Mitchells Wool Fat Shaving Soap is no longer Tallow based

[PLANofMAN]

Any plans to take the new formulation for a go?
I may pick one up for next SOTM; worst case I can frankensoap it with PAA Scentsless or Stirling Unscented
(or add a stick of Arko - Gasp)

It is too risky to combine the New formula with my current 1/2 remaining puck;

Absolutely. @AJMiami has a sample in the mail headed my way as we speak. I fully expect to find the new formula serviceable, even good, though lacking a bit in slickness, with a skin drying effect from the palm oil.

We shall see if expectation matches reality.

 

[Steve56]

That’s not to say it’s ok for them to reformulate Kent’s soap without telling Kent, and then try to say it wasn’t reformulated. That’s actually not ok, even in Victorian England.

Czech and Speake said the same thing when asked. I don’t think that it’s malice, just cluelessnes because they don’t use/test their own products. C&S fessed up too, eventually. If you believe all shaving soap is the same and don’t test your own products, it kind of makes sense.

‘The rumour is true, the base (soap noodles) used in the creation of the shaving soap will no longer contain tallow (made from Bovine and porcine bi-products), …’

I would not have been marketing this soap as an 1890s formula, I’d have used the slogan ‘Proudly made with bacon. So you know that it has to be good.!’ /H

 

[nemo]

Well, it’s a city in Yorkshire. Not really much like James Herriot.

View attachment 1667168

Not quite.

Looks like this:

 

[Roman Totale XVII]

Speaking as someone born and bred on the other (i.e. the right) side of the Pennines, I feel duty-bound to point out what Bill Bryson had to say about Bradford, “Bradford’s role in life is to make everywhere else look good in comparison”.

 

[Alum Ladd]

Not quite.

Looks like this:
View attachment 1667237

A modest HQ indeed.

Not exactly Proctor & Gamble.

 

[Mr. Shavington]

Not quite.

Looks like this:
View attachment 1667237

Oh, that’s Mitchell’s Wool Fat HQ? It explains a lot.

 

[Roy]

The way this thread has gone, you've hounded a small company, who probably thought they were making improvements to the soap. Not as if they are a giant outfit. OK, loads of love for the tallow, but maybe you should have given the new one a decent try out before moaning about the change. Bet the soap staff feel hurt if they have read the thread. Life's hard enough for small companies here in uk just now.

 

[PLANofMAN]

The way this thread has gone, you've hounded a small company, who probably thought they were making improvements to the soap. Not as if they are a giant outfit. OK, loads of love for the tallow, but maybe you should have given the new one a decent try out before moaning about the change. Bet the soap staff feel hurt if they have read the thread. Life's hard enough for small companies here in uk just now.

Some of us have used this shaving soap for decades. I know it's the done thing nowadays to be perpetually offended on someone else's behalf.

I doubt they care what we think. They have a cookie cutter 'cut and paste' stock reply for everything related to the soap formula change, that gets sent out to inquiries by vendors and ordinary folks alike.

There needs to be more companies like Kent in the world, and less like MWF, imo.

Edit: Even Paul at Connought Shaving is looking into making a tallow dupe of MWF, and he wouldn't be doing that if he'd been 100% happy with the company or it's reformulation.

Most of the people trying the new soap say it's a 'good' soap. That's all well and good. They used to say MWF was a 'great' soap. There's lots of good soaps out there. Not as many great ones.

 

[PLANofMAN]

For those who want to follow along with the comparison experiment being hosted by @AJMiami

[EXPERIMENT] Seeking Testers for the New Formulation of Mitchell’s Wool Fat Soap

For those who are fans of Mitchell’s Wool Fat Soap, as well as for those who might not have been impressed with the previous formulation, I would like to invite you to participate in a testing experiment. Seeking your review and comparison to help us better understand this new formulation. The...

www.badgerandblade.com

 

[GR5233]

Hope you signed up for the newsletter and used the 10% Discount Code.
Direct Order from Kent is the least expensive option BY FAR; shipped cost is roughly $9.5 per...

I’ll be keeping an eye out for it when I do decide to order from them. I’ve noticed that with several products ordering from the company whose name is on the label is the cheapest option

Perhaps, perhaps not. Mitchell's hasn't specified one way or the other from what I have read. It could very well have been simply a financial decision from Mitchell's. The Contract Manufacturer is going to produce what is ordered given the available raw materials. CMs won't arbitrarily change the recipe and not inform their client. This presents a very high likelihood that the CM informed somebody at Mitchell's about the recipe change at some juncture before production of the first tallow-free batch; and that delegate needed to give the go-ahead.

There’s 3 ways the decision could have been made due to the changes in regulations.

Option 1: Mitchell’s seeing the new rules made inquiries to their CM about non tallow bases and just chose one.

Option 2: The CM had to switch due to the new rules. For example if the new rule says the tallow switch has to be made by July 1, 2023 they might not be able to get enough food grade tallow by then but has a vegan base already available. In that case they probably did inform MWF about it and MWF gave them the go ahead.

Option 3: It was a mutual agreement between MWF and their CM due to contract renewal negotiations and changes in regulations coinciding with each other

 

[Goblin]

Britain has always preserved its countryside and most of it cannot legally be developed.

Can confirm this is 100% not true. I currently live in the South East, which happens to be one of the most densely populated bits of land in the whole of Europe aside from the Netherlands. Whilst a lot of people think the government isn't building enough houses, the scale of greenfield development here in the past decade has been immense and has had a huge impact on the character of the area, access to public services, healthcare, wildlife, traffic congestion, etc. Overall quality of life here is noticeably worse than it was a decade ago due the sheer scale of development and increased population density.

