Thread: Lanolin soaps

I like some of the tube creams that have lanolin: Veleiro, Lavanda, Vitos eucalyptus...

I love Mitchell's. I can't decide whether to shave with it or smoke it. An alternative which many people raise an eyebrow at is lye soap. Instead of lanolin or tallow it is heavy on lard (which is tallow but from a pig instead of a cow). Again, like Mitchell's it is not a very lathery soap but very slick and remains that way even when it goes flat. I use plain old hardware store lye soap.
Grandma's Pure Soap Lye Soap


Another thing is it is very skin friendly unlike some soaps but the thing I like is that the only scent it has is the smell of the soap itself. I personally don't want to smell like a french bordello.

I really like the halsinger sheep’s milk. My puck is maybe 2 years old, but according to the ingredients has lanolin in it. Has really nice smell, to me and is slick. Lathering is fairly east and it holds a good deal of water if you build the lather well.

Had a lather epiphany today.

I keep a puck of MWF in a hard rubber shaving mug for camping. It’s convenient and the mug is indestructible. I also keep my cheap drugstore Wilkinson shaving brush in my camping go bag because if I lose it, I can replace it for under $20 CDN.

Normally I have a heck of a time building good lather with MWF.

Today I poured boiling water from the kettle to cover the MWF puck by about 1/4 inch and let it sit while I stropped my razor. Normally, I would pour out most of the water and build lather with a wet brush. This time, I left the hot water in the mug and just started to build lather with the dry brush.

The MWF whipped up almost immediately and produced a thick, warm, moist, slick lather that lasted the entire shave. I have several top tier shaving soaps and creams and this lather was as good as the best of them. The razor glided over my face and the after shave face feel was great.

I suspect this process isn’t new and probably appears in a post somewhere on SRP, but it was new and pleasantly surprising for me and I thought I’d share.

MWF never really worked out for me, I actually thought it was very drying on the skin and the lather would always turn to crumbs on my face no matter how much water, bowl lather, face lather, upside down loading, blooming etc; I tried all the usual tricks. I doubt there's even that much lanolin in the stuff being as though it's down with Titanium Dioxide on the ingredients list which usually accounts for >1% of soap.

MWF is like Bob Dylan and the VW Bug. People either love it and want to marry it or they absolutely loath it. I don't know what it is about it. For some reason it is very polarizing.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

MWF is like Bob Dylan and the VW Bug. People either love it and want to marry it or they absolutely loath it. I don't know what it is about it. For some reason it is very polarizing.

Well, I think that for some people they can’t get MWF to lather. I’ve not had any big problems with it. Mystic Waters is another story.

Originally Posted by DZEC

... I have several top tier shaving soaps and creams and this lather was as good as the best of them.

Actually, MWF soap is a top tier shaving soap.

I'm interested.

What makes a top tieir soap?
Is it the price or the lather?

I have some expensive stuff that lathers half as well as some of my cheaper stuff.

I never consider price, always the performance, MWF just works extremely well for me.
Better than anything else. I dig it.