Mitchell's Wool Fat (MWF): Optimization Results Help SOLVE the MYSTERY!

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

This is really a great discussion. I realize that my comments have been less than scientific and that I can only speak to where I am right now. I wonder if my enjoyment of this soap is limited to how few other soaps I have tried. Maybe there is a lot out there that I am missing. Shavingbythenumbers- thanks for going through all of the trouble to be so objective! It has been very educational!

Thanks, @EB Newfarm! What you said was really nice. You get what I'm doing here and I really appreciate that. All respectful comments are welcome, whether they be scientific or not. No measurements or photographs were needed for your point about how you might be enjoying MWF so much due to a lack of experience with other soaps. That was an excellent point! Maybe it's true. Maybe it's true for some others here, too. Thanks for that great thought!

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

Update: Thorough Experimental Evidence Shows That Rate of Adding Water Is Insignificant When Building Lather with Non-Soaked Mitchell's Wool Fat (MWF)

On January 4, 2018, @SpeedyPC posted here about his method for making "very thick creamy slick lather" with MWF (URL). With photographs and instructions, SpeedyPC detailed how the MWF on top of the puck should be soaked for at least 10 minutes to 15 minutes, a damp brush should be used to load the soap for about 20 seconds, the lather should be built at first for about 2 minutes with no additional water until you "completely air out all the bubbles", and then the lather should be built for a few more minutes with a little more water. SpeedyPC confirmed that room-temperature soap and water work just as well, but extra care should be taken when adding small amounts of water since "if you add too much water the lather will collapse and start to get bubbly and start to fade" (URL).

SpeedyPC's advice inspired me to conduct a thorough examination of the effect of water incorporation rate on lather quality with MWF. Back on October 29, 2017, I reported on my controlled experiment with L'Occitane Cade which showed that building lather incrementally with small amounts of water or building lather with all of the water at the start seemed to make the same lather (URL). No pictures were taken, though, so this time with MWF, I decided to take plenty of pictures. Also, I thoroughly tested MWF with respect to different water-to-soap ratios, from relatively dry lathers to relatively wet lathers.

Each lather began with a measured mass of my MWF shaving soap pressed onto the bottom of a lightweight lathering bowl. The picture below shows the soap mass measurements. For a desired total lather mass of around 7 g, the desired soap masses were 0.65 g, 0.14 g, 0.070 g, and 0.035 g in order to yield ratios of water mass to soap mass of 10, 50, 100, and 200, respectively. It would take over 6 months of daily shaves with the lather having a water-to-soap ratio of 10 to use up a 125 g puck of MWF, while it would take almost 10 years of daily shaves for the water-to-soap ratio of 200, which should provide some perspective on how the lowest water-to-soap ratio of 10 is low or normal and the highest water-to-soap ratio of 200 is very high. A 0.01 g resolution scale was used to measure soap masses for water-to-soap ratios of 10 and 50, but a 0.001 g resolution scale was needed to measure soap masses with an acceptable accuracy for water-to-soap ratios of 100 and 200. In the latter two cases, the mass of the lathering bowl (14.646 g) was subtracted from the total mass of the lathering bowl and soap as measured with the tared 0.001 g resolution scale having a small plastic piece on the scale's platform.

(Click on image for full-resolution version)

All ingredients and materials were at room temperature prior to lather building. After making a soap mass measurement, the bowl with the soap was placed on top of a tared 0.1 g resolution scale. The scale then showed the total mass of the bowl and the soap. The same synthetic-hair shaving brush (RazoRock BC Silvertip Plissoft) was used to build lather. The dry mass of the shaving brush had already been measured as 94.40 g. Since residual water in the brush and water added during lather building all goes into the lather, the mass of water in the lather at any moment was the total mass of the bowl, brush, and lather subtracted by the total mass of the bowl, soap, and dry brush. The total mass of the bowl, brush, and desired lather was calculated prior to lather building. This mass served as the final target when placing the bowl with brush and lather on the tared scale.

