Mikes unscented soap compared to Mitchell's Wool Fat soap

[rxonmymind]

Should be interesting. I'm testing out MWF for the second time today and had very creamy, dense, fluffy lather. Both soaps are at similar price points. $13 for MWF & Mike's at $10.50.

21- Ingredients listed in MWF at 4.4oz:
Sodium Tallowate, Potassium Stearate, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Stearate,
Aqua, Potassium Cocoate, Glycerin, Parfum, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Hexyl
Cinnamal, Limonene, Linalool, Hydroxycitronellal, Lanolin, Titanium
Dioxide, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Gluconate, Sodium Silicate, Tetrasodium
EDTA, Magnesium Sulphate, Tetrasodium Etidronate.


11-Ingredients listed in Mikes at 5oz:
Distilled water, saponified tallow, steric acid vegetable glycerin,saponified kokum butter, shea butter, avocado oil, kaolin clay, lanolin saponified coconut oil and vitamin E.



I'd like to keep this comparison apples to apples or as close as I can. One can't compare MDC to MWF at six times it's price point.

Half of the ingredients in MWF I can't even pronounce while Mike's pretty straight forward. I figure like food the less ingredients the better. Both provide a solid shave with mounds of lather, slickness and cushion to this uninitiated tallow soap novice. I have had various other soaps that were non tallow based but decided to branch out to see what all the broohaha was about. I like the fact that Mike's comes in a nice hard travel tin while MWF you have to find your own. MWF does come with the option of a wooden bowl or a ceramic dish but that's not exactly travel friendly. Also both of the latter options will run you anywhere between $25-40 respectively. While when it comes to scents I oddly enough like both equally for different reasons. MWF has a clean laundry scent to it that's non offensive to me and I would describe as lightly scented. Mike's is more of flour dough with olive oil scent which is only the scent of the ingredients listed. No added oils. I did find Mike's a bit finicky upon my first try which didn't turn out to well. My review of it here
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthr...iew?highlight=
With MWF I had no such problems on my first try. Well this should be a fun few weeks to compare the two.

If anyone else would care to do a comparison of one or the other and log your impressions that would be great. I've been impressed so far with all this tallow goodness.
Thanks for the read.
Cheers!

 

[Marcos1]

Mike's unscented is my go to soap and while I have a puck of MWF to my sensitive nose it smells awful. The performance of Mike's is absolutely stellar.

 

[rxonmymind]

Mike's unscented is my go to soap and while I have a puck of MWF to my sensitive nose it smells awful. The performance of Mike's is absolutely stellar.

Thanks for your input Marcos. Do you still have Mike's in it's original tin? I'm not to stellar yet as I've only tried Mike's once. We'll see! Love to get there!

 

[Marcos1]

Thanks for your input Marcos. Do you still have Mike's in it's original tin? I'm not to stellar yet as I've only tried Mike's once. We'll see! Love to get there!

Yes I load them directly from the tin. I find it is the perfect size for me.

 

[jmsodpc]

interesting that
Mikes has water as first ingredient yet requires so much water to lather.

 

[shaverjoe]

I have both and find Mike's to be superior. For me, it's not close.

 

[Mandina]

+1 that Mike's is far superior to MWF (for me). Mike's and Cella are the two 'A+' soaps for me out of my 25+ soap rotation (though they are followed by about 10 'A' soaps and quite a few 'A-' soaps--there are lots of terrific products out there).

 

[rxonmymind]

