I don't use MWF as much as Tabac, AoS, Proraso and Speick, so it can sometimes go 10 days without getting used. I went into the bathroom to whip up some MWF and I noticed that the puck is shrinking. It used to fill the whole bowl, and as you can see, there's probably 6 or 7 mm between the bowl and the puck now. It's in a cheap wooden bowl from Amazon, but I wouldn't think that would make a difference. Anyone had experience with this?
MWF Shrinking?
- Thread starter kasey
- Start date
mine gets the odd crack, but never splits.
every week or so, i run mine under the tap, pour off the excess water and reseal and put the lid back on the ceramic dish.
every week or so, i run mine under the tap, pour off the excess water and reseal and put the lid back on the ceramic dish.
Pretty common, it's just dry. Use it a few times and it'll rehydrate just fine.
As a living creature, MWF thrives under regular brushing and generates happy, fat-cheeked lather. Left alone too long it starts looking inward gently going into a refractory period or even hibernation,
A nice soaking and loving swirl of a good brush brings it right back to it's lanolicious self.
A nice soaking and loving swirl of a good brush brings it right back to it's lanolicious self.
It does that when you don't use it for a while.
There's an old saying, 'If you don't use it, you'll loose it.'
I discovered that mine was cracked into quarters when I had been in military for six months.
Just all in the life of MWF. No problem there.
I have the same thing happen to me in the same exact bowl.
When mine used to get like that, it would start performing like garbage.
I found that if I put it into a container with a tight seal on it, and lathered it at least twice a week, she stays smooth and hydrated and gives up a great lather much easier.
I found that if I put it into a container with a tight seal on it, and lathered it at least twice a week, she stays smooth and hydrated and gives up a great lather much easier.
MWF don't care about your rotation. MWF wants some attention, that's all.
2 separate people, using the same product in the same bowl.....both experiencing the same issue
ever think the soap is staying the same size and the container is getting bigger? you never know
Kasey, I haven't ever seen a soap crack that much. It should be safe to use but I think you received a bum puck.
MWF is kind of like a teenage daughter: give her the love and attention she deserves, or she'll go all self-destructive just to get back at you.
Yup, mine looks the the middle of the desert with deep cracks throughout. I've often wondered if this is because it is triple milled.
Naw, it ain't a bum puck. Dry, arrid, low humidity environments will do that to MWF. I had that exact same crack in mine and we just came out of a unusually dry winter. Grate the MWF puck and press it back into the bowl. Cracking and fitting the bowl fixed. It lathers better after grating also imo.
The cracking in MWF is not exactly because it's triple milled, but rather because of the way the final puck is formed.
Triple milling produces "flakes" of soap that must be pressed into a puck under high pressure. Except for MWF, manufacturers use a "mold" that presses the soap flakes into a solid puck with the desired shape and design imprinted in the soap. The flakes are essentially randomly arranged and pressed under very high pressure to form a solid soap puck.
MWF, on the other hand, is extruded in one continuous "log" of soap which is then wire-cut into the thickness of the puck. (If I had to hazard a guess, the manufacturing process uses a common clay de-airing pug mill.) Because it is extruded, the pressure binding the soap particles together can never get to the same levels as a traditional puck of triple milled soap, PLUS because it's travelling outward from the extruder in a single "log" the soap gets aligned in the direction of travel, producing a "grain" that travels the length of the puck.
Because the flakes are not as tightly packed as a traditional triple milled soap, and because the grain runs lengthwise along the log of soap (top to bottom in a puck), rather than in a random fashion as with a traditional die pressed soap, water can easily penetrate into that grain and cause the puck to swell, crack, split. This becomes very apparent when the water evaporates and the puck shrinks back down.
Any potter who has ever worked with a clay pug mill/extruder will instantly recognize the "puck" of MWF for what it is.
ROFL
you need to take care of your shaving stuff, fluff the badgers and swirl the soaps.That was a very interesting lesson Brian - makes perfect sense to me!