With everything on the tared scale, distilled water was dispensed from a plastic bottle with a flip top cap. Distilled water was added either incrementally or almost all at once to build lather. When adding water little by little, time was taken during each step to build the lather to what appeared to be equilibrium. Agitation with the brush was purposefully slower than my normal agitation speed. A timer was run during brush agitation to track lather building time. When adding water almost all at once at the start of lather building, the lather was built with my normal agitation speed. Due to water evaporation, more water was usually added and the lather was further built to equilibrium until the total mass hit the target. This method, with fewer steps and my normal agitation speed, was the faster lather building method of the two. Photographs were taken during the whole process, making sure to appropriately stop the timer for pictures.

The eight lathers, involving four water-to-soap ratios and two water incorporation rates, were built on January 5 and January 6, 2018. Full shots are shown below. The percentage of added water, relative to the final amount, and the corresponding lather building time are provided with each photograph. For the cases when water was added in several steps, lather volume can be observed as starting very small and increasing with more water. Lather building times and lather volumes in the early stages of building the lathers appear to satisfy the aforementioned conditions advised by SpeedyPC. Overall, final lather volume is shown as being similar to lather volume when the lather was built more quickly in less stages. Lather volume can also be observed as decreasing for increasing water-to-soap ratio, which makes sense given that increasing water-to-soap ratio with very similar lather mass corresponds with less soap and, therefore, less structural ability.

(Click on image for full-resolution version)

Extreme close-ups with a millimeter-marked scale, as shown below, best show how all lathers were airy. In general, the air cells in the lathers that were built incrementally may appear a little smaller, but that might just be due to the longer lather building times involving more agitation and breaking up of air cells. Regardless, no lather appeared thick, creamy, or shiny in my opinion.

(Click on image for full-resolution version)

As documented in this thread, it has already been established that my MWF appears to be normal compared to the samples of two other B&B members (URL). Since distilled water, room-temperature ingredients, and normal agitation in a lathering bowl using a synthetic-hair brush should all be acceptable for building good lather, I can't think of any reason why lather that I make with MWF would be inferior to lather made by others with MWF except for the fact that I did not soak the soap. The issue of soaking the MWF prior to agitation might be a factor. I will have to conduct an experiment about that. At least the method of water incorporation during lather building has been effectively ruled as insignificant due to the experimental results presented above.

 

[Viseguy]

I got fine shaves from MWF but stopped using it when Mike's and later Stirling hit the market, because the quality and scent of these artisanal soaps were much better -- not to mention that they were far easier to lather. That said, you absolutely must soak the puck before loading MWF; it's essential for getting a decent lather out of it. In fact, as a result of my MWF flirtation, I soak every soap for a minute or two before I load, as a matter of routine. It makes lathering easier for any soap I've tried.

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

I got fine shaves from MWF but stopped using it when Mike's and later Stirling hit the market, because the quality and scent of these artisanal soaps were much better -- not to mention that they were far easier to lather. That said, you absolutely must soak the puck before loading MWF; it's essential for getting a decent lather out of it. In fact, as a result of my MWF flirtation, I soak every soap for a minute or two before I load, as a matter of routine. It makes lathering easier for any soap I've tried.

You're right that soaking makes loading easier, but in my case of scraping off soap and placing it in a lathering bowl, the issue of loading the brush is moot. It's possible that MWF might need to be soaked anyway for a long time before the agitation of lather building in order to make good lather. Maybe it needs to be softened up to work well. I'm very skeptical, mostly because I don't see how it would change the composition of the lather other than possibly producing a denser lather, but I'll conduct an experiment and report the results. It might be a myth that could use some busting.

 

[Viseguy]

... I don't see how it would change the composition of the lather other than possibly producing a denser lather, but I'll conduct an experiment and report the results. It might be a myth that could use some busting.

Bust away! There's no doubt in my mind that MWF's lather leans to the frothy, non-yogurty -- which is the main reason I abandoned it for greener (read: denser, more artisanal) pastures. But the scents were a big in-scent-ive, too!

