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The bath soap is awesome.
Who's afraid of Virginia Woolfat?
- Thread starter pjgh
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OP
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... or it's just gone to new high.
Was it ever revered for its tallow? Or was it the lanolin? That fundamental character is still its fundamental character.
Little detail in my review above was that these two formulations are closer to each other than the Tabac tallow/veg formulations. Sure, the "I can't lather it" threads will likely entirely disappear and that will reduce the overall chatter on this particular soap. Threads will now be "Anyone used Mitchell's?" ... "Yeah, it's good ... used to be better so try to find a vintage puck" and probably followed by scores of lamentations.
Time will tell ...
MWF has been my absolute favourite soap by a clear margin above practically everything else. From a first use of the new formula, it's happily sitting in that top-tier of quality British soaps ... some of which are tallow-based, some are not. One other soap that came so close to toppling the classic MWF, for me, was Savonniere du Moulin and so by default I guess that's now my favourite soap. No tallow. No lanolin. Meh!
At the moment, it's all fluff and bluster. Once things have settled down and we've use the new soap over and over and over, we'll have a far better idea and understanding.
OP
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Funnily enough, while the classic MWF was going through its problem ... the first time I encountered such a puck, I wondered if they'd somehow managed to produce a batch of the bath soap, pucked it up and packaged it as shaving soap.
The dud shave soap was useless. I did lather up with the bath soap and found it infinitely better!
Beautifully put and most likely true.
I have a cake of the new formulation from an order with Connaught a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't aware of the reformulation until seeing Paul's post. I thoroughly respect your opinion on MWF and recognise that you're a big fan of it. Your positive review of the new formulation has me looking forward to trying the new version. It's input like yours that helps to put the hysteria to bed. My original MWF cake is still going strong though so it may be some time before I get to the new formulation.
Anyway, that's enough smoke for your arse. Back to Supermax for you, turbonerd!
OP
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My opinion might change when I actually shave with it rather than just lathering up ...
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@pjgh I think your observation about who makes the Fat shaving soap is a good one. Their shaving soap seems to come from the same factory as Trumpers, whilst their bath soaps from another.
Btw. I sent Kent Brushes an email and they said is the tallowate based soap, I presume for a few more batches. From my observations Kent are a few batches behind MWF, their batches seem to sell slower than MWF.
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That’s funny, because I just went to the Kent website, zoomed in on the photo of their soap.
The packaging clearly states that ‘no animal suffered in the preparation of this soap’
So unless they’re employing liposuction techniques, I don’t know how they can make that claim if it’s a tallowate base?
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The fat is a by product from cow's brought to slaughter, so the cow was dead before the fat was trimmed off and rendered down to tallow, so no cow suffered in the preparation of the soap.
It was killed for meat!
Paul.
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So when Milky May is up will you be shaving with it? Looking forward to hearing about your thoughts post shave.
Paul.
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I'm rolling into Tech June-kies on Monday (the month changes mid-week and I'm OCD) and have kinda mapped the month out to enjoy some of my vintage soaps but I do like to switch at the weekends for which I had in mind to run the Tabac tallow/veg back to back a few times to settle my mind on that but then this happened ...
Yes, I think a few shaves back to back with the tallow then the new one with a little break between to let things settle in my mind. It is "vintage" now, afterall.
I have to say, I am more than a little miffed about this. I do like to look on the positive side. It's a change. I'm not coming from the "no tallow, no good" camp, in fact neither my now favourite in-production soap SdM and my now second favourite in-production soap MdC are tallow based ... but the new MWF is, well, just not as good. I think. So far as I can tell from one test lather. Quite the reverse for Tabac, as I think the new one is better but then the tallow Tabac was not really a massive thing for me. MWF was.
I'll happily enjoy my classic MWF as vintage going forwards and will most likely happily use Mitchell's Wooly Veg Fat (MWVF) as just another good British hard soap.
I'll say it again ... I am kinda miffed about this. Ho-hum! Life goes forward.
Yeah, I just have an inkling that ...
Well, I mean ... MWF is NOT made in that little terrace house just off Wibsey roundabout. It's made in a factory. It has to be because it a HUGE seller, and I mean huge. I did wonder if it was made (under license, or by contract) in a number of factories and mused that this might be the reason for the patchy performance.
There's a massive factory over in Bierley, Bradford that makes all sorts of toiletries for all sorts of names including Molton Brown. Good guess Mitchell's is made there too, but thought that might be the liquid soaps and shampoos and what-not.
I have to agree! The ingredient listing rather reads like it's made by the same folks that make for the big British names. Mitchell's is still Bradford, England ... but I wonder if the shaving soap is now Glasgow, Scotland? Bath soaps? Could be anywhere.
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I look forward to reading about your thoughts after some back to back shaving with the old and the new MWF?
I've just thought, can it still be called Mitchell's Wool Fat because without the tallow all you have is lanolin which is a wax not a fat!
Paul.
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MWVF ... Mitchell's Wooly Veg Fat?
Seems silly calling it Vegell's (like Vegabac).
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I'm not sure how I feel about the use of palm oil.
If every soap manufacturer switches to palm oil, demand will increase and more of the rain forest will get chopped.
If every soap manufacturer switches to palm oil, demand will increase and more of the rain forest will get chopped.
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Well I'm alright Jack. Got enough good shaving soap and cream to see me right for decades if not the rest of my natural. Miffed? Certainly. But hey ho, life goes on. If I can survive the loss of the Mighty Ingram and its shameful Three Stooges rebuggeration, I'll get by without the Fat. Got a new one started and two in reserve.
Tallow stock available here for a while:
Luxury Shaving Soap Refill - SB2 | Kent Brushes
Treat yourself to our Luxury Shaving Soap from our Shaving Soaps & Creams collection. Guaranteed to create a rich lather for the ultimate shaving experience.
kentbrushes.com