Nearly a year ago, I did a series of reviews of bath soaps from shave artisans. You can find the last one here and it has links to all the rest. During that series, someone suggested I look at some artisan-adjacent and more hipster-popular bath products. So here we are.

Disclosures

• All bath soaps were purchased at full retail price
• My skin tends toward the dry side. If I don't moisturize regularly in the colder, dryer months, my skin gets into pretty rough shape pretty quick
• All soaps to be reviewed have been used daily for at least 4 weeks or until they died, generally for showers and with a soap net (purchased at full retail price from Amazon)

Criteria - What am I looking for in a perfect bath soap?

1. I want my bath soap to get me clean
2. I want my bath soap to smell nice
3. I want my bath soap to last long enough to justify the price
4. I want my bath soap to not leave my skin a horrible dried wreck

The Competitors

• Dr Bronner's
• Dr Squatch
• Mitchell's Wool Fat
• Pré de Provence

Pré de Provence Bath Soap

If you've been wetshaving for any amount of time, you should be familiar with Pré de Provence 63. PdP soaps are made in Provence, France. Presumably by French people. French people who are proud of their soap making traditions. Proud, traditional, French people who think triple-milled soaps are for chumps and insist on quadruple-milling their soaps.

For this review, I went with PdP's 150 gram mint leaf soap. The mint fragrance is fairly light, but it hasn't really diminished over time as I've used the soap. It's also had just a hint of a menthol cooling effect, which I suppose is to be expected from a mint leaf soap.

Another thing which hasn't really diminished over time is the soap itself. Triple-milled soaps tend to last longer and I suppose quad-milled soaps last even longer than that. I didn't bother weighing this bar like I did the MWF, but I'd be surprised if I didn't get at least another 3 weeks out of it. 49 showers for $4.99 comes out to just under $0.10 per shower. It's not quite as cheap as MWF, but it's still cheaper than Stirling.

What does Pré de Provence get right? PdP is a solid value and a pleasant scent.

Where does PdP miss the mark? Despite the inclusion of shea butter, I felt like the PdP soap really didn't do my skin any favors. It didn't destroy my skin, but it certainly left me feeling like the moisture had been stripped.

Scorecard

• Clean Soapy Goodness: 5/5
• Smelling Great: 3/5
• Soap That Lasts: 5/5
• Skin Food: 2/5

Total Score: 15/20