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

Bust away! There's no doubt in my mind that MWF's lather leans to the frothy, non-yogurty -- which is the main reason I abandoned it for greener (read: denser, more artisanal) pastures. But the scents were a big in-scent-ive, too!

I agree. MWF lather is airy to me and there are much better scents and soaps out there, in my opinion. I've effectively busted the non-soaked vs. soaked issue for high water-to-soap ratios when the soap is quickly dissolved. However, the soap takes a long time to get dissolved for a water-to-soap ratio of 10, which is a pretty normal ratio for other soaps that I've used. So, I'll test MWF for that ratio and see what happens.

 

[SpeedyPC]

GOD Crikey!! @ShavingByTheNumbers...... I don't scrap the puck of MWF, but I can understand what you're trying to do. I can see the lather is still too airy on this type of experiment on post #243 is still not the correct way of using the MWF, you're just doing some experiment on MWF to see how this soap works and understand the behaver of this soap and the a mount of water which is normal for testing.

Edit:- Tomorrow I'm going to rub the MWF puck like a shaving stick on my face to see how this method turn out, I've read from many wet shaves say that this method seem to work best.....as YMMV

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

GOD Crikey!! @ShavingByTheNumbers...... I don't scrap the puck of MWF, but I can understand what you're trying to do. I can see the lather is still too airy on this type of experiment on post #243 is still not the correct way of using the MWF, you're just doing some experiment on MWF to see how this soap works and understand the behaver of this soap and the a mount of water which is normal for testing.

Edit:- Tomorrow I'm going to rub the MWF puck like a shaving stick on my face to see how this method turn out, I've read from many wet shaves say that this method seem to work best.....as YMMV

Thanks for getting back to me, @SpeedyPC. I don't understand how building lather in a bowl with soap and water could be incorrect, but I do understand that your way works for you. There's really not much difference between our methods, when you break it down to the nuts and bolts, except that your soap is soaked before building lather and you use warm water. At least you can see how my MWF lather is "too airy". Thank you for acknowledging that.

I recently built one lather with soaked MWF and took pictures. Results will be posted soon, I hope. Temperature could be a factor, but you said that room-temperature water was fine, right?

Let us know how your experiment goes.

 

[Rusty Blade]

This seems to be one of those soaps that produces varying results based on a wide range of factors. This must be the shaving product that led to the term YMMV. I am always amazed when I read that others just can't seem to make a good lather with MWF. This soap would easily make my desert island top five list. I can make an awesome lather with no magic potions or special flicks of the wrist. Just a wet brush on a dry puck, a few swirls of the brush and I have a thick, rich, heavenly scented lather fit for a king's shave.

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

This seems to be one of those soaps that produces varying results based on a wide range of factors. This must be the shaving product that led to the term YMMV. I am always amazed when I read that others just can't seem to make a good lather with MWF. This soap would easily make my desert island top five list. I can make an awesome lather with no magic potions or special flicks of the wrist. Just a wet brush on a dry puck, a few swirls of the brush and I have a thick, rich, heavenly scented lather fit for a king's shave.

MWF is definitely one of those soaps. I think that it's been shown here that we can have big differences of opinion about the same lather. With all of the experimentation that I've done with MWF, I haven't seen any significant sensitivity to how it is mixed with water. I wouldn't presume to think that you would blame the user when he doesn't like the soap, but there are those that do, and that is frustrating. Making lather is not rocket science, you know?

 

[Rusty Blade]

MWF is definitely one of those soaps. I think that it's been shown here that we can have big differences of opinion about the same lather. With all of the experimentation that I've done with MWF, I haven't seen any significant sensitivity to how it is mixed with water. I wouldn't presume to think that you would blame the user when he doesn't like the soap, but there are those that do, and that is frustrating. Making lather is not rocket science, you know?

