Thank you! I like that they offer both hard and soft soaps.
Mitchells Wool Fat Shaving Soap is no longer Tallow based
- Thread starter zoidberg
- Start date
Lanolin is a by-product of wool production.
After the sheep is sheared, it wonders off, possibly feeling a bit colder, but still very much alive…
Tallow is rendered beef or mutton fat.
Here the animal can no longer walk away, because it is very much dead…
Lanolin therefore has a similar vegan status like milk, cheese and butter, or wool for that matter.
Neither MWF nor Connaught Shaving make the claim that MWF is now “vegan”.
Connaught just points out that MWF contains now ”Palm and Palm Kernel base soap”.
Incidentally, I applaud Connaught Shaving for pointing the change out.
If it wasn’t for Brexit, I would continue buying from them, but now import formalities for orders from Connaught are just too cumbersome.
B.
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Steve56
Ask me about shaving naked!
Ah, the soap forums. Mitchell’s fixed the lathering problem and now people are complaining about the box label. 
garyg
B&B membership has its percs
The original has never worked well here - lather is way less than robust, maybe the new one will solve that while retaining the nice MWF post-shave feel ..
On the other hand, Amazon US has what is pictured as the tallow version still for sale ..
On the other hand, Amazon US has what is pictured as the tallow version still for sale ..
Soaps come and go, for tallow-based MWF aficionados there are other as good or better choices out there. Or one can adapt to the new formulation.
Steve56
Ask me about shaving naked!
Look no further than Stirling, tallow and lanolin. Lathers better and it’s not expensive, and comes in many scents and unscented. There’s a mutton version too if you’re deep into sheep.
This new stuff is good, I’m doing a 180 turn. How good? I’m not willing to say it’s on par or better with the previous formulation, but I would be content with shaving with it exclusively if didn’t have access to other stuff.
Summary, I got BBS with 2 passes + cleanup, and going against the grain on the second pass. Shave was irritation free, without a hint of blood. Rinse was easy without leaving residue. Post shave feel was good, I could have skipped the after shave.
My method was to load the brush damp, with all water removed. Swirled the puck for 20 seconds and ended up with too much soap.
Initial lather on my face, and then 2nd pass lather (2nd picture) which was hydrated properly and was very protective.
I’m a fan
Summary, I got BBS with 2 passes + cleanup, and going against the grain on the second pass. Shave was irritation free, without a hint of blood. Rinse was easy without leaving residue. Post shave feel was good, I could have skipped the after shave.
My method was to load the brush damp, with all water removed. Swirled the puck for 20 seconds and ended up with too much soap.
Initial lather on my face, and then 2nd pass lather (2nd picture) which was hydrated properly and was very protective.
I’m a fan
If you do a simple google search you will find that lanolin is not considered vegan. Neither am I.Lanolin is a by-product of wool production.
After the sheep is sheared, it wonders off, possibly feeling a bit colder, but still very much alive…
The point is they still cannot sell it to vegans so there must be another reason for dropping the tallow.
Global warming
Either way I found a decent deal on the original pucks. Picked up 5. They will sit with my Palmolive sticks, and Williams pucks lol. Wish I had more Tabac. Have some Stirling glacial margherita still to compare with. Pretty happy with Arko on my third ish shave. Need a container for sticks now lol.
How's the post shave feel?
Ah, the soap forums. Mitchell’s fixed the lathering problem and now people are complaining about the box label.
Reminds me when a factory was completely automated.
Workers feared for their jobs when management called them in for a meeting in a large assembly hall.
The CEO announced that the factory was now completely automated and staff was no longer needed, but they would keep everyone on the payroll at full salary.
They just would have to come every first Tuesday of the month to check there were no amber warning lights on any of the machines.
When someone in the last row shouted: “What! EVERY first Tuesday of the month???”
Some people you can never please…
B.
I think it’s pretty good. My skin is on the dry side and didn’t feel any dryness after the shave. Skin felt nourished and soft.
I have to shave with the old stuff and pay attention to be be able to draw a fairer comparison, as I felt the old formulation post shave feel to be the best of anything I shaved with.
It would be hard to sell a Wool Fat soap without lanolin, no?
The percentage of dedicated vegans is tiny, a few percentage points at most. Veganism in that sense is a philosophy of life. That's not what is meant when manufacturers put vegan on something to sell. Lots of people will use so-called vegan products, in the sense of "no animals were harmed", even if they are not strict vegans.
I'll speculate the real reason for the switch is economic and to make the product acceptable for sale world-wide. Vegetable-based is the safe choice, as long as performance can be maintained, people won't object.
I don’t mean to brag, but I knew that lanolin is not vegan without the need to resort to Google.
But have you considered that some people might try to avoid products for the production of which animals are harmed? Like horse hair shaving brushes for example?
B.
I wonder if it has something to do with this article:
EU to ban certain animal products that contribute to deforestation from the EU market - https://www.eurogroupforanimals.org/news/eu-ban-certain-animal-products-contribute-deforestation-eu-market
EU to ban certain animal products that contribute to deforestation from the EU market - https://www.eurogroupforanimals.org/news/eu-ban-certain-animal-products-contribute-deforestation-eu-market
Let's just consider that maybe it is people trying to avoid harming animals, but at the end of the day the main reason for slaughtering a cow is not for soap making ingredients. Cows are sold for beef and I don't think enough people on the planet are going to give up eating steak or hamburger that a boycott on tallow will make a difference.
Besides if the cow is going to be slaughtered anyway, I would rather as much of it gets used as possible anyway. At least in my mind
As you said, I'm sure the reason for the change is most likely economics.
An excellent post by someone who has actually used the new soap. Think it will be my next soap. Tallow worship puzzles me.
I'd imagine tallow prices aren't cheap given how much is likely needed for soap production and how much beef would need to be processed to produce the amount of tallow needed. Economics and increasing customer base would be my guess as well. Glad I still have three unused pucks of the old formulation MWF left.
Let's just say several years ago a lot of formerly tallow-based soaps chose to reformulate and it did not go very well. The new versions did not perform to the level of their tallow-based predecessors. Many people have long memories about that kind of thing.
Newer veggie-based soaps have gotten a lot better.
