GSK (02-04) vs Combe(2020) Williams

[SliceOfLife]

So I keep a lot of "Vintage" Williams around, and always on the lookout for a good deal on Vintage stuff, I found a seller of lots of Modern Williams who happened to have a small stock of 02-04 (pre-reformulation) pucks. It'd been awhile since I tried any this recent, and a lot of people have postulated that the age itself is part of what makes vintage soaps superior. In use I felt these pucks performed close to, if not equally to the Williams I use regularly that is anywhere from 50-100+ years old. What I wanted to do however was to compare them directly against the post reformulation.

The first test was my head to head, lathering somewhat how I typically do. Water on top of puck, soak brush 90 seconds, load and lather. I selected 30 seconds as load time to keep things fair... though 10s is probably closer to what I do on a daily basis.

The following pictures are from the Modern Williams face lathering test:

1. Puck and brush soaking
2. "Protolather" applied after loading
3. Completed lather
4. Brush after lathering
5. Brush after lathering
6. Lather squeezed out of knot
7. Lather spread in palm

As can be seen, the lather covers well enough, but is full of air. It actually crackles audibly, feeling almost crunchy. It does not accept water. This is that "magical disappearing lather" that some refer to.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Next up was the 2002-2004 puck, treated exactly the same.

Water on top of puck, soak brush 90 seconds, load and lather. I selected 30 seconds as load time to keep things fair... though 10s is probably closer to what I do on a daily basis.

The following pictures are from the pre-reformulation Williams face lathering test:

1. Puck and brush soaking
2. "Protolather" applied after loading
3. Brush after lathering
4. Brush after lathering
5. Completed lather
6. Lather squeezed out of knot
7. Lather spread in palm
8. Lather more aggressively rubbed into palm

This one actually gave me a bit of trouble because I felt like I was overloading the brush so much (remember, 30s load time as part of process). Lather has a bit more air than I'd like from some whipping happening on the puck, but even still the differences are apparent. This lather accepted water, and consequently is thicker, slicker, shinier and doesn't disappear.

 

[SliceOfLife]

At this point, both pucks were weighed (56.4g originally for both),
Modern: 56.1g
Vintage: 56.0g

Now further tests on the Modern puck, testing techniques I've seen promoted as helping "cure" it.

First, the 10 minute soak.

Everything kept the same as prior test, except the puck is totally submerged in hot water for 10min prior to shave. @ 8.5min, brush was started soaking.

The following pictures are from the Modern Williams 10min Hotsoak face lathering test:

1. Puck and brush soaking
2. Loaded brush in mug
3. "Protolather" applied after loading
4. Completed lather
5. Brush after lathering
6. Brush after lathering
7. Lather squeezed out of knot
8. Lather spread in palm
9. Lather spread more aggressively in palm

This was interesting, and yes, if I were shaving with Williams and ESPECIALLY bowl lathering, this is a huuuuuge improvement.

The most notable thing... with this method, the surface of the puck actually becomes a gelly of liberated soap. As soon as I looked at it, I knew this was going to MAAAAASIVELY overload the brush... but what the heck, FOR SCIENCE!

The brush exploded with a ton of lather, and it accepted water... though even with 3-5x as much soap as I was using in the vintage test, it was accepting less water than the vintage had.

Hopefully from the picture you can see, the lather is much more wet, and stable than the traditional face lathering, but is still extremely airy. It still is handily beat by the vintage in every way except volume. This made an absolutely silly amount of lather. It's impractical for face lathering even... lather was getting flung all over the bathroom while I was trying to lather it up because it was just falling out of the brush... again though... for bowl lathering... this is probably pretty great.

 

[karacha]

Great experiment. Modern looks solid for bowl lathering. It’s going to use a lot of soap, but hey... for the science! Props man!

 

[SliceOfLife]

Final test... lathering on the puck.

90s soak for brush and puck, then load and lather simultaneously on the puck. 2 min lathering time.

The following pictures are from the modern Williams on the puck test:

1. Lathering results
2. Applied to the face
3. Squeezed from knot
4. Spread in palm

This method, surprisingly did not use anywhere NEAR the amount of soap the 10min soak test did. It struck me as a very practical use of this soap... if you ONLY needed slickness. The lather was plenty slick. It had almost no stable volume though, and took on minimal air and water. No matter how much I whipped, the lather never really developed beyond this stage. Not gonna win any beauty pageants, but it'll get the job done.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Great experiment. Modern looks solid for bowl lathering. It’s going to use a lot of soap, but hey... for the science! Props man!