Some time ago I started a thread called something like, "any soaps you wont buy again?" and it turns out that some guys have put on their "never buy again list" some soaps that are on my top 5 all time greatest soaps. Difficult to imagine there could be that much variation in our experiences. Soaps are hard to standardize...there are some that may be hard to lather because of other factors such as water hardness or the alignment between Jupiter and the conjunction of Pluto and Venus. I bet if you went through that list it would hit at least every soap once. From my experience MWF is a great soap but I also know that for some it is a "send it to the showers" soap...a solid 2 out of 10. I wonder if it is quality control in the production process of the soap or water quality, e.g hardness? You simply can't control every variable. I can truthfully say that MWF (or a variety of other soaps or creams for that matter) doesn't always give the perfect shave, but then again there are likely other variables that went into a not-so-perfect shave. My conclusion...I think soaps and maybe blades are solidly in the YMMV categories. I must say though, I was greatly impressed by your attention to detail and your efforts to share your results. Now that you have reviewed MWF...do you have any other soaps in the cue for review?

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

Some time ago I started a thread called something like, "any soaps you wont buy again?" and it turns out that some guys have put on their "never buy again list" some soaps that are on my top 5 all time greatest soaps. Difficult to imagine there could be that much variation in our experiences. Soaps are hard to standardize...there are some that may be hard to lather because of other factors such as water hardness or the alignment between Jupiter and the conjunction of Pluto and Venus. I bet if you went through that list it would hit at least every soap once. From my experience MWF is a great soap but I also know that for some it is a "send it to the showers" soap...a solid 2 out of 10. I wonder if it is quality control in the production process of the soap or water quality, e.g hardness? You simply can't control every variable. I can truthfully say that MWF (or a variety of other soaps or creams for that matter) doesn't always give the perfect shave, but then again there are likely other variables that went into a not-so-perfect shave. My conclusion...I think soaps and maybe blades are solidly in the YMMV categories.

It is hard to imagine that soaps that you love can be disliked by others, but as you point out, there are a lot of factors involved. Even manufacturing differences can sneak in there. I know. It's crazy. Ever since I started measuring mass, lather has become very repeatable and very consistent. That allows me to find water-to-soap ratios that work best for me and make just the right amount of lather. Also, comparing soaps to one another is made much easier. I had a hard time doing that before measuring mass. So, when I look back at loading a brush and judging lather in the normal way, I can see how opinions can differ even more. You're right that blades and soaps are YMMV things. When it comes to water hardness, friction seemed to linearly increase with water hardness, no matter the soap. Here is my thread about that, in case you missed it:

Water Hardness: Details, Recipes, and Experimental Results on Lather Quality

I must say though, I was greatly impressed by your attention to detail and your efforts to share your results. Now that you have reviewed MWF...do you have any other soaps in the cue for review?

Thanks. I have one more MWF experiment that I ran and have to write about, and hopefully that will be the end of this testing with MWF. As for other soaps, I'm currently optimizing Barrister & Mann. Then, I'll get to L'Occitane Cade and probably Mystic Water after that.

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

Update: Experimental Results Show That Soaking Mitchell's Wool Fat (MWF) Can Produce Finer Lather Structure, but Not Significantly So

On January 12, 2018, I conducted an experiment to study the effects of soaking MWF before building lather. Lather was built with distilled water and a water-to-soap ratio of 10 in a similar manner as before when studying the effects of water incorporation rate (URL), but this time, the MWF was soaked for an extended period of time.

Results are shown in the composite picture below. 0.65 g of MWF was measured and placed along the bottom edge of the lightweight lathering bowl so that water could collect there and soak into the shaving soap. Initially, only about 1 g of distilled water was added. The soap soaked for roughly 30 minutes before being mixed by my finger, which resulted in a small loss of soap. As the soap soaked more, an additional 1 g of water was added due to water evaporation. A finger was used to further mix the soap and water together until all of the soap was thoroughly mixed with the water. The total soaking time was about 90 minutes. With the soap sample completely soaked, the lather was built with incremental additions of water until the total amount of water was achieved for a water-to-soap ratio of 10.

