I would imagine not.
Still, with just two confirmed dud batches in a good thousand over the last two years, I'd say the balance of probability is still that you'll get a good one. Thing is, we don't know how big the batches are ... but a good guess is, if a vendor gets stock from a bad batch then that's going to be what they'll be selling for a while. I had hoped in the
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfat thread that we could collate both good and bad purchasing experiences - when purchased, who from and batch number.
Purchasing is ongoing and that data would be useful and helpful for folks who already have a cake on the go. Given how we all generally have a LOT of soap, anyone with existing good cakes will no doubt still be using them next year ... or even the year after and so won't be purchasing again any time soon. But again, purchasing is ongoing.
In a decade of traditional shaving, I've bought six cakes (I think ... all good), had a potential dud donated (which turned out to be good ... user error), had a cake gifted (thanks
@Satanfriendly ... tested and good), snagged a potential dud cake out of sheer curiosity to find it was indeed a dud and had a scraping from a potentially dud cake to find it sub-par but not as bad as the real dud. I'm not quite sure what that experience says, but the I am of the firm belief that the so-called dud cakes a going back a few years are not and are labelled so by user error. I am also of the firm belief that the truly dud batches came out during early lockdown (spring 2020) and susequently relieved to find back to normal by the summer/autumn of 2020. Seeing another dud batch recently is disheartening, but again, two batches later and it's confirmed good. Whether that smacks of sloppy workmanship or sub-standard ingredients or even different producers, who knows. Unlikely Mitchell's would tell us.
But again, a dud rate of 0.2% is concering, but the balance of probability is ... you'll get good cakes. Trumpers, on the other hand, is a guaranteed fail!