My set up tonight consisted of Ej paired with a GSB blade. My custom brush was the same one I used last night on MWF thus my densest one. Soaked in HOT water I proceeded to lather Mike' s which I had taken out of the tin and placed in its own dedicated bowl. Knowing from previous experience of this soaps thirst I used copious amount of water. Did I say a lot of water? Managed to get decent lather after one minute but not as voluminous as one would expect from lathering a soap in its own puck. Odd. I applied the lather and I must say that is the silkiest and smoothest lather I have ever applied. Akin to sleeping on cotton sheets then silk. However my enthusiasm from there on dimmed. Upon my first pass I noticed my razor head wasn't gliding smoothly over my face and was to the point it was "pulling" my skin up from the friction as I followed up on that first pass. I thought this was odd. The lather was creamy, fluffy, silky and cushiony so I was lacking for words on how to describe this. Then it hit me. Upon lightly applying water to my face with my hand the secondary slickness that's usually associated with a soap on your face I found missing. The "stuck on your face" slick. It's as if this soap had soaked up all my facial oils or any oils for that matter and left it squeaky clean. Yet there in its bowl I saw enough lather for five passes and I wondering if I could fix this. I went for my second pass by dipping my brush in the lather and lightly face painting while deciding what to do next. Also often times a soap won't develop that stuck on you slickness until the second application. No such luck. Everything rinsed off cleanly. Argg. Sticking my left hand in the bowl of lather I was feeling for its consistency. It was slick. Well, much like the first pass I always tap my face a with a wee bit of water before second application of lather so upon grabbing a mound of lather my hand was wet. I stayed like this for a good twenty second trying to figure out this soap with brush in my right hand and lather in my left. I decided to directly face lather which provided a paste on my face which was followed up by the lather from my left hand. Bingo! The third xtg pass was everything it was supposed to be. Slick, cushion, silky, etc. So bringing everything together on my fourth pass I wet my face, applied lather directly from the brush followed by lather from the bowl to provided cushion. This procces of dual application allowed me to finish a fourth pass with touch up via feathering while providing pleanty of glide. When applied in this manner the residual water that's left in my hand slides effortlessly across my face (due to the now soaps slickness) looking for area's I might have missed.
My post shave feel was also interesting. I like to wait fifteen minutes to gauge a soaps ability to keep the skin moist and found this was beginning to tighten my skin quickly at the seven minute mark without any elasticity associated with all the moisturizing properties in this soap. So on went the Lucido splash with a dallop of Proraso a/s. Ahh, feeling better.

So in conclusion on my second attempt at this soap I must say it's so far proving to be a moving target. An enigmatic soap waiting for you to unlock it's secret. My first attempt at this soap in a previous thread provided plenty of slickness as most of the lather was paste and what little "lather" I made was insufficient. This time just the opposite where I had plenty of lather but no slickness directly in the lather that would "stick" to your face. It's the most challenging soap I've tried to date and definitely not for beginners me thinks. Dr. Dittmar, PSGT, Gold Sachs etc for the same price provide a much easier entrance to the soap uninitiated at similar price point. But I'm not giving up yet. This will be a week long test and I believe in the end this soap will be worth it. I've felt it's potential.


Post analysis: As you can see below all the elements of Mike's came together. Why it "failed" here in this thread is complex. Using my stiffest brush which isn't really made for face lathering although I can make it do so, I relied on only the lather in the bowl to paint my face. My stiff brush wasn't able to "release" the slickness that had built up within the brush. Where the floppy did. Bottom line is one can't rely exclusively on lather alone. You need the density of the paste on the brush also.

 

[rxonmymind]

I did it!! Finally on my third try with this soap it ALL came together. Yes! That lather is only thirty seconds of swirl and had enough for four plus touch up. This surpassed MWF easily in terms of the volume of lather in thirty seconds. Only thing is Mikes only works with my one floppy brush. I am psyched! I was left with BBS shave and the BEST part was the touch up without any lather on my face this soap was slick. No pulling on the skin, zero friction. Mike you make a fantastic soap.

Que music band by Chic " Good times"

 

[rxonmymind]

interesting that
Mikes has water as first ingredient yet requires so much water to lather.

This is funny but true. I'm amazed how much it takes before it loosens up.

 

[lwt210]

Had my first shave with MWF this morning and while the lather was explosive and outstanding, the scent doesn't really "do it" for me. I'll continue to use MWF but I am leaning towards Mike's soaps as my hands down favorite to date.

Barber shop and the Lemongrass one are my favorites, scent wise.

Now that it has been a few hours since my shave, I do notice that my skin is very healthy looking with MWF......much more so than with any other soap or cream. I usually have a tinge of redness but the Fat doesn't seem to be causing that.

 

[jmsodpc]

I used mikes barbershop today.
I find myself going for Mike's more than mwf.

So now my top three are MdC and mikes and Arlington.

I can be happy only using those three.

 

[rxonmymind]

I used mikes barbershop today.
I find myself going for Mike's more than mwf.

So now my top three are MdC and mikes and Arlington.

I can be happy only using those three.

Lol. That's a damn fine lineup. I think you're good you never have to buy another soap