For those in the UK, how much do you pay locally for a replacement puck of MWF? My wife is heading across the pond this summer for a few weeks and I'm giving her a shopping list! Thanks, Jay
Ryan, Apologies for the delayed reply, I've been working night shifts recently. It throws my system completely off kilter, it's a young man's caper. I know your posts on MWF, thanks, they were largely instrumental in my trying it. My only regret was not buying it sooner. I'd be interested to know read what ShaverX thinks when he's tried it. Jay - I've never seen MWF available off the shelf in the UK but it's available via their Amazon shop at £6.95 + £1.95 delivery for the puck, or the soap + ceramic bowl are currently on sale at £20.49 + free delivery. Marginally cheaper on UK Ebay but stock is variable. Regards, Chris
I followed PLANofMAN's directions - but with a different soap. I'm not sure if I'd get the same results with a triple-milled soap; but you don't have to use MWF, because it worked fine with B&M. 1. I soaked the puck until the soap was completely covered with about a quarter inch of water. Leave it on the table overnight, uncovered. Twelve hours should do it. 2. In the morning, all of the excess water has soaked in. The puck is a little soft...but if you turn the puck upside-down, no water comes out. At this point, you're ready to prepare the lather. 3. Soak your budget brush, and shake out the excess water. Now, use the brush to transfer the not-quite-liquid soap to a shaving bowl or scuttle. Ten or fifteen seconds of should do it. 4. Finally, add a couple tablespoons of warm water into your shaving bowl or scuttle, and whip up the lather. I don't care for gobs of lather - just enough to get a good shave.
I enjoy my MWF soap. I don't bloom my puck...just do a few swirls with a wet brush and then face lather. I dont know why guys find this such a difficult soap to lather. For me it is a lather monster with very little effort. The only puck I ever bloomed is Williams. And it, too, always produced a nice thick lather. I think for any soap it is really a matter of preference...or water quality. Whatever works best is the right approach.
I have made tobacco scented Mitchell's wool fat soap before, using captain black tobacco. What are your thoughts about this: take some captain black Cavendish tobacco, steep it like you were making tea, and use that water to hydrate a new puck of Mitchell's wool fat. I would like your feedback.
I don't think it is a very good idea, to be honest. The organic particulates in the tabocco will start to decompose. However, if you want that scent, nothing could be easier. A bottle of Tobacco Absolute can be purchased cheaply. It is what companies use to add the tobacco note to fragrances. Grate a puck of MWF, add water, add a drop or two of tobacco absolute (a little goes a long way), stir and wait a day or two for the mixture to homogenize. If you are dead set on using captain black, the best way to use it would be to do a cold ethanol extraction. As it happens, I know how you can do that. One of my blog posts here: https://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/f...obacco-extraction-in-a-home-environment.5525/ Edit: on second thought, don't use the ethanol extraction method. You can use dry ice to get the solid particulates to dump out and I would freeze and thaw the tobacco several times to get the most "scent stuff" out. You can use the tea brewing method you talked about above.
Thanks for the detailed response. I will most likely repeat my previous MWF/Cavendish recipe (see TSN Thread). It worked brilliantly, but takes three months to cure. http://shavenook.com/showthread.php?tid=30500
Very interesting, thanks for sharing. If this were done with coffee, would we get a caffeinated soap?
@PLANofMAN's you bloody ripper the MWF Hydration Method works like magic thank you for this great solution
You are a fortunate one. When one can find an endless number of discussions on wet-shaving forums and How-To YouTube videos explaining how to get good lather from MWF, there has to be more than a few isolated instances where folks have found MWF difficult to lather. The fact the soap has its own TSD 'hydration method' thread is indicative of a common or known problem.
I wonder how much this "problem" is based in reality and how much is based upon rumor...? My point is that many newcomers read posts about the challenges of lathering MWF and assume they will also have the problem too. It's a mind game IMO.
No doubt rumor or reputation plays into people's perception. Many of these threads do stem from experienced shavers who have difficulty getting consistent lather from MWF, specially compared to other shave soaps.
I tried MWF for about 40 shaves and found it a pain to get consistent lather. I PIFed it as I just found it to be too much work. Yes, it was a good performer, once I got a good lather but I didn't like how long it took. There are too many other soaps that work better for me to mess with MWF.
Just unwrapped a new puck of MWF and have begun the hydration process... I will document the entire process and subsequent results. Bear in mind that I never had a lathering issue with MWF. I would bloom the dry puck while showering.
I must have bought the one puck that was easy to lather...kind of like buying the one chocolate bar that had the Golden Ticket (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).
I'd like to reiterate that the hydration method only speeds up a natural process of water absorption through regular use. However, people who use MWF on a regular basis, seem to be the ones who have little difficulty using MWF. ...fancy that.
24 hours passed and I dumped out the remaining liquid. Except that it wasn't unabsorbed water, rather, what I believe it to be 90% leeched lanolin. I did a couple of test lathers, one palm and one bowl, Both produced good lather as expected. Today, after 24 more hours, I took this picture: Cracks appearing already. My last puck of MWF looked like a brain, it had so many cracks. Just finished shaving. The lather was great (as usual); the slickness was very good (as usual); the protection was excellent (as usual); the post shave was lovely (as usual). My conclusion: 1) Intersting experiment 2) Regret the loss of the natural lanolin from the puck 3) No discernible shave difference 4) Unnecessary process, considering my shaving variables. 5) Could probably help those wet shavers having MWF lathering issues I wanted to add that IMO, the best thing to do with a new puck of MWF is to use your cheese grater and grate the puck up and press it into your container of choice. ~~~P
I haven't tried this hydration method with MWF but did it once with modern Williams. After soaking a whole puck for 24-ish hours the puck swelled a little and the remaining water turned firm - similar to jello. I poured it off and assumed it was glycerin leaching or maybe tallow having some sort of gelatin effect on the water. Its hard to gauge with modern Williams but I think it lathered worse than a standard puck after that. Glad that's not the case with your MWF. I had better a result by milling a puck of Williams, then packing it loosely and filling it with just enough water to cover the shavings. It absorbed all the water with no excess. On the pipe tobacco; with steeping the water in tobacco I would worry about concentrating nicotine in the water, which I assume is not a good thing for the skin. Your first experiment vacuum packing an infused puck looks like it had good results. Very clever!
