Looking through my soap stash, most of them are now discontinued. Wilkinson Sword stick, Palmolive stick, AOS tallow, Haslinger tallow, Williams, and a couple really old Colgate cup soap pucks. I don't have any MWF left but I have used a couple of the old tallow pucks. There are lots of modern artisan soaps that are as good or even better than any of these. Hate to see a really good soap go away but I don't think we'll be left wanting for good shave soap.
When one door closes, another opens. i enjoy MWF and have enough to last a few years, but it is not the be all end all of shaving soap. Lots of decent soaps have come to pass. I am halfway through my last puck of Institut Karite Paris shave soap. Like MWF, when it is gone, Ill move on.
It's reliable, straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. It was from one of the UK shaving forums and it was from the guy who runs Connaught. The same person broke the news that MWF had been reformulated. That announcement came a week or so after the reformulation announcement, as best I can recall, so it's been over a year since that post. I don't know what they have done to make any progress towards that target, however.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. MWF tallow was the best soap in the $8-12 range, but it was by no means the best shaving soap ever made. (I'd have to give that particular crown to Saponifico Verisino, expensive as it is, YMMV).
What surprising and disappointing news. Mitchell's Wool Fat was one of my very favorite soaps. I won't be impulse buying it, though. Stashing any discontinued product only delays the inevitable. Unlike 20 years ago, we now have a wealth of alternatives, a silver lining on a dark cloud. I don't think any shaving soap manufacturer reformulates just for the heck of it. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter why a product was reformulated. Some things are simply beyond our control. If we show our support and encouragement, that may well help. https://www.connaughtshaving.com/contactconnaught.html
Just ordered a package of Captain Black Cavendish Pipe Tobacco. Stay tuned for my "curing process", in which I infuse a puck of MWF/Kent tallow shave soap...
So, here's the "result" post. The original "recipe" was posted on TSN and it is no longer available. You will get a good idea of what's involved. https://theshaveden.com/forums/threads/mwf-cavendish-vanilla-follow-up.54877/ I will post a detailed description, as soon as the tobacco arrives.
Correct. MWF was reformulated due to the original tallow soap base being unavailable, and that was due to EU regulations on the cosmetic use of tallow coming into effect. Before, they could use tallow from the slaughter houses as-is, but new regulations required it to be processed in such a way that no nerves/prions ever contacted the tallow. This made it prohibitively expensive for use in shaving soap.
Unfortunately, most likely. Those soaps are produced in a different facility, so I don't know if they have deeper stocks of tallow base, are ignoring EU regulations, or have deep stockpiles of already made soap.
My wife really likes DR Harris bath soap and it looks like it's started to go out of stock everywhere so there's a pretty good chance they are following.
i bought a few Cade puck refills a while back,1 Kent refill,and 3 more Crabtree limes refills..should be good for a while..after that i guess i'll depend on my artisan stuff.. brit /euro hard soaps were never my top shelf items unfortunatey,now the shave creams...
If you mean L'Occitan Cade shaving soap, it is still available. https://www.loccitane.com/en-us/men/product-type/shaving I do wish Crabtree & Evelyn were still around and selling shaving products. Their beautiful shaving scuttles can often still be found for sale online. A local shopping mall used to have a C&E, and then later an Art of Shaving, and even a Penhaligon's for a couple of years. All are gone now due to skyrocketing rents and the COVID lockdown. As you noted, thank goodness for the artisan soapmakers. It seems their has been a fallout compared to 10 years ago, but perhaps that is not a bad thing. The cream rises to the top!
yes sir ,it does..crabtree is still around,just no mens line anymore.. https://www.crabtree-evelyn.com/ i do miss brands like Jeeves of Hdson str. and other big names of the day,but when artisans are small,even with big products,they dwindle when the owners retire or sell..
Just as an FYI, you can 'Cavendish' any pipe tobacco in a short time if you have a pressure cooker. Heat and pressure are all that is required. I use an 'keef' press to make mini 'crumble kake' pucks of pipe tobacco, about one or two bowls worth at a time as an overnight process. Enthusiasts of the process use noodle presses to make hockey puck sized pucks. Though doing this amount takes about three days or longer. This doesn't exactly turn a tobacco into a Cavendish, but it does bring the oils to the surface of the tobacco, and deepens and enriches the flavor. I often do it to Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco. Having said all that, I was thinking that using a noodle press might be an interesting way to infuse a soap with tobacco in a much shorter time frame. I must confess that I would probably wrap the soap in cheese cloth or something similar first to keep it a bit cleaner.
