Neither format is a universal answer. Weather, speed, journey length and personal comfort all play a part, and many riders end up owning one of each for different trips.
Most manufacturers recommend replacing a motorcycle helmet every five to seven years even without a crash, since the internal materials that absorb impact degrade slowly with heat, sweat and UV exposure. The shell can look fine while the protective layer underneath has already lost some of its effectiveness.
The trade off is scale. A workshop like this will never produce helmets as fast as a large factory, and that is treated as acceptable, since the aim is a considered, well finished helmet rather than the fastest one to market.
This is slower than fully automated manufacturing, and that is the point. A handcrafted shell trades speed for a level of finish and individual attention that a purely machine made helmet does not offer.
To see the certification behind our own range, visit https://www.vivamoto.org.
Any impact, including a helmet dropped from a moderate height, can compress the inner liner in ways that are not visible from outside. A helmet is designed to absorb one significant impact by sacrificing that inner material, so a helmet involved in a crash should always be replaced, not inspected and reused.