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I suspect that reviews of the condition and cleanliness of reviewers' valves would be more helpful than reviews of valve oils.

oil:
thick - slow
thin - fast

valves:
slime, scale, damage, wear, low build quality - all sorts of off-the-wall observations about oils

piston valve instrument owners who have run a brush vertically through their valve casings:
"My valves are clean."

me:
"None of the pistons or rotors on any of my instruments ever stick when they are clean and oiled, with the cheap generic oil that I use or with any type of oil labeled as "valve oil" or any mixtures of things labeled "valve oil", or any mixtures of so-called synthetic and so-called petroleum based valve oils."

Back when my business was brick and mortar, we stocked expensive/in-vogue valve oil and made a profit off of it, but I never used any of it myself.

bloke "The 'oil thing' totally reminds me of people who believe that steel mouthpieces and plated brass mouthpieces play differently, yet have never compared two that are precisely the same regarding rims, inside dimensions, and insertion depth, much less the part that doesn't matter at all - which is the outside shape."

Don't forgot..."I just played a 3 hour polka gig with lots of beer" ... under the valve condition section

gocsick wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2025 9:22 am Don't forgot..."I just played a 3 hour polka gig with lots of beer" ... under the valve condition section

Strike through beer and insert bratwurst, knackworst, hard roll, sauerkraut, and black forest cake. All of those things end up being the ingredients of exotic valve lubricants...

... but heavy oiling sloshes away a good bit of those sorts of things.

The thing that people seem to not understand - or deny exists - is a coating of hard lime on their casings and valves. Basically, that's a coating of rock (limestone). If it's worn smooth by moving the valves all the time, the valves will still work sort of okay, but never as well as without a coating of limestone... and "giving the instrument a good warm soapy" bath does nothing whatsoever to remove this... and often doesn't even remove all of soft scum and slime...

...and this thread degenerates into another valve oil brands reviews thread in 3...2...1...

Memory triggered…

When I was last in Germany, I could get the best brat on a great hard roll with terrific brown mustard from this street vendor for one Deutschmark. (For reference, it was 3.4 Deutschmarks to the US$ at the time.) You could also get a four pack of 1/2 liter local beers for a Deutschmark, too.

Oh, yeah, valve oil…

Clean your (good quality in good repair) instrument and they’ll all work pretty good. The catch is that you have to REALLY clean it. Unfortunately, lots of professional cleanerouters don’t clean them good enough. That’s why they sell some weird concoctions in pretty small bottles.

For me, the simpler the better. I like clean white oils.