(Click on image for full-resolution version)

As exhibited by the full shots and the extreme close-up, the lather started slowly, but eventually built up to become airy and foamy. However, the resulting lather volume seems a little smaller and the lather does not seem quite as airy and foamy as before when the MWF was not soaked, as can be observed when visually comparing the photographs here to previous pictures. Two reasons are likely to account for these differences. First, there was significantly more lather building time for the soaked MWF. When starting with the non-soaked MWF for the water-to-soap ratio of 10, it took several minutes to fully incorporate the soap into the water through agitation, and the total lather building time was a few minutes less than it was for the soaked MWF, so the lather building time with the soaked MWF was significantly more than for the comparable experiment with non-soaked MWF. It is believed that this extra lather building time produced finer air cells, similar to how the air bubbles are noticeably reduced in size earlier on when building lather. When getting a head start with soaked MWF, lather building time could be reduced relative to using non-soaked MWF. Second, there was a little loss of MWF during the soaking process when mixing the soap and water with my finger, which could account for a little loss in volume.

Given the similarity between non-soaked and soaked MWF lather results for a relatively low water-to-soap ratio of 10, and given that previous lather results with higher water-to-soap ratios of 50, 100, and 200 involved MWF samples that mixed relatively quickly with water at the start of lather building, it appears that soaking MWF makes little difference on lather quality. Bowl lather made with my MWF always seems to come out airy and foamy and not slick.

I didn't bother shaving with the lather photographed above because it was not significantly different from basically all of the other lathers with MWF that I've made. It has been suggested by @SpeedyPC (Jason) that I try face lathering with my MWF. I could try doing that, but I only have a very small amount of my MWF left in a plastic container that I'd hate to lose or corrupt. I could use some of the MWF that I got from @AlphaFrank75 (Dan), which I already found to be similar to mine (URL), but I have little face lathering experience. Other than experimenting with temperature, which I'm opposed to out of principle since room-temperature water and soap should be acceptable, I don't see what more I can do to study building lather in a bowl with my MWF or Dan's MWF. Face lathering could possibly work better, although MWF is supposed to work with both face and bowl lathering, just like every other soap, right?

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

Current Summary of Thread Results on Mitchell's Wool Fat (MWF)

Based on results from myself and others in this thread, here is my summary on MWF for your consideration and feedback:

1. Differences of Opinion on Same/Similar Lather with MWF: It appears that there are big differences of opinion about similar or identical lather from MWF, as supported by two cases of members sharing MWF samples:
   • @ShavingByTheNumbers (Grant) sent @rockviper (Sam) a sample of MWF that Grant considered as making an airy lather that was not slick (URL). Sam posted lather photos and reported that Grant's MWF made the slick lather with MWF that Sam was used to (URL, URL, URL, URL). Grant looked at Sam's photos and was reminded of the inferior lather with MWF that Grant was used to (URL).
   • @AlphaFrank75 (Dan) sent @ShavingByTheNumbers (Grant) a sample of MWF that Dan considered as making a "somewhat" thick, rich, and slick lather (URL). Grant made lathers with distilled water, took photos, and shaved with the lathers in controlled tests between his MWF and Dan's MWF. Grant found that the two samples of MWF made very similar lather, both in appearance and performance, airy and not slick, with the exception that Dan's MWF had a lower optimum water-to-soap ratio (URL).
2. Possible Aging Issue with MWF: A puck of MWF might actually degrade with age, as indicated by the experience of @MrMoJoe, who found that his MWF changed from "always" making very good lather in the prior two or three winters to making "a very thin bubbly, sudsy lather" (URL).
3. Lack of Visual Feedback Can Make Building Lather with MWF Tricky: Lack of visual feedback regarding lather hydration has been photographed by @ShavingByTheNumbers (Grant) for two samples of MWF (URL), which might just be observed as making airy lather no matter the reasonable water-to-soap ratio. Combined with the possibility that MWF may be used in smaller amounts compared to other soaps, this would also make MWF a more difficult soap to lather, more difficult to hit the right amounts of soap and water for the particular user, and explain why some users never get MWF to work for them (URL).
4. Rate of Adding Water during Lather Building with MWF Is Insignificant: Thorough experiments were conducted and photographed by @ShavingByTheNumbers (Grant) on the issue of water incorporation rate during lather building. Lathers with water-to-soap ratios of 10, 50, 100, and 200, from relatively dry lathers to relatively wet lathers, were built more slowly with incremental additions of water and were also built more quickly with almost all water being added at the start of lather building. Results showed the insignificance of water incorporation rate (URL).
5. Soaking MWF Does Not Matter Much: Photographed experimental results by @ShavingByTheNumbers (Grant) indicate that soaking MWF can reduce lather building time, but soaking does not significantly improve lather quality (URL).

