Mitchell's Wool Fat Soap

Fido

Fido

Messages
6,286
Location
New Forest, England.
This soap continues to frustrate me. This is the only soap or cream that I simply cannot produce great lather from. I have tried it with every type of brush, try different amounts of water, work at it for lengthy periods and still don't produce a decent thick and cushioning lather. Sometimes it's acceptable but it really is too much effort compared with others. Yes, I like the scent and yes, it leaves my skin soft and supple. But so do most others.

I'll persist with MWF in my rotation - as my first serious soap I guess I'm sort of attached to it. But it's continuing popularity is a puzzle bearing in mind the quality of other soaps on the market.

And I have read many tips on how to get the best out of it. None do it for me.
 
Fido said:
I'll persist with MWF in my rotation - as my first serious soap I guess I'm sort of attached to it. But it's continuing popularity is a puzzle bearing in mind the quality of other soaps on the market.
Click to expand...

Why persist Fido.

Some products give you immense satisfaction from their use but you only gain satisfaction from others by passing them on to others :mrgreen:

Que gannet squad :lol:
 
Yep. Face-lather it.

Damp (not wet) brush, a few swirls then to the face, then dampen the brush a bit more and do the same . . . repeat until you look like Santa.

Your Chubby (f'nar f'nar) should make very light work of it - and the Duke - but forget the Kent brush.
 
It's certainly not the easiest soap to lather, and I am convinced that it doesn't suit rotating with other soaps. I find that I need to use it for at least 3 days on the trot to get it working well, and I have no idea why.

Sometimes I think it's the best soap in the world, and on other days I think it's one of the worst.

Maybe it's mystery is what makes it appealing?

Ian
 
My experience is similar to IanM's Fido. I always liked this soap although it has never been (for me at least) able to produce the type of lather , thick & creamy, I can get from almost any more modern soap I've tried. I always found however that it wasn't a soap I could just use then go to something else, then pop back to with any success. Which leads me to think that you must get into a certain way of lathering & applying it by constant usage.

Still, you've got the soap already, it'll be there whenever you want to go back to it and remember why you stopped trying it ; why not just move on with some of the remainder of the 2 or 3 hundred others I'm sure I saw in your "working" store ! :p

JohnnyO
 
If it is a water issue would it be worth trying filtered or bottled water for a few runs? Not so much for ongoing use but more just to find out if that may be the cause of the poor lather.
 
I get pretty decent lather with MWF regardless of brush used :? .
I drizzle about a teaspoon of hot water on the puck and let it sit for a couple of minutes.
I then pour that into the bowl, soap up the wet but not dripping brush and whip up a good lather in the bowl adding a few drops of hot water if necessary.
This always produces a thick lather for me with MWF so maybe Im blessed with good water,,or maybe I just got lucky and got a well behaved puck of the stuff :)
Nice soap though and I wouldn't want to be without it.
Persevere Fido, Im sure you'll make it work.
Regards, beejay
 
As I prefer cold-water shaving, I find that MWF also seems to like cold-water shaving too. I run some cold tap water over the soap, let it soak in the bowl and pour it off into the lather bowl a few minutes later on - load the brush and away we go.

Sorry to see you struggling Fido. Considering my inexperience at it, I can't really begin to think there's any tips I can really pass on to the long-time pogonauts, such as you.
 
I wouldn't venture to offer any tips to Fido either :lol: I'm sure my lathering technique is mediocre at best, but happily the soft water round here makes up for that. If Fido was to bring his soap on holiday to the Bradford area, he'd probably wind up with an embarrassing surplus of lather, but I hardly think that's a compelling enough reason to visit.

The Wool Fat thing comes up regularly on SRP, with the same divide between people who love it to bits and others who can't raise a lather worth speaking of. Over there people seem to be more willing to add cream to the mix and solve the problem that way, so if that's what it takes, why not?
 
My experience echoes Fido's.

I relegated my first puck to the shower (and it wasn't even very good at that!)

I kept reading how other people swore by it and read an article on B&B by someone who recommends not using hot water. Well, I thought what the hell and ordered another puck.

Same old same old.... boar, badger, face, bowl, hot/cold, dry brush, wet brush, sopping brush, night, day, full moon, etc etc....

Thing is, if the soap didn't work at all, then I'd just put it down to water supply and be done with it.

The thing that annoys the hell out of me is this: I have had amazing lather from it, on occasion, and those occasions tend to be test lathers! I would say out of 20 laterings, only 1 or 2 give that great lather that everyone raves about.

As such, I find it too frustrating to use for everyday shaving. And even if it were for occasional use, there would be no guarantee I'd get good lather that day. So what's the point? I want to enjoy my shaves, not get stressed and annoyed about my soap!

It sure seems to work for some folks though....

PS. My first lathering with a Chubby 2 was with MWF, which was awesome. It never happened again! :?
 
No problems here. Any brush works. The lather is good, but not anywhere near as thick or goo-ey like Mama Bears, Cella etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom