Mitchell's Wool Fat Shaving Soap Review

Blademonkey

Blademonkey

Forum GOD!
Shaver X said:
Mitchell's Wool Fat Shaving Soap Review

Website: www.mitchellswoolfatsoap.co.uk

Note: This is a mirror of a review I posted awhile back on another shaving forum. Since MWF is made in the UK, I thought you guys might find it useful.

I have read numerous posts on forums wherein people showered Mitchell Wool Fat's with praise, with many esteeming it the ne plus ultra of shaving soaps. I tried this soap when I first started traditional wetshaving, and the results were rather poor. The lather was watery and with big bubbles, or sometimes dry and sparse. No matter what I tried, the soap just did not perform. Fast forward to today, when I have horsehair and boar brushes with a lot more backbone than the floppy badger brush I used when starting out. I also have a lot more experience wetshaving, and presumably - hopefully - am better at whipping up a lather. And the results this time were... Wow! It is now readily apparent why Mitchell's Wool Fat Soap Ltd. has been in business such a long time.

The puck is about 3 inches (76 mm) in diameter, and so too large for my 2.5 inch (63 mm) inside diameter mug. I simply trimmed away the edges off the puck, put the trimmings in the mug, and then smooshed the trimmed puck down on top of the trimmings. Used every day, the soap lasted a little over five months.



Ingredients

Sodium Tallowate, Potassium Stearate, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Stearate, Aqua, Potassium Cocoate, Glycerin, Pafum, Alph-Isomethyl Ionone, Hexyl Cinnamal, Limonene, Linalool, Hydroxycitronellal, Lanolin, Titanium Dioxide, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Gluconate, Sodium Silicate, Tetrasodium EDTA, Magnesium Sulphate, Tetrasodium Etidronate. This was taken from the label on the soap.

Lather

The soap lathers readily with my Vie Long horse hair brush, although it does take a little extra effort to get a useable amount of lather. The Vie Long could lather a granite countertop, though. Mitchell’s Wool Fat lathers just as well with my Omega boar brush. With the Vie Long especially, a lot of water in the brush was needed to get the best lather. This is a thirsty soap! The lather goes on my face in a rather thin layer, not terribly fluffy and foamy. It is very effective nonetheless.

Once applied, the lather starts to disappear a little in about 45 seconds if I just stand there and do nothing. After one minute, the lather subsidence is a little more noticeable. Even after waiting 45 sec first, the soap gives a fine shave. Unless one reads a novel before starting to shave, lather longevity should not be an issue.

- Ease of lathering: (7/10)
- Life span of lather: (7/10)



Brushes used

Left: Vie Long Epsilon Model GC13900/3 horse hair brush
Right: Omega 50014 boar travel brush

Performance

Mitchell's Wool Fat shaving soap gives truly outstanding performance. It is ultra-slick and makes Teflon look like sandpaper in comparison. The razor glides very easily across my face with all the blades I tried. There is absolutely no tugging or pulling, no nicks or cuts unless I get careless and shave way too fast. Getting super smooth shaves was a very comfortable and pleasant affair with this soap.

The skincare with Mitchell's is amazing, and the very best I have ever encountered with a shaving soap or cream. I used aftershave balm twice while using this soap, but found it offered no skincare improvement over the soap itself. The rest of the time, I just let the soap provide the skincare. My face felt great even several hours after shaving.

The claims I read were right. This really is the ne plus ultra of shaving soaps.

- Lubrication: (10/10)
- How protective: (10/10)
- General skincare: (10/10)

Scent

I find the scent to be "soapy", if that makes any sense. I do detect a very faint bit of spice. The scent is quite mild and pleasant and not at all overpowering like some other shaving soaps. To my nose, this scent is just right.
- Scent: (8/10)

Value for the money

A 4.4 oz./ 125 gram puck cost me $18 / £13, excluding shipping and minus the VAT. Given the quality of the soap, that is a good deal. Good, not outstanding. Other outlets offer it for much less. Connaught Shaving sells it for $7 / £5.25 excluding VAT (£6.30 with VAT). At that price, it is an absolute steal. Price ratings are for $18, which is what I paid for the soap. At the $7 or 6.30 price point, both ratings would easily be 10/10.

- Price: (7/10)
- Would you buy again: (8/10)

Conclusion

Oh, this one is a keeper if ever there was one. Fantastic performance and available at a very reasonable price makes this conclusion a quick and easy one.

- Overall: (8.3/10)
Would be 9/10 if purchased at a low-cost outlet

My water hardness

42 mg/l as CaCO3 (soft)

The water hardness was taken from my utility's latest water quality update. The scale below was used to correlate water mg/l to the soft/hard rating, and is from the US Geological Survey website.

Water hardness scale (as CaCO3):

0-60 mg/l: Soft
61-120 mg/l: Moderately hard
121-180 mg/l: Hard
Over 180 mg/l: Very hard

mg/l is milligrams per liter
Some utilities give water hardness in parts per million (ppm)
1 mg/l = 1 ppm (not exactly, but very, very close)

Disclaimer:

I purchased the soap reviewed here from a retail outlet. The review was done entirely of my own volition, and I was not compensated in any way for reviewing this (or any other) soap, and was not asked to review this product. No samples were provided by the manufacturer, and they were not contacted - and did not contact me - in any way.
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Great review , I love the stuff and should use it more often, the post shave feel is out of this world. P.
 
pimple8

pimple8

Forum GOD!
Great review. Keep it up!

I didn't have luck with it, same like the op in the beginning. No matter what i have done i never got a decent lather. It drove me crazy cause i was hearing all these good things about it. Stopped using it and went on. I should try it again now when i have much more experience but there's just too many great soaps and i just don't have time to battle with MWF again :)

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk
 
D

Deleted member 1881

Guest
Lather was never existed for me too. The slickness itself was amazing but no density of the lather, no nothing.

I don't want to try hard to get a decent lather from a product. Mercy.
 
Grarea

Grarea

Forum Plod
I love how often MWF comes up.
I really like it, esp the post shave feel.
If I remember rightly, I don't think it had the same cushion I have been finding with more recent soaps.
I find many other soaps sting me and sometimes drying, but not this one.
I have been trying all sorts of good soaps recently, so I think that it is time to get it back out.
I wonder if I will still find it good compared to my recent ones.

It has been unloved for a little while. At least a year.
Let me see how well it comes back. Here it is (It was pressed into this tub and filled it to the sides. Time for some rehydration methinks) :

IMGP2250.jpg
 
MntnMan62

MntnMan62

Forum GOD!
MWF is a great soap. There are other soaps that are similar yet different, such as Haslinger Schafmilch. After some discussion on another forum I was convinced to grate some of each and combine them to see how it effects performance. Well, it lathers like crazy, is crazy slick, crazy cushion and nice post shave moisturized feel. And much to my surprise the scent of them combined is really nice, clean and fresh, more so than either alone. And we even gave it a name. The Fat ‘As. And a label. Grated and combined in a 1:1 ratio.

28E905F9-CE42-40A9-B4DC-897635EB20C6.jpeg
 
Grarea

Grarea

Forum Plod
Well, that has now been soaking for a week.
It quickly increased in size, but then stopped.
I am pretty sure it filled it up last time, but I hadn't left it any where near as long.
I have been using Vreto last few months and MWF felt a bit thinner when I was putting it on, so was expecting less cushion.
But, actually, it was fine.
Vreto is quite thirsty I think, so I probably had too much water.
I shall use it for a while and get back into the swing of it.

Boy ya gotta love the post shave.
 
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