I hope that these results help settle most of the mystery about why MWF is so controversial. Face lathering has not been studied here, but is there anyone who likes face lathering with MWF and simultaneously claims that bowl lathering with MWF is not good?

 

[AimlessWanderer]

On face lathering vs bowl lathering, when I take the lather from the puck to my face, it's quite runny and airy, and it becomes the lather that I want by working it on the face.

I've only tried bowl lathering occasionally, and I don't have a textured bowl - just a generic enamelled bowl like you might use on a camping trip. If I work the lather in the bowl, by the time I have fully worked it into my beard, the consistency has changed again, and has gone beyond what I want my lather to be (too dry). Skipping the bowl stage works far better for me, and I just keep working it on the face, sometimes having to get a little more water or a little more soap, until I get the lather I want. Usually it takes me less than 20 seconds to load the brush and lather the face (with my puck in it's current condition), but for whatever reason, sometimes it needs a little more jiggery pokery to get the lather I want.

However, all this is subjective. Skin characteristics might make a difference here, and my idea of an ideal lather might not tally with someone else's. Also it's possible that the brush might make a difference. Face lathering Mitchells works great with my brush, my water, my method, and my face. I don't have a clue what kind of proportions of soap to water are used, and my puck is now heavily hydrated beyond what comes from the factory.

As regards old soap, I think it's probably just a little drier. I have found a drier puck can need a little more work, and a regularly used puck that becomes more hydrated works MUCH better. My puck was a very slow starter when new, and over time has just got better and better. This is why I have been considering buying my next puck "early", and putting it below the existing puck in the mug. This will give the new puck time to hydrate, and as the top puck wears through, I'll "wean" myself from one to the other. What is making me hesitant to do this, is the temptation to run the puck to the end to see how long the 79g that was left when I started shaving again actually lasts me.

Going back to the main thread, as SBTN couldn't get his puck to yield the results he wanted, but RV could from the same sample - and SBTN also couldn't get the desired results from someone else's puck that they did get good results from - can we rule out that these performance issues are independent of the soap itself?

If the same samples gives one guy good results and another guy poor results, the soap ain't the issue!

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

Current Summary of Thread Results on Mitchell's Wool Fat (MWF)

[Note: This summary is identical to the previous summary, but with additional information in the point on how one's puck may have aged too much and degraded in quality outside of the natural loss in moisture that may occur.]