Speaking as someone born and bred on the other (i.e. the right) side of the Pennines, I feel duty-bound to point out what Bill Bryson had to say about Bradford, “Bradford’s role in life is to make everywhere else look good in comparison”.

When I lived in the North I once got hopelessly lost (in the days before satnav) and ended up in Bradford by mistake, which I suspect may be how most people end up there. I recall driving up and down a maze of decaying Victorian terraces wondering where the hell I was, and whenever I did come across a sign it was in Arabic or Urdu so I was none the wiser. I literally didn't know I had been in Bradford until I got out. All that said, if various commitments didn't necessitate my being in the South I would head North again in a heartbeat - see my earlier comments!

 

[zoidberg]

Absolutely. @AJMiami has a sample in the mail headed my way as we speak. I fully expect to find the new formula serviceable, even good, though lacking a bit in slickness, with a skin drying effect from the palm oil.

Your observations are spot on. The new palm oil based MWF is a good lather, but not an exceptional one.

I've used a few shaving soaps with Sodium Palmate as one of the first two ingredients. Of the top of my head that includes Ach Brito Mogno, Razorock WTP, PdP (a few others too). I find they all take quite a bit of loading to get going, and the lather itself is a fine one, but never has the thick glossy cushion I'd associate with a good MWF tallow lather. The new palm oil MWF is much the same way as the other palm oil soaps. They are good soaps, but I find them all a bit on the drying side of things.

I'd rate new MWF - 3/5
OId tallow MWF - 5/5.

 

[PLANofMAN]

I’ll be keeping an eye out for it when I do decide to order from them. I’ve noticed that with several products ordering from the company whose name is on the label is the cheapest option

There’s 3 ways the decision could have been made due to the changes in regulations.

Option 1: Mitchell’s seeing the new rules made inquiries to their CM about non tallow bases and just chose one.

Option 2: The CM had to switch due to the new rules. For example if the new rule says the tallow switch has to be made by July 1, 2023 they might not be able to get enough food grade tallow by then but has a vegan base already available. In that case they probably did inform MWF about it and MWF gave them the go ahead.

Option 3: It was a mutual agreement between MWF and their CM due to contract renewal negotiations and changes in regulations coinciding with each other

Just seems odd to switch to a formula that we already know will need to be reformulated again in less than 7 years, due to UK and EU regulations on palm oil coming into effect in 2030.

 

[Loner16]

I don't consider myself "perpetually offended on someone else's behalf.." And, I honestly don't presume to know what goes through the minds of the few that work at Mitchell's, but I would not be at all surprised if they actually did care what we who use their product think, particularly if any of them are aware of this thread.

My last post on this subject...

 

[GR5233]

Just seems odd to switch to a formula that we already know will need to be reformulated again in less than 7 years, due to UK and EU regulations on palm oil coming into effect in 2030.

I would imagine it’s because the EU regulations on the use of tallow go into effect either sometime this year or early next year. Whereas the regulations on palm derivatives are still a few years away.

And if they’re smart at MWF they’ll take leaves from Haslinger’s and La Toja’s playbook and develop a vegan version that’s palm free and works just as well as the original tallow. Or go back to their original tallow version using the food grade tallow

 

[Mr. Shavington]

Just seems odd to switch to a formula that we already know will need to be reformulated again in less than 7 years, due to UK and EU regulations on palm oil coming into effect in 2030.

I’m not sure that Mitchell’s think like that. For them it seems like one of the ingredients is ‘soap’ and the other ingredient is ‘lanolin’. I think they still expect it to be made of soap and lanolin after 2030. So no change needed, as long as their supplier is able to make some kind of soap to add the lanolin to.

EDIT: Maybe that’s unfair. Maybe MWF made every effort to have a good soap, and they just didn’t consider tallow to be particularly important for their product.

 

[Frito Ray]

For those of you ordering directly from Kent, do yourself a favour and get yourself, one of their hand made combs too. Most cost less than the soap.

I’ve got a folding one and one for the bathroom and absolutely love them both. The hand rounded teeth don’t scratch your scalp but painlessly glides right over it.

 

[Mr. Shavington]

For those of you ordering directly from Kent, do yourself a favour and get yourself, one of their hand made combs too. Most cost less than the soap.

I’ve got a folding one and one for the bathroom and absolutely love them both. The hand rounded teeth don’t scratch your scalp but painlessly glides right over it.

If only I had hair to justify buying a comb.

Actually I did buy their de-tangling comb for my badgers. Not that I comb my brushes, but it’s nice to feel I could if I wanted to. Might need to one day, who knows.

 

[PLANofMAN]

I don't consider myself "perpetually offended on someone else's behalf.." And, I honestly don't presume to know what goes through the minds of the few that work at Mitchell's, but I would not be at all surprised if they actually did care what we who use their product think, particularly if any of them are aware of this thread.

My last post on this subject...

Perhaps you're right, and our ire ought to be directed at the regulatory institutions instead.

Did you know that Palmolive tested 160 different formulas before settling on one in 1924? They then kept it through modern times.

I know it's the classic British trait to be stoic to the point of emotionlessness, but it would be nice if they'd said "we tested a ton of different formulas, and this is the one we felt was closest to the original shave soap we've produced for decades." Just one statement like that would have earned them at least some goodwill and would have staved off the pickforks and torches until after the new formula was in the market for a while.

There are very few shave soaps that can be said to be iconic. MWF was one of them. The company didn't seem to be aware of that, and now hopefully, they are.

 

[ChriWilson]

For those of you ordering directly from Kent, do yourself a favour and get yourself, one of their hand made combs too. Most cost less than the soap.

I’ve got a folding one and one for the bathroom and absolutely love them both. The hand rounded teeth don’t scratch your scalp but painlessly glides right over it.

I use their brushes and took the opportunity to supplement with a travel brush