The Very Best Budget Soaps / Creams Where Money is The Object!

My first thought is the B&M Latha line, which is remarkably good for its price point (it would still be impressive if it cost more) and comes in a selection of likable, straightforward fragrances.

Also soon to mind are Proraso, Speick cream, and Arko (with the usual caveats about the scent).

I'll also jump in to make the case (and I doubt I'll be the only one to do so) that Martin de Candre, when taken on a cost-per-shave basis, is actually a budget soap, and one of the top performers at its per-shave price point. MdC requires little soap to make a great lather, and a jar lasts a very long time. Something to consider.

I think the MdC thing might be hard to justify as each wet shaver tends to load their brush differently...some stingy, some load their brush like the world is ending tomorrow.

andrewjs18 True, but the way I load (and I suspect onethinline has had a similar experience), MdC will last me longer than anything else I have in my rotation. This soap is prolific with its lather generation, and takes water very efficiently. In that regard it could be an archetype (for some, depending on use, as you rightly point out) for a soap that could arguably be considered a "budget" product despite its high buy-in cost. Overall the price per use for me is much lower than many more affordable artisan products.

As an example, I bought my soap in early October. I use it regularly in a relatively small rotation (admittedly with lots of sampling/testing - in total I'd conservatively estimate that I've shaved with it at least two dozen times). Here is a photo that illustrates how little I have actually used:



*Note: You can see a few soap flecks on top. Those are simply dried pieces of the soap from swirling on the puck (I don't rinse the top of the soap after each use). The image is slightly misleading because you have to ignore the flecks to gauge the actual level of the soap, but even so, the flecks make barely a 1-2 mm difference.

Indeed, I load pretty generously from MdC and have barely seen a dent in the soap since receiving it in December. And it's been a pretty frequent member of my rotation.

Posted here are just a few budget creams that have worked very well for me.  I am especially partial to the MEM from Israel and the Men's Estoril Sports Line from Portugal. Because I have had the good fortune to travel to Europe, I am able to pick up some of these for almost nothing.  Although I do not use shave sticks, I used to bring back the tallow based Polmolive and Erasmic ones to give to friends.  In some places in Scotland I was getting them for as little as 65p each (US93¢) but even at places like Boots I was only paying 99p (US$1.41).  Likewise for creams like Palmolive and Erasmic. Other very affordable creams that I think do a fine job are The Real Shaving Co. and Kiss My Face. I have progressed on to other (and more expensive) soaps, croaps, and creams but still occasionally return to these old stand-bys and they don't disappoint.

Somebody posted recently that they did an experiment with a tub of Stirling soap in a scent that they either got by mistake and didn't care or bought on spec and didn't care for the scent - in any case they decided to use it exclusively to see how many shaves they could get from it and I think the total was 130 or something like that. I've searched high and low to try to find the post but to no avail - if the poster reads this please paste in a link to your post. So I can buy Stirling soap in Canada for around $17.50, divided by 130 it comes to about $0.135 per shave or approximately US$0.10 per shave. That sounds cheap. Can either NeoXerxes or andrewjs18 or anyone else with some MDC perform the same experiment with a new tub of MDC to determine whether it really is a budget soap based on a cost per shave basis? We must apply scientific rigour to our assessments of budget or not. Wouldn't it be shocking if the MDC had to be struck from the list of luxury soaps to take its place among the budget Arko soaps of the world?
Marko

Marko and NeoXerxes, I have to admit that I think only of initial price when considering whether or not a soap, croap, or cream is a budget product. The reason for that is that once I own it, I no longer think of the price. Even if I was to use a soap/cream exclusively until used up, it would last long enough that I would not be thinking about cost per shave. If, on the other hand, let's say a shave soap or cream of a normal size (4-6 oz.) lasted for only 10-15 shaves, I would think it expensive no matter what the initial cost.

Marko that's a great idea, but I would take issue with the methodology of such assessments. It is too difficult in my view to assess price per shave precisely due to differences in things like technique and brushes used. The best we can hope for is a rough estimate, or at least a historical view on the subject. It's a bit like asking "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" We can expect the number to vary wildly from user to user.

In this very thread, andrewjs18 pointed out why this is the case - some users will load more heavily, while others (like myself) will load just enough for the shave. But if I feel like it, I'll load more, and in the context of a scientific assessment, these small variances would bias the data in one direction or another.

On Martin de Candre specifically, I do think it is a luxury soap. But at the same time, it is a luxury soap with a fantastic value proposition in terms of price per shave. The price of the product is quite high at ~$60, however many users have been quite surprised at how long the soap lasts. In other words, if one considers "expensive" soaps to be out of the budget category by definition, Martin de Candre is obviously not a budget soap. On the other hand, if one considers price per shave as part of the value proposition of what it means to be a "budget" product, Martin de Candre (along with similarly dense and resilient soaps) just might have something to offer.

Your post is very interesting Freddy! I brought up the differences between considering "budget" and "value" in terms of price per shave or initial cost earlier in the thread, and it's great to see that you are conscious of which logic you embrace, since I'm sure it helps you make considered purchasing decisions. For me, I tend to identify with the "price per shave" sort of reasoning. While I do consider initial cost, in many cases this aspect can be misleading in terms of value.

For instance, Tabula Rasa is a wonderful cream. At around $30 it's quite pricey, but not nearly as expensive as creams like XPEC or Santa Maria Novella (which are in the $60-80 range). However, on closer inspection, one finds that Tabula Rasa only offers 90g per bowl (though the bowls look very large), and that the consistency is very airy and not at all dense. In terms of price per shave, though the initial cost is less than 50% the price of those other products, Tabula Rasa is on par with or even more expensive than XPEC and Santa Maria Novella.

There is no right or wrong way to consider the "budget" and "value" propositions, and each way to think about it has its advantages and disadvantages. It is important for us to be conscious of the ways we think about those concepts though, since they have a real impact on the actual purchasing power of our cash.

Even if MdC lasts forever, I still do not see it as a budget buy at $70 a jar. Maybe it would be if it was the only soap you bought or planned to buy and used it all the way through. But how many of us do that?

wyze0ne a very good point. I think that with larger rotations in particular, the initial investment becomes more of a consideration.