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- #261
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.
Maybe your MWF really has improved over time outside of hydration, just as @MrMoJoe's MWF apparently got worse over time outside of hydration (URL). Maybe both modes are possible. Maybe MWF gets better for some time, peaks, and then takes a turn for the worse. Maybe some pucks of MWF get better with age while other pucks of MWF get worse with age. I think that I'll add your claim alongside @MrMoJoe's claim as two sides of the same coin. Thanks!
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.
There are good reasons why you and others like MWF and I and others don't like MWF. A few reasons have been documented here (URL), first and foremost being simple differences of opinion about the same lather, as surprising as that may be to some who love MWF and can't understand why others don't love MWF. All of the parts that go into making and reacting to lather, some of which you listed, are always present for MWF, just as much as with other soaps. Any suggestion of a standard formula would be ridiculous.
It was my hope that this thread would help shed light on why MWF is so controversial, and I believe that this has been accomplished. I put my foot down on face lathering with MWF, since I've done just about everything else with it, I am not a face latherer, and no one presented evidence that bowl lathering was bad with MWF. No one has all of the answers as to why MWF is more controversial than so many other soaps, but I believe that the evidence presented in this thread helps to remove much of the mystery.
I'll post an updated summary soon with your claim about your puck getting better with age.