Replacing the Fat

[Balthazar]

... no, this is journal is not about "Brother Fat". Neither is it about dietary choices.

This will be a place where I jot down some short updates on my journey to find a replacement for the tallow based version of Mitchell's Wool Fat.

Background
As mentioned in a post in this 80-pages long thread on the reformulation, I had been using the MWF soap exclusively* for more than a decade when I discovered the reformulation back in early August. The discovery was accidental, I was not active in any shave-forums, subreddits or other corners of the internet where wet shaving related news are likely to reach. Nor do I read ingredient lists. I noticed it because I for some reason decided to read the order confirmation for Connaught (I normally never do this) and noticed the words "PALM Formula" behind the familiar "Mitchell's Wool Fat".

Most things change, sometimes for the better and often for the worse. I was not able to stock up on a lifetime's supply on tallow MWF as most places had run out of it by August. (That is unless one is willing to pay absurd prices for it from ebay seller. I am not.) So a replacement is needed.

Since I had already ordered two new pucks of MWF it made sense to start out by trying that. I also picked up a puck of the DR Harris Lavender soap, as another tallow based triple-milled soap that supposedly work well for other people with sensitive skin. So those two were the first contenders.

I will post some notes on the results from "Round 1" a bit later. Suffice it to say, for now, neither left me completely satisfied, so the search continues. "Round 2" which is still ongoing, involves two Haslinger soaps. There's a couple of other things on the way in the mail as well. Might as well use this as an opportunity to indulge in some of the "shaving related acquisition disorder" which I have denied myself for a good decade. Until a worthy replacement has been found and a new king crowned, of course.

Hopefully it won't become an endless white whale search.

* (Or almost exclusively, I later recalled (and my email order history confirmed) that I had given the Haslinger Schafmilch (old tallow formula) a try back in 2016. It did not dethrone the MWF and take it's place.)

 

[Doc Dan]

Try Shannon’s Soaps Chupacabra base soaps. The are tallow + lanolin and are superb performers.

 

[thombrogan]

not about "Brother Fat"

But the Green Destiny, though!

Wishing you great luck in finding your suitable — hopefully superior — MWF substitute.

 

[Ravenonrock]

It can’t be replaced, it’s truly one of my favourite soaps. It just does so many things right. Fortunately I really like variety and am using a broad rotation of other very good quality soaps, but none with that unique experience I get from MWF. I’ll just enjoy what I have as long as it lasts…should be a while hopefully.

 

[NorthernSoul]

What in the world is that picture you're using for an avatar? Does that reflect your opinion of the new palm oil version of MWF?

 

[Guido75]

I know a place here near my home town where MWF tallow still rules supreme without speculative pricing.

 

[ivan_101]

I know a place here near my home town where MWF tallow still rules supreme without speculative pricing.

Do you have a truck?

 

[Balthazar]

Try Shannon’s Soaps Chupacabra base soaps. The are tallow + lanolin and are superb performers.

Thanks for the suggestion. I forgot to mention that my preference is for unscented soaps, and I see that Shannon's has one with the Chupacabra base called "Nil". I also forgot to mention that I am based in Europe, so it's a big plus if the soap's available from a European vendor.

Alas I haven't been able to find any with Shannon's in their inventory, but depending on how the search goes I might need to branch out and order from the US too. (What an amazing selection of unscented tallow based soaps there compared to Europe, by the way.)

I am not dogmatic about tallow though, and there are some promising candidates from the veggie world that will be given a fair chance. Haslinger is showing some promise already, and I'll hopefully be able to test their unscented "Sensitiv" soap soon. I also have high hopes for Signature Soap's "Capra" and Scheermonnik's "Puur".

What in the world is that picture you're using for an avatar? Does that reflect your opinion of the new palm oil version of MWF?

It's what happens to your avatar when you come back to this forum after 13 years of inactivity. A punishment of sorts I guess.

I know a place here near my home town where MWF tallow still rules supreme without speculative pricing.

Thanks but I'm not quite ready to leave this world just yet.

(Seriously though? Incredible. I know of a Taiwanese wet shaving vendor that has a single puck left, and I almost pulled the trigger on it (I ship tea from Taiwan on a semi-regular basis, so I could just have added it onto one of those shipments), but it felt a bit desperate to secure one last puck just to postpone the inevitable search for something else.)

 

[Guido75]

Thanks but I'm not quite ready to leave this world just yet.

: And I hope you will be around for a long time still! Wasn't Kent shaving soap a MWF dupe?

I wasn't metaphorical at all by the way. My local brick and mortar shave store has these still in stock. Just checked again to be sure. And they ship within the EU (just read you're in Europe - so am I).