Thank you. That'll be the next attempt I make. Been a long time since I broke out a bowl, but I'll find something that'll work.

 

[kingfisher]

Thanks for doing this.

Proves what I have known for a long time. Vintage Williams is definitely superior.

Weird part to me is that if you look at the ingredients lists, you might expect the modern version to be better; many of the better artisan tallow soaps are potassium stearate first, with tallow second through fourth (exceptions off the top of my head, Stirling and Mystic Water).

Still, there must be something about the proportions or the way the soap is actually made, because that subtle ingredient change should not have made that big a difference.

 

[lancre]

I found your comparisons very interesting. I came over from carts in June 2016 and my first shaving soap was WMS in a margarine container (quickly replaced by a Marvy Green. So basically, I learned on WMS in a mug, and have never had a problem with it. No lather porn, but good working lather. You've got me wondering how many of the WMS Haters are face latherers.

 

[Tanuki]

Thorough, and extremely well documented test! I admire the success of the photography and your dedication to vintage Williams. I cannot take a lather picture that conveys any meaning.

I’m a former multi-decade dedicated Williams user. Most of the time I was using the extremely soft water of the Pacific NW, but also with hard water in the Midwest and North East. Somehow I never noticed the reformulation.

I was lathering on the puck with a never-rinsed drugstore boar half of that time, then (with a gear upgrade from my bride) I was loading on the puck with a tenderly treated Plisson badger and finishing my lather in a pewter bowl. I never have bloomed/soaked Williams and have always gotten a usable lather.

Unless I was in a hurry, my technique was always, once I had a full dose of lather built, to leave most of it in the mug or bowl while I went over my face very thoroughly with the soapy brush. Then I would collect lather from the reserve and paint it on for each pass.

If I was soaking the puck, I think I would have used twice as much soap!

 

[SliceOfLife]

Thanks for doing this.

Proves what I have known for a long time. Vintage Williams is definitely superior.

Weird part to me is that if you look at the ingredients lists, you might expect the modern version to be better; many of the better artisan tallow soaps are potassium stearate first, with tallow second through fourth (exceptions off the top of my head, Stirling and Mystic Water).

Still, there must be something about the proportions or the way the soap is actually made, because that subtle ingredient change should not have made that big a difference.

Based on performance, I suspect the sodium cocoate was increased in the reform. How it performs suggests too much cocoate.

My guess is it went from ~45/45/10 or so to ~50/30/20

 

[SliceOfLife]

So two bowl lathers and a palm lather later (all with 10 min soaks).

This soap (2020 Williams) is pretty superficial. It works with a good soak and almost no lathering. Honestly, barely any whipping after you load it off the puck is necessary, and frankly ANY water addition seems to degrade the lather almost instantly. The soap just doesn't take water on without frothing up too much. Getting it sopping and letting that film of soap+water gel form that you pick up with the brush, then whip up for a few seconds makes a usable lather. I wouldn't call it amazing, but it's easy to produce and it shaves. Problem is, it's downhill from there. Treating it like a good soap, whipping it up, adding water... all this just froths it up and makes it too airy.

So the end result is keep it wet/soft and you can basically load a brush swipe it around for a few seconds (on face, palm, bowl, whatever) and shave. It's quick and easy. Doing this uses by my measure a hair under 2g a shave with the brush I use and produces as good of a lather as I could get with any technique I tried with the stuff. Had three shaves with it now, and while it doesn't hold a candle to anything I typically would use, I've used far worse.

 

[ShaverAZ]

I load a damp brush from the puck, then build a lather in a bowl, adding a few drops of water at a time until it builds a slick & dense lather. It's been a while since I've had a vintage Williams puck, but the new works just as well for me. No blooming or incantations needed to make it work.

 

[BigJ]

GREAT THREAD!!

You pictures tell the story!! In summary, vintage Williams is superior!!

 

[RenoRichard]

Interesting thread- thanks for sharing!

 

[Hannah's Dad]

Excellent experiment!

 

[SliceOfLife]

I am really liking modern Williams as shampoo. It strips oils really aggressively (my hair is actually almost sticky it's so clean after washing), so not for daily hair washers or long hair... but it lathers up really nice for shampoo, and it does seem to help my dandruff a little.