1. Differences of Opinion on Same/Similar Lather with MWF: It appears that there are big differences of opinion about similar or identical lather from MWF, as supported by two cases of members sharing MWF samples:
   • @ShavingByTheNumbers (Grant) sent @rockviper (Sam) a sample of MWF that Grant considered as making an airy lather that was not slick (URL). Sam posted lather photos and reported that Grant's MWF made the slick lather with MWF that Sam was used to (URL, URL, URL, URL). Grant looked at Sam's photos and was reminded of the inferior lather with MWF that Grant was used to (URL).
   • @AlphaFrank75 (Dan) sent @ShavingByTheNumbers (Grant) a sample of MWF that Dan considered as making a "somewhat" thick, rich, and slick lather (URL). Grant made lathers with distilled water, took photos, and shaved with the lathers in controlled tests between his MWF and Dan's MWF. Grant found that the two samples of MWF made very similar lather, both in appearance and performance, airy and not slick, with the exception that Dan's MWF had a lower optimum water-to-soap ratio (URL).
2. Possible Aging Issue with MWF: A puck of MWF might actually degrade with age, as indicated by the experience of @MrMoJoe, who found that his MWF changed from "always" making very good lather in the prior two or three winters to making "a very thin bubbly, sudsy lather" despite his best efforts with extended soakings of the puck and multiple attempts with various lathering methods (URL).
3. Lack of Visual Feedback Can Make Building Lather with MWF Tricky: Lack of visual feedback regarding lather hydration has been photographed by @ShavingByTheNumbers (Grant) for two samples of MWF (URL), which might just be observed as making airy lather no matter the reasonable water-to-soap ratio. Combined with the possibility that MWF may be used in smaller amounts compared to other soaps, this would also make MWF a more difficult soap to lather, more difficult to hit the right amounts of soap and water for the particular user, and explain why some users never get MWF to work for them (URL).
4. Rate of Adding Water during Lather Building with MWF Is Insignificant: Thorough experiments were conducted and photographed by @ShavingByTheNumbers (Grant) on the issue of water incorporation rate during lather building. Lathers with water-to-soap ratios of 10, 50, 100, and 200, from relatively dry lathers to relatively wet lathers, were built more slowly with incremental additions of water and were also built more quickly with almost all water being added at the start of lather building. Results showed the insignificance of water incorporation rate (URL).
5. Soaking MWF Does Not Matter Much: Photographed experimental results by @ShavingByTheNumbers (Grant) indicate that soaking MWF can reduce lather building time, but soaking does not significantly improve lather quality (URL).

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

On face lathering vs bowl lathering, when I take the lather from the puck to my face, it's quite runny and airy, and it becomes the lather that I want by working it on the face.

I've only tried bowl lathering occasionally, and I don't have a textured bowl - just a generic enamelled bowl like you might use on a camping trip. If I work the lather in the bowl, by the time I have fully worked it into my beard, the consistency has changed again, and has gone beyond what I want my lather to be (too dry). Skipping the bowl stage works far better for me, and I just keep working it on the face, sometimes having to get a little more water or a little more soap, until I get the lather I want. Usually it takes me less than 20 seconds to load the brush and lather the face (with my puck in it's current condition), but for whatever reason, sometimes it needs a little more jiggery pokery to get the lather I want.

However, all this is subjective. Skin characteristics might make a difference here, and my idea of an ideal lather might not tally with someone else's. Also it's possible that the brush might make a difference. Face lathering Mitchells works great with my brush, my water, my method, and my face. I don't have a clue what kind of proportions of soap to water are used, and my puck is now heavily hydrated beyond what comes from the factory.

As regards old soap, I think it's probably just a little drier. I have found a drier puck can need a little more work, and a regularly used puck that becomes more hydrated works MUCH better. My puck was a very slow starter when new, and over time has just got better and better. This is why I have been considering buying my next puck "early", and putting it below the existing puck in the mug. This will give the new puck time to hydrate, and as the top puck wears through, I'll "wean" myself from one to the other. What is making me hesitant to do this, is the temptation to run the puck to the end to see how long the 79g that was left when I started shaving again actually lasts me.

Going back to the main thread, as SBTN couldn't get his puck to yield the results he wanted, but RV could from the same sample - and SBTN also couldn't get the desired results from someone else's puck that they did get good results from - can we rule out that these performance issues are independent of the soap itself?

If the same samples gives one guy good results and another guy poor results, the soap ain't the issue!

