Pros: very easy to lather, pleasant scent, comfortable and irritation-free, inexpensive
Cons: the lather didn’t provide enough slickness, using it on dry skin requires the addition of a pre-shave product
Proraso is an Italian brand favored by wet shavers for its excellent performance and affordable price. It also represents a great gateway brand towards quality shaving products.
You’ll often see it come up on various wet shaving forums and discussion boards as a great inexpensive alternative to premium-priced products and also an excellent choice for newcomers.
In this review we’ll take a look at the Proraso Shaving Soap for Sensitive Skin, one of the company’s best sellers.
Packaging
The Proraso Soap for sensitive skin comes in a 5.2 oz (150ml) white plastic tub with a press-down lid.
The packaging quality is fine, nothing remarkable or wrong with it. The cardboard box has all the necessary info clearly printed on it, including the ingredient list and brief directions for use. As for the negatives, I would have liked a screw-on lid as it is more secure and easier to open.
The price of this soft soap is excellent, thus offering very good value for money.
Scent
Upon opening the tub, you are greeted with a very fresh, grassy scent with subtle hints of citrus. Since it’s a product intended to be used by men with sensitive skin, the scent is very mild. Upon lathering it fades even more and you can barely pick up a faint trace of citrus. It is a very pleasant and inoffensive fragrance. Even though the soap does contain menthol (you can feel the tingling on your face), you really can’t smell it. If you were put off by the original green Proraso soap, this one is completely different and doesn’t resemble the original in any way.
Lathering
Soft soaps are generally very easy to lather and this one is no exception. It was very easy to load on a softer brush like the Edwin Jagger best badger I used for this review, requiring around 20 seconds of swirls. It is quite effortless to lather and needs less water than other soaps. The resulting lather is very creamy and abundant, easily enough for three passes. Both face and bowl lathering worked equally well.
Performance
For the purpose of this review, the following items were used:
- Edwin Jagger DE89 safety razor
- Edwin Jagger best badger brush
- Personna Platinum blade
After applying the lather to my face, I immediately noticed the presence of menthol. While not as powerful as on the regular green Proraso soap, there was definitely a very nice cooling sensation.
The lather was not as dense as the one from other inexpensive soft soaps like Cella. Also, the slickness seemed to be less than ideal. On my neck for example, after one pass, there would be no slickness left behind and the skin would feel pretty dry. I would have liked to see more residual slickness. As a result, the blade seemed to skip a little over certain areas. The comfort was still very good, even though the whole shaving experience wasn’t the most enjoyable as I constantly had to use my free hand to reapply lather over certain areas and shaving took more time than usual.
The post shave sensation was great, with no trace of discomfort or irritation. The skin however felt a bit dehydrated, but I do have very dry skin. In this situation I highly recommend the addition of a pre-shave oil like the one from Truefitt & Hill or even Proraso’s own pre-shave cream.
Overall, the shaving performance was good. The comfort, in particular, was excellent despite the above-mentioned problems. I do prefer creams and soaps that are more hydrating and slick as they are more forgiving and, at least in my case, provide a closer and more enjoyable shave. For this reason I wouldn’t recommend this soap to men with very dry and sensitive skin.