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Paul, I've not got around to using batch 9029, merely that I bought some from that batch.
@exists has actually used it from that batch and he said it worked well from what I gather.
Truth be known, I think the Salter hard tallow puck is better. It's too bad more people don't use it as it's probably not going to be around forever.
One thing we know about shaving soaps is, even if the name remains the formula can change. That's the joy of vintage. Bag a cake or two now for prosperity. Likely this soap (and in its other guise as DR Harris) will undergo a tallow removal as is the direction of many such established names at the moment.
I had been toying with hoarding the Fat but am a bit wary now.
How likely are you to guarantee a specific batch number when you order? If you ask will they honour it?
I bought 4 pucks in the Kent sale (batch number 9139). I have a soap from a while back on the go for Fat February but will try one of these pucks for tomorrow’s shave to see if we can see a pattern forming.
I wonder if Kent use a Kent specific Batch number rather than the original Mitchells number? I would imagine the Kent throughput is much lower than Mitchells so this may just be catch up to the time of the original dud batch?
I would imagine not.
Still, with just two confirmed dud batches in a good thousand over the last two years, I'd say the balance of probability is still that you'll get a good one. Thing is, we don't know how big the batches are ... but a good guess is, if a vendor gets stock from a bad batch then that's going to be what they'll be selling for a while. I had hoped in the Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfat thread that we could collate both good and bad purchasing experiences - when purchased, who from and batch number.
Purchasing is ongoing and that data would be useful and helpful for folks who already have a cake on the go. Given how we all generally have a LOT of soap, anyone with existing good cakes will no doubt still be using them next year ... or even the year after and so won't be purchasing again any time soon. But again, purchasing is ongoing.
In a decade of traditional shaving, I've bought six cakes (I think ... all good), had a potential dud donated (which turned out to be good ... user error), had a cake gifted (thanks @Satanfriendly ... tested and good), snagged a potential dud cake out of sheer curiosity to find it was indeed a dud and had a scraping from a potentially dud cake to find it sub-par but not as bad as the real dud. I'm not quite sure what that experience says, but the I am of the firm belief that the so-called dud cakes a going back a few years are not and are labelled so by user error. I am also of the firm belief that the truly dud batches came out during early lockdown (spring 2020) and susequently relieved to find back to normal by the summer/autumn of 2020. Seeing another dud batch recently is disheartening, but again, two batches later and it's confirmed good. Whether that smacks of sloppy workmanship or sub-standard ingredients or even different producers, who knows. Unlikely Mitchell's would tell us.
But again, a dud rate of 0.2% is concering, but the balance of probability is ... you'll get good cakes. Trumpers, on the other hand, is a guaranteed fail!
I’ve been following this thread for awhile and thought I’d better open up a couple of packages I received in the latter part of last year .
I was in no rush to open them up , I still have a lot of mileage left in my current puck of MWF but seeing this good / bad batch number business I thought I’d better take a look .
Number one box was from Kent , three pucks in total , one in their wooden bowl , all batch number 9139 .
Number two box was from a vendor whose name I can not remember , this is the MWF box , it also contains three pucks , one in the ceramic bowl .
Here’s the problem , I can’t see a batch number anywhere , all I see is some sort of barcode , please see picture.
Has the batch number identification method been changed ?View attachment 100519
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