 

[Goofy_Bee]

Just come to the dark side, join SMAUG
and make your own King of Soaps.

 

[NorthernSoul]

...Hopefully it won't become an endless white whale search...

For the OP, there is a similar soap from the UK that is made by a small artisan. There are currently three scents being offered.

The website is here:

Home | Dr. R. Tantra

Natural Yoghurt Milk Based Soaps, Made In Hampshire, Handcrafted Using Dr. R. Tantra's own secret formulations

rtantra7.wixsite.com

Ingredients (for Cedar and Patchouli scent):

Potassium (Tallow) Tallowate, Sodium Tallowate, Potassium Stearate (Stearic Acid), Sodium Stearate, Potassium Cocoate (Coconut oil), Sodium Cocoate, Potassium Castorate (Castor oil), Sodium Castorate, Potassium Cocoabutterate (Cocoa Butter) Sodium Cocoabutterate, Glycerin, Lanolin, Aqua, Cedrus Deodara Wood Oil (Cedarwood essential oil), Pogostemon Cablin oil (Patchouli essential oil), Limonene*. * part of essential oils

There's also lavender versions of the soap.

 

[Doc Dan]

I have an unused unopened puck of tallow MWF that I will trade for a Koraat or Thiers Issard straight razor. Going once, going twice...

 

[Goofy_Bee]

I have an unused unopened puck of tallow MWF that I will trade for a Koraat or Thiers Issard straight razor. Going once, going twice...

I‘ll do so with an unopened I Coloniali Mango

 

[Balthazar]

...

Just come to the dark side, join SMAUG
and make your own King of Soaps.

Actually I would love to try making my own soaps some day. I don't imagine I'll find the time for it before retirement,though, too many other pet projects taking up my time (and wife's goodwill).

For the OP, there is a similar soap from the UK that is made by a small artisan. There are currently three scents being offered.

Thanks for sharing. From an ingredients list point of view this looks extremely promising (would have loved a completely fragrance free option, but from the general profile of the products, I have a feeling these soaps' scents are going to be on the milder end of the spectrum). And an "artisan" that actually fits the artisan description, how refreshing! Great prices too.

As her Amazon and Ebay stores are closed/on hiatus, and her Etsy store only ships within UK, I contacted Dr. Tantra to see if it's possible to ship to Norway. Unfortunately our country is covered by EU regulations for cosmetics (despite not being a direct member of the union, we have a knack for implementing the worst of the regulations they push out), so it will be a bit more cumbersome to get the soaps here. But it can be done, and it will be done.

Exited to try these out!

 

[Alex Jr]

Stirling unscented with beeswax.

 

[Balthazar]

I forgot to mention this in the opening post, but I still have one last puck of MWF tallow. My routine had always been to order two new pucks when I started on the last one in my stash, and it was when this happened back in August that I discovered the reformulation.

It has been very useful to have this tallow puck at hand because it allows me to make my comparison of other soaps with MWF tallow based not only on what would be memories undoubtedly viewed through rose-tinted nostalgia glasses.

Yesterday I shaved with the MWF tallow again for the first time in about two weeks. It was a great shave and a fantastic post-shave. Most of my affinity for the soap comes down to the latter (not the lather, ba dum tss) and I expect post-shave to be the main focus of my notes on different soaps.

This is how I see it: I typically shave every other day, so let’s say 3,5 times per week, for about half an hour per shave (well, typically a little less than 30 minutes, but we’ll round it up). So around 2 percent of my life is shave. The other 98 percent is post-shave (and/or preshave, depending your way of seeing things).

I happen to have skin where my 98 percent post-shave time is greatly affected by my 2 percent shave time, and so what shaving does to my skin is nonnegligible. This seems to be the case for quite a few of the most staunch MWF fans out there.

All of this is just a long-winded way of saying that my views, impressions, notes etc. are focusing on a very limited aspect of the “shaving experience” (which, to repeat myself, is actually the “non-shaving experience”) and will probably not be of much use to most people. YMMV, and all that. I’m driving a sensitive vehicle.

I won’t try to to explain explain just how or why the MWF tallow works so well for my skin. It’s a case of “je ne sais quoi”, or “the Dao that can be spoken is not the real Dao”. Or my vocabulary is just not good enough. But the post-shave blows everything else I’ve tried through the water, which was the reason for why I discarded everything else for a good decade (except for a brief chance given to Haslinger’s (tallow) Schafmilch).

Let’s try to explain it with music instead, and for MWF we need something British. The post-shave is like Talk Talk’s “I believe in you”.

