round 2; 17mm tallow and 15mm palm. this time I flicked most the water out of the brushes and spent years loading, this is not a fun soap to whip lather up twice with small brushes. this time I used a random Treet 7 days blade I had laying about. the blade seemed pretty fresh and made the differences between the soaps non discernible to my simple mind.
[EXPERIMENT] Seeking Testers for the New Formulation of Mitchell’s Wool Fat Soap
- Thread starter AJMiami
- Start date
I’m in, if you still need participants. I have had a bad batch of tallow but now have a good one that I use. Thanks.
I have shaved with the new formation soap for three shaves now thanks to the generous sample given by the author of this thread.
Going into it I was expecting a noticeably worse product. I was very surprised. It lathered very very well without any effort. It was not a thirsty soap which is also true of the original. It created a thick lather that stayed on the face. It also left a pleasant smooth feeling on my skin afterward which could best described as silky. The scent of the soap was neutral. Having used the original MWF, and now having used this one. I found it hard to criticize the new formulation as it seemed to perform just as well as the old formulation. This is an example not having lost anything with the new batch. If it has a shortcoming it would be the scent as it was neutral.
Going into it I was expecting a noticeably worse product. I was very surprised. It lathered very very well without any effort. It was not a thirsty soap which is also true of the original. It created a thick lather that stayed on the face. It also left a pleasant smooth feeling on my skin afterward which could best described as silky. The scent of the soap was neutral. Having used the original MWF, and now having used this one. I found it hard to criticize the new formulation as it seemed to perform just as well as the old formulation. This is an example not having lost anything with the new batch. If it has a shortcoming it would be the scent as it was neutral.
- Thread starter
- #184
my apologies, I should have specified earlier that all 12 available samples went out to participants
Was this a back-to-back test, or are you going off previous recollections of tallow MWF? Just curious.
I was going off a recent use of the tallow.
CzechCzar
Use the Fat, Luke!
This is terribly sad.
This is good. Curious where did you hear this?
Is the reason for the switch the rising cost of beef tallow? Weird thing is I just started the carnivore diet and will probably be looking to buy beef tallow for consumption. Saw it at the grocery store and was surprised it's only like $1.99 a pound.
Some soap makers offer both beef tallow versions and veggie versions of their soaps. Maybe MWF will be offered in both if they see their sales take a nose dive in the next year or so.
Post by The Men's Room Barber Shop in the "Mitchell's Wool Fat Shaving Soap is no longer tallow based" thread.
They wanted to know if he would be okay with blanked out labels on the soap and ceramic or if he wished to wait for new packaging and the ceramic redesign for his next order.
H
HarryAU570
I truly hoped that MWF will create two products, Tallow and Veggie Palm, every wet shaver does having right to choose regardless of the price they pay when choosing MWF..... I WANT TALLOW BACK, or you'll get no money from us MWF
Mitchells Wool Fat Shaving Soap is no longer Tallow based
New gifs for the collection, thank you :-)
www.badgerandblade.com
...and that's not going to happen. Hopefully they at least tweak the recipe a bit going forwards. It's very nearly as good as the tallow stuff already.
I imagine they will suffer a couple months of turbulent sales, but all in all the new product is really not bad. I'm sure the the NEW will soon cannibalize and in 6mo time they will be back to normal. Though it appears they may have lost a partnership with Kent when this all blows over.
The only way MWF gets revenue from me will be Bath Soaps. I've stocked and sealed enough away (Kent & MWF), as I imagine most here have done.
Something about the way this was handled left a bad taste in my mouth...
CzechCzar
Use the Fat, Luke!
1000% agreed
So was it a woke reason why they switched originally?
Your question is just as speculative as any other suggested rationale provided here, but I highly doubt that racial inequality or BLM activism (woke) factored into their decision.
Unless I missed it, they have not specifically come out with their (or their soap maker's) justification to modify the recipe.
To be honest, they don't need to other than to save face and recoup prospective loss of business. What's done is done.
I wouldn't be surprised if the decision were purely economical
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No. They have said that the soap manufacturer was no longer able to get the soap noodles used in the MWF tallow base.
Anything beyond that is speculation.
The SNAFU with Kent does seem to imply that they were not in a situation where they were prepared to deal with a product changeover.
On the other hand, the new soap is good enough that some of us are wondering exactly how long they spent developing it, and if it was something they had developed for exactly this sort of situation.
Mitchell's Wool Fat is a lanolin based company, so there's no question of them ever going totally vegan with their products, which makes going vegan for vegan's sake rather a moot point.
Either they felt they could no longer produce their product at it's current price point, and felt customers would react badly to a price increase, or the soap manufacturer really couldn't get the soap noodles anymore.
Without more information, we should probably just accept their explanation for the formula change.
CzechCzar
Use the Fat, Luke!
I wonder if the changing EU regs played a role.
Correspondence between MWF and Kent:
"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), but that isn’t the wool fat element of the product, and absolutely will always contain Lanolin, the Wool Fat, which is intrinsic to the brand.
Our delivery of the new Ingredients is due into us this week, and so any further orders that you place with us from now will be the ingredients as attached which we will need to have new labels prepared for.
The quality and consistency remain at the forefront of all we do, and the change in base formulation, brought on in part by changes in the use of some common preservatives, will not detract from performance or the feel whilst maintaining a more consistent availability of supply and stability of the market."
Edit: Going off the ingredients list, we haven't been able to figure out which ingredient was the problematic one. The general consensus is that the requirement to use a purer grade of tallow is the main impetus behind the change.
Most soaps that were reformulated were trying to save money on ingredients.
Cashing in on a soaps reputation for quality. until enough People try the new soap, find it inferior and stop buying it. By then the changeover has more than paid for itself, and they move on to another product.
Corporations do this all the time with products. They change the product by using cheaper ingredients until the public stops buying it and then they move onto new product. Seems to usually happen after a privately owned company, sells out to a large corporation.
Cashing in on a soaps reputation for quality. until enough People try the new soap, find it inferior and stop buying it. By then the changeover has more than paid for itself, and they move on to another product.
Corporations do this all the time with products. They change the product by using cheaper ingredients until the public stops buying it and then they move onto new product. Seems to usually happen after a privately owned company, sells out to a large corporation.
Or when an owner, in this case, Graham Robinson, passes away, and functional control of Mitchell's Wool Fat Ltd. is passed on to his children. His wife retains controlling interest in the firm, but as she's in her 80's, I doubt she's involved in the day to day running of MWF.
