My final thoughts on the new formula, having been testing it all this last week.
Fifth and final shave with the New Fat and my final conclusions. (The remainder of the sample is now with my brother in law, who also uses the Fat, and wanted to evaluate it for himself).
Bias Alert! I considered, and still consider the Old Fat to be one of the greatest shaving soaps ever made. It is against that standard that I judge the New Fat, and though I have attempted to judge it on it's own merits, the old formula is still very much 'the elephant in the room,' when any type of comparison to other shave soaps is involved.
THE PROS:
It's an unexpectedly good soap. They did a good job making it almost like the old MWF. When I read the ingredients list, I expected this soap to be hot garbage.
Once dialed in, it performs well, perhaps even more consistently than the original. Usage rate seems to be about on par with the original, though I would expect the original to last longer as a harder soap.
It's not as drying as I would expect. Probably due to the lanolin content. I would class it as somewhat drying, and a little less drying than most palm and coconut based soaps out there.
The scent. After five uses, the scent has largely turned into a MWF dupe. To me, they smell near identical.
THE CONS:
The lather starts to break down by the second or third pass. Not necessarily by getting thinner, but by breaking down into an airy, foamy type of lather. It's easy to correct by adding a bit more soap and reworking the lather. Ironically, this same problem affects some users of the Old Fat, though in the initial stages of lather building, not after the lather is made. The same fix applies, add more soap. If the lather is dry and flaky, add more water.
Slickness. The Old Fat (for me) was the king of slickness. Something about the combination of tallow and lanolin produced an über slick soap. Maybe the reduced amount of oleic acid has some effect here?
Post shave. The New Fat falls flat on it's face here. It retains the skin softening effect, attributed to the lanolin content. The skin moisturizing effect that also accompanied the Old Fat is completely gone. Along with it is that 'greasy' or 'glass-like feel' as it's described by haters and lovers of the old formula Fat. Again, this is probably related to the removal of a lot of oleic acid from the revised formula.
Looking at the differences between the two ingredient lists, the stuff that was left out of the new formula seems to be tallow and some coconut oil, some synthetic scents, water softeners, emulsifiers, chelating agents, and pH balancers. Some of these have been replaced by alternatives. These are just the ingredients that didn't carry over to the new soap.
Summary.
I think the New Fat has a broader appeal to the average wet shaver. It's less likely to offend or otherwise distress the new user.
Naturally, it does so at the cost of everything that made it unique and beloved by entire generations of wet shavers.
Unfortunately, there is no soap waiting in the wings to replace this foundational pillar of a traditional shaving soap, in the price bracket it occupied. The original Fat wasn't so much an extraordinary soap in itself, as it was an extraordinarily well-balanced soap.
In this respect, the New Fat is almost as well balanced as it's predecessor. (When measured against itself anyways). The ratio of cushion vs. slickness vs. scent vs. post-shave remains about the same, even if most of these have taken a step backwards from the original.
Recommendation. I always used to recommend the Old Fat as a must try. One of the great traditional shaving soaps. Once dialed in, it had no equal.
The New Fat is a good soap. You've got to spend in the $25 range or higher to find soaps that beat it. But in itself, it doesn't bring anything to the table that other soaps don't already do. I can't say as it's a better soap than any of the other $15 soaps out there. If it had been introduced as a shaving stick or an alternative option to the original, it would have probably gained a better acceptance among the wet shaving forumites.
A special thanks to Ariel for putting together this U.S. based test-a-thon, and for inviting me to the party.
I was biased against the new formula, and had a set of preconceived notions of how the new formula would stack up. It ended up being better than I expected, if not as good as I had hoped for.
