[EXPERIMENT] Seeking Testers for the New Formulation of Mitchell’s Wool Fat Soap

[something better]

Or when an owner, in this case, Graham Robinson, passes away, and functional control of Mitchell's Wool Fat Ltd. is passed on to his children. His wife retains controlling interest in the firm, but as she's in her 80's, I doubt she's involved in the day to day running of MWF.

My own personal thoughts are needing to find a new supplier for tallow is not enough justification for changing the formula for a popular soap.

You simply find another supplier for the ingredient you need. I find it difficult to believe that they did not have more than one supplier for tallow.

Most companies have two or three suppliers for ingredients in case they have a problem with a supplier.

It just likely to me that they reformulated to eliminate more expensive harder to supply ingredients to increase profits. they used this as justification as they know it won’t be liked by the customers base.

The other part I don’t like is switching to cheaper ingredients but charging the same price. Just trying to increase your margins when you already have a profitable product. These kind decisions based on making more money rarely work out in the long run.

 

[PLANofMAN]

My own personal thoughts are needing to find a new supplier for tallow is not enough justification for changing the formula for a popular soap.

You simply find another supplier for the ingredient you need. I find it difficult to believe that they did not have more than one supplier for tallow.

Most companies have two or three suppliers for ingredients in case they have a problem with a supplier.

It just likely to me that they reformulated to eliminate more expensive harder to supply ingredients to increase profits. they used this as justification as they know it won’t be liked by the customers base.

The other part I don’t like is switching to cheaper ingredients but charging the same price. Just trying to increase your margins when you already have a profitable product. These kind decisions based on making more money rarely work out in the long run.

True, and one of the things that confused me was the switch to palm oil. If the change was due to regulations, why switch to something that is going to need to be reformulated again?

In this instance, palm oil is going to be heavily restricted by 2030, so like it or not, they have about six years to come up with an entirely new formula, at which time the soap will probably descend into the 'garbage' realm. I fully expect MWF shaving soap to be discontinued by 2040, and the blame placed on the 'current market conditions,' rather than acknowledging any fault of their own.

That's really besides the point.

As for your comment about having multiple suppliers...
There is now only one remaining hard shaving soap company in the UK still working with tallow. Culmak. For all we know, they source their tallow base from the same suppliers as MWF did, in which case, the base for D.R. Harris and Cyril R. Salter will be changing soon, and the age of hard tallow shaving soap will be over.

Our descendants will rub synthetic brushes on soy wax soaps and talk about how "old fashioned" their preferred style of shaving is...

 

[Roy]

PLEASE GUYS STICK TO TESTING THE NEW SOAP! This has been discussed a 1000 times in another thread.

 

[PLANofMAN]

PLEASE GUYS STICK TO TESTING THE NEW SOAP! This has been discussed a 1000 times in another thread.

Which you tried to shut down...

...and it's relevant info that people might not want to dig through a 40+ page thread to find.

 

[jaro 101969]

So...... I finally started to feel a little better so I tried the soap and I have to say it was similar to what I remember of the original. I mean it's not quite the same but honestly what can you do. I will use it again to see what my continued thoughts are.. I liked it and the scent is similar to the original from what I remember.

 

[something better]

I have a couple of tubs of sterling, shaving soap.

The first ingredient of executive man is beef tallow

The first ingredient of electric sheep is mutton tallow.

I just don’t see a good reason to start using these reformulation’s of Mitchell’s or tabac when you have these options. The price is not that much higher.

 

[PLANofMAN]

Brother in law brought back what was left of the sample of MWF, and I decided to give it another run out today.

Fairly nice shave, used a Fatboy with a Personna 74 with an indeterminate number of shaves on it.

I've been using Arko, La Toja, a tallow MWF/Seven Potions mix, Dr. Selby and Cella Bios this last week, and I feel like the Veg o' Lan Fat outperformed all of them.

Edit: I think if MWF switched from lanolin to alcohol lanolin acetate, the new formula would outperform the old.

 

[Shave Souffle]

Correspondence between MWF and Kent:

"The rumour is true, the base (soap noodles) used in the creation of the shaving soap will no longer contain tallow (made from Bovine and porcine bi-products), but that isn’t the wool fat element of the product, and absolutely will always contain Lanolin, the Wool Fat, which is intrinsic to the brand.
Our delivery of the new Ingredients is due into us this week, and so any further orders that you place with us from now will be the ingredients as attached which we will need to have new labels prepared for.
The quality and consistency remain at the forefront of all we do, and the change in base formulation, brought on in part by changes in the use of some common preservatives, will not detract from performance or the feel whilst maintaining a more consistent availability of supply and stability of the market."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit: Going off the ingredients list, we haven't been able to figure out which ingredient was the problematic one. The general consensus is that the requirement to use a purer grade of tallow is the main impetus behind the change.

I'm responding to the bottom edit comment. I have no idea what regulations the EU enforces, but is it true that actually are making a requirement to use a purer grade tallow? What exactly is a purer grade of tallow? Tallow from grass fed cows?

 

[Shave Souffle]

Most soaps that were reformulated were trying to save money on ingredients.

Cashing in on a soaps reputation for quality. until enough People try the new soap, find it inferior and stop buying it. By then the changeover has more than paid for itself, and they move on to another product.

Corporations do this all the time with products. They change the product by using cheaper ingredients until the public stops buying it and then they move onto new product. Seems to usually happen after a privately owned company, sells out to a large corporation.

In the case of Mitchell's Wool Fat, their options would be limited as they only make ONE product. They aren't like other artisan makers that seemingly have a new flavor of the week, EVERY week. Their entire brand depends on the original tallow based version. Now the palm oil version is good, and to be determined if the customers by and large will care, or if only a small vocal minority will even notice.

 

[jaro 101969]

So how are everyones shaves going with the NEW formula ???? That is still being discussed here right ??

 

[PLANofMAN]

I'm responding to the bottom edit comment. I have no idea what regulations the EU enforces, but is it true that actually are making a requirement to use a purer grade tallow? What exactly is a purer grade of tallow? Tallow from grass fed cows?

Something to do with the cosmetic requirement to use food grade tallow, or deal with a bunch of paperwork. From what MWF has said about their tallow being a bovine and porcine mix, it was probably a lower grade of tallow they used, like packing tallow. If that is the case, it would increase their costs significantly to continue using tallow.

 

[NorthernSoul]

I'm responding to the bottom edit comment. I have no idea what regulations the EU enforces, but is it true that actually are making a requirement to use a purer grade tallow? What exactly is a purer grade of tallow? Tallow from grass fed cows?

What is meant is that if the tallow is to be used in cosmetics, it needs to be food-grade. That means it needs to be of certified origin, not from downer animals, BSE-free, and not containing anything other than tallow tissue from slaughtered animals.

 

[NorthernSoul]

PLEASE GUYS STICK TO TESTING THE NEW SOAP! This has been discussed a 1000 times in another thread.

You're free to comment, but unless you're a moderator you are not supposed to police the content of discussion threads. If everybody did that, we could not discuss anything without someone objecting.

 

[Legion]

Which you tried to shut down...

...and it's relevant info that people might not want to dig through a 40+ page thread to find.

You're free to comment, but unless you're a moderator you are not supposed to police the content of discussion threads. If everybody did that, we could not discuss anything without someone objecting.

Right. Guys, lets keep this discussion to the results of testing the soap. If you want to discuss the rest, do it here.

Mitchells Wool Fat Shaving Soap is no longer Tallow based

https://kentbrushes.com/products/luxury-shaving-soap-refill-sb2 Having heard the news, I ordered 4 pucks last week. My options were to get MWF or Kent. I ordered Kent so as not to reward MWF for the need to order.

www.badgerandblade.com

If the argument is that people might not want to wade through XX amount of pages in that thread, then why the heck would you want to hijack this one and turn it into the same thing?

 

[something better]

In the case of Mitchell's Wool Fat, their options would be limited as they only make ONE product. They aren't like other artisan makers that seemingly have a new flavor of the week, EVERY week. Their entire brand depends on the original tallow based version. Now the palm oil version is good, and to be determined if the customers by and large will care, or if only a small vocal minority will even notice.

I see your point they do have a bath soap but primarily two products.

But you brought up my other issue. Other soaps that use palm oil like Palmolive sticks are incredibly cheap.

They are replacing tallow with palm oil and charging the same price. A shave stick or cream made with palm oil like Palmolive is one of the cheapest shaving products you can buy.

It’s known primarily for being cheap. It’s not a top-tier soap. I just don’t see people continuing to purchase a new formulation with palm oil when other palm oil based products are so much cheaper.

 

[Legion]

Right. Guys, lets keep this discussion to the results of testing the soap. If you want to discuss the rest, do it here.