By the way, @Guido75 wasn’t kidding about the availability of tallow MWF from his local source. Not in heaven or the netherworld, but the Netherlands. I ordered eight pucks which, with all the other stuff I’m picking up and will need to rotate my way through, should last at least another decade. Could have ordered more, but I’ve already started on this quest for a replacement and who knows where it will take me. Eight seemed like a decent hedging strategy. Much appreciate the tip, this thread is already paying dividends.

 

[Guido75]

Excellent!! Glad to be of assistance!

 

[Balthazar]

Stirling unscented with beeswax.

While there are several European vendors that offer Stirling soaps, unfortunately none of them (at least not the ones I know) offer the unscented with beeswax. Which is a shame... Same for e.g. Zingari Man and WhollyKaw, the unscented options are apparently not popular enough to make it over here.

I have some other Stirling samples on the way, though.

 

[Alex Jr]

While there are several European vendors that offer Stirling soaps, unfortunately none of them (at least not the ones I know) offer the unscented with beeswax. Which is a shame... Same for e.g. Zingari Man and WhollyKaw, the unscented options are apparently not popular enough to make it over here.

I have some other Stirling samples on the way, though.

True. I’ve searched that one in Europe too. No luck.

 

[Balthazar]

On to the actual contestants, but first a couple of notes.

All soaps will be tested using the same gear, the cast of characters can be seen in the image below. I only face lather, and take a good 2-3 minutes to massage the lather deep into my skin. Usually do three passes (WTG, XTG, ATG), though only the first one for the neck area. Cold-water both pre-, intra- and post-shave. I shave every other day.

(DE-razor: Vintage Gillette Tech, not sure about the details. Blade: Kai Stainless Steel Double Edge. Brush: Semogue 620. Aftershave splash: Lucky Tiger After Shave and Face Tonic. Lotion (not pictured): Alternating between CeraVe Moisturizing Lotion or A-Derma Exomega Control Lotion, depending on feel of the day).


ROUND 1: D.R. Harris Lavender and MWF reformulation

I had already, unwittingly, ordered two pucks of the MWF reformulation so it made sense to include it in the first round of testing. I also ordered a puck of the D.R. Harris Lavender, it being tallow-based, triple-milled and supposedly carrying a rather mild scent, i.e. checking most of the “MWF boxes” save for the lanolin.

I started out with the following session pattern: DRH → MWF Tallow → MWF veggie → DRH etc. So alternating between the two contenders, but always with a MWF Tallow intermission between them to calibrate the comparisons with the benchmark. I went on like this for a couple weeks in order to reduce the effect of external noise (also known as “life”). For example, I swim 2-3 times per week, and on those days my skin is likely to react a bit different. Sometimes work stress and/or bad sleep may have an effect on my skin too.

I later switched to doing three consecutive sessions with each of the three soaps to get a better idea of long-term skin reaction (without the MWF grace period resetting things between every session of the contenders).

I probably had around 6-10 shaves with each contender before I moved on.

The results?

Both soaps preform pretty great during the shave in my opinion. Easy to lather (I never had an issue with MWF tallow either though), excellent protection and slickness throughout the shave. As mentioned I prefer unscented or very mild, “soapy” scents, and the lavender fragrance I could take or leave. Not wild about it, but not off-putting either, I’d say it’s fairly mild. The reformulated MWF formula scent is is very similar to the tallow formula one, though different in a uncanny way that I (again) fail to translate into words. It somehow feels slightly more synthetic, though it’s note a huge deal.

I’d say both of these soaps would be an excellent choice for “normal skin” people.

But neither of them has the post-shave X-factor of the tallow MWF. Well, the DRH Lavender has a pretty good post-shave feel too, my skin felt smooth and properly moistened even after the consecutive shaves. But it did give me an ever so slightly reddening/burning sensation on a couple of occasions that I would guess is connected to the parfume. This did not happen with the reformulated MWF, which also was not in any way drying. Yet it didn’t deliver the same feeling as the MWF tallow.

I always shave in evenings, typically right before bedtime, and the “immediate” post-shave feel difference was very noticeable. My face would predictably feel a bit warmer on the evenings when the DRH Lavender or reformulated MWF had been used, which would sometimes make it a bit harder to fall asleep. Nothing dramatic, but worth noting.

To summarize, I do think both of these contenders are excellent soaps in their own right, but a significant step down for this particular mug.

The folks at Mitchell’s Wool Fat was able to preserve most of what made the soap great, down to the charismatic “you haven’t used me for a week” surface cracks. But its signature trick, the post-shave feel, which set it apart from the very wide “excellent soaps suited for most people” segment, is gone, it seems to me. I will revisit it though, but not for a good while.