The first point in the summary regards the subjectivity that you mentioned. For any soap, differences of opinion happen with (a) same/similar lathers from the same puck, (b) different lathers from the same puck, and (c) different lathers from pucks that are different for one reason or another. Regarding case (a), there appears to be a lot of "YMMV" with MWF, more so than average. That subjectivity regards differences of opinion about the same/similar lather. As documented, "Grant looked at Sam's photos and was reminded of the inferior lather with MWF that Grant was used to", but Sam thought differently of that lather. Also documented is how I tested my MWF against Dan's MWF over a range of drier and wetter lathers and found that the pucks were similar, but my opinion of the lather was different from Dan's.

Your idea of getting another puck going underneath the current puck is good! I like that! Soaking MWF certainly cuts down on lather building time, but as I documented with photographs, it doesn't seem to improve lather quality.

It's good that face lathering with MWF works for you. It's surely the most common way of building lather with MWF, just as with other soaps. However, I haven't seen anyone who likes face lathering with MWF claim that bowl lathering with MWF is not good.

 

[AimlessWanderer]

Soaking MWF certainly cuts down on lather building time, but as I documented with photographs, it doesn't seem to improve lather quality.

It's good that face lathering with MWF works for you. It's surely the most common way of building lather with MWF, just as with other soaps. However, I haven't seen anyone who likes face lathering with MWF claim that bowl lathering with MWF is not good.

My experience is that the lather goes indeed get better with a more hydrated puck, and I don't think it's as simple as it yields more product to the brush. I'm no chemist though, so no speculations from me as to why this might be.

As for bowl lathering vs face, I get better lather by face lathering, but in fairness, I don't consider myself "practised" at bowl lathering, and so my improved results with face lathering may be purely behavioural/familiarity. Also, my bowl is not textured in any way, so the agitation is impaired to some extent.

 

[ShavingByTheNumbers]

My experience is that the lather goes indeed get better with a more hydrated puck, and I don't think it's as simple as it yields more product to the brush. I'm no chemist though, so no speculations from me as to why this might be.

A reason why is that soaking the soap gives the lather a head start, so less agitation and time is needed to build lather when the soap is hydrated compared to when the soap is not so hydrated. That's what I found and documented above with measurements and photographs. If given enough time, lather can be just as good when starting with non-soaked soap.

As for bowl lathering vs face, I get better lather by face lathering, but in fairness, I don't consider myself "practised" at bowl lathering, and so my improved results with face lathering may be purely behavioural/familiarity. Also, my bowl is not textured in any way, so the agitation is impaired to some extent.

There are surely others that feel the same way about face lathering giving better results. The differences, though, are apparently not very significant. No one has come forward to claim that face lathering with MWF makes good lather while bowl lathering with MWF does not. @SpeedyPC (Jason) suggested face lathering with MWF, but even he posted pictures on bowl lathering with MWF and felt that the lather made in that way was good.

 

[AimlessWanderer]

If given enough time, lather can be just as good when starting with non-soaked soap.

Time is a factor. Lather is being created at a quicker rate with my well used, well soaked puck, than was when it was new. However there is more to it than that, spending more time with the newer puck wouldn't have yielded the same lather that is being yielded now. It was perfectly fine before, but now it is better. I have had good results all the way through with this product, but I would not say that I have had consistent results. It started good, and got better.

It's not just time loading, or time working. If it was, the same lather that I'm getting now could have been had before by different methods. I believe the puck has improved with time, and not just because it is now wetter than I bought it.

Remember many of these products contain organic compounds. Maybe change of some kind is happening due to a puck being gradually hydrated, and retaining that additional moisture, over several months. As I said, I'm no chemist, so I cannot speculate on such matters.

All I can conclude and offer forwards, is that this product has consistently given me (and many other people) great shaves, and that I, and other people, have noticed improvements in the product as you work through it.

I have no answers as to why others may struggle to get the same performance. As speculated before, it could be water, brush, hydration time, agitation, working time, temperature, extent of pre-hydration, or even the skin of the user. I do not believe that there'll be a standard formula that works for all, no matter how much time is spent measuring, calculating, and reporting - because there's no guarantees that the next person will get the same results - even from the same puck of soap.