Mitchells Wool Fat Shaving Soap is no longer Tallow based

https://kentbrushes.com/products/luxury-shaving-soap-refill-sb2 Having heard the news, I ordered 4 pucks last week. My options were to get MWF or Kent. I ordered Kent so as not to reward MWF for the need to order.

www.badgerandblade.com

If the argument is that people might not want to wade through XX amount of pages in that thread, then why the heck would you want to hijack this one and turn it into the same thing?

I see your point they do have a bath soap but primarily two products.

But you brought up my other issue. Other soaps that use palm oil like Palmolive sticks are incredibly cheap.

They are replacing tallow with palm oil and charging the same price. A shave stick or cream made with palm oil like Palmolive is one of the cheapest shaving products you can buy.

It’s known primarily for being cheap. It’s not a top-tier soap. I just don’t see people continuing to purchase a new formulation with palm oil when other palm oil based products are so much cheaper.

What exactly makes a 'Shaving Soap' expensive, compared to say, a $1.25 4.0 oz. bar of Yardley's Lavender?

Seriously!?

 

[PLANofMAN]

Seriously!?

I have no idea where you found that.

 

[texasdw]

this thread was a great idea...I've been wondering myself. I hated the original formula. The lather formed, but melted almost immediately. I was wondering if the new formulation is any better (for those of us who didn't like the original).

Alas. 11 pages in and I've only seen one review. That said it was "as good." Oh well. Again, OP, good idea. Didn't work out so well. I'll have to buy a puck and try it myself.

 

[AJMiami]

this thread was a great idea...I've been wondering myself. I hated the original formula. The lather formed, but melted almost immediately. I was wondering if the new formulation is any better (for those of us who didn't like the original).

Alas. 11 pages in and I've only seen one review. That said it was "as good." Oh well. Again, OP, good idea. Didn't work out so well. I'll have to buy a puck and try it myself.

You only saw one review?

 

[brucered]

@texasdw

I committed to 3 shaves and left reviews for all of them. It has since been shelved and will hit my shower soon. Not because it's bad but because I have enough Tallow soaps to shave with

First shave with Palm MWF and it pains me to say.....it's pretty good.

Same as last time. Face lather, 2 pass, lather on face during clean up, warm rinse, cold rinse, no AS.

It may because of influence, but I echo what others have said. Here are the bullet points

- scent is close, but not the same, maybe a bit stronger.
- easy to lather, no issues. No disappearing or evaporating lather.
- post shave was good at first. But after 5-10min of no aftershave, I needed to add a balm as my face felt "tight". So a bit more drying that Tallow version, which needs no AS.

Now that I know the history and issues with Palm Oil on the environment, I won't buy it. Plus, I have enough tallow to fulfill my MWF itch.

If I was new to wet shaving or had never tried MWF Tallow the palm reformulation would be perfectly fine.

Anyone who can't lather it or gets a bad shave from it, is doing something wrong, it's a GOOD soap.

It is different and not quite on the upper tier level and won't get to the icon state MWF tallow did, but it's still good.

I'll do a couple more shaves and then decide what to do with it.

After applying pass 1

View attachment 1671598

Shave 2 with Palm MWF.

No issues. It's a good soap. As a 3017'er, I don't like scoring soaps on 2 to 3 shaves, but that's all this one is going to get as I am going back to Tallow Tabac soon.

It holds water when added slowly during face lathering. Gets thick and creamy, doesn't evaporate or get airy on my face during the shave. I find it perfectly fine with slickness and all other terms I never understood....cushion, protection, etc.

I'd go so far to say, it's an excellent reformulation based on performance. If you are anti-Palm, that would change your perception.

One more shave with it. I'm giving it an early score of 8. I only shave with 9's and 10's, so it wouldn't make the cut for me. Plus, I have a stash of Tallow MWF/Kent.

@PLANofMAN was asking about water absorption. After tonights shave, I rinsed the puck and filled my dish with water. I'll report back in the morning with a visual reading of how much got absorbed.

Fyi, I have never soaked a puck and don't think it makes it better. If anything, it makes it worse. If the maker wanted water in it, they would have put it in.

View attachment 1673158

3rd and final test shave with MWF Palm.

It is an excellent soap. No issues or problems. I have never tested our water, but it's standard city water, online shows "These minerals are present in Winnipeg drinking water in high concentrations, Winnipeg water is considered very hard."

Thick, creamy, plentiful.

If I had no Tallow or it all got lost, the Palm would be a suitable replacement and scratch the itch.

Load the same way I always do with all hard soaps. Ring out soaked brush, load heavy, apply to face in circular motion, then heavy painting strokes, run brush under slowly dripping tap, more fish slapping on my face until desired constance.