates in affiliate programs which means he directly or indirectly gets paid for recommending product on his site.  Nothing wrong with that if he's transparent about it but it should give an indication of the basis of his determination of what makes a soap best enough to make his list.  Like I said, take it with a grain of salt.

I find it interesting the differences between this article, Facebook groups, and what we see on Amazon.
https://sharpologist.com/best-shaving-so...ool-shave/

dominicr, what are the differences that you see on Facebook groups (I'm not on FB) and Amazon?

Makers not discussed here discussed on FB pages and makers not discussed anywhere consistently on the Amazon top 100.


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Peter of Ariana and Evans is already released several hits for VIP members Turkish coffee and Tibetan Temple. His K2 base is one of the best in the business. Eufros released a very limited soap for the Spanish Shavers called Barakah Oud. It is fantastic.

Interesting viewpoints on some of the soaps he includes or doesn't include...
There are also a lot of wetshavers who won't use soaps from certain artisans because of their business practices or other reasons, and some of them are very very good soaps. Would lists from those people be considered any more thorough or "better" with those kind of exclusions? I don't bring this up as a potential criticism, just a real point of consideration/debate.

Best soap by year (since I started using brush and soap):
2008: C&E sweet almond oil
09: MWF
10: MWF
11: MWF
12: MWF
13: MWF
14: MWF
15: MWF
16: MWF
17: MWF
18: MWF
19: MWF
20: MWF
21: who knows?

I've used roughly 200 soaps over this period and nothing has topped MWF!!