I usually use a Studio lighting set created by Ghostship that comprises 3 area lights. I think you can download the set from Rendo or Sharecg.com. I use no background whatsoever when testing; that eliminates any unwanted reflected surfaces and color that can influence the results. I want a natural response to the existing lights. Once I determine that the texture settings are to my liking I proceed to introduce other props and environmental background. If I need to tweak I will but that is seldom the case. I wind up tweaking and testing in preproduction a lot. If you are using SSS and those settings are unusually bright or just don't look right then the values are totally off somewhere. Of course, whenever I start introducing props and environments those also get the same treatment, tweak until they look right in the scene.