After a year of using Trumpers shaving creams and the past 2-3 months of using a straight, I finally bought my first shaving soap, Mitchell's wool fat. I'd read all the threads i could find both here and on B&B so I was expecting it to be a little more difficult to lather up than a cream. After a week of using it, here's what I've found.

It's a great soap, very moisturising, leaves my skin feeling good and with little irritation.

It takes quite a lot of swirling a pre-soaked but squeezed dry brush to get a decent load of soap onto the brush.

The lather it whips up is much more porous than that from a cream, it seems to be much more aerated, full of tiny bubbles and doesn't seem to have as much cushion or be as slick as a cream but it does give me a smooth shave.

It tends to decay faster. Usually when I use a cream I whip up the lather in a bowl, lather up my face and put the brush and any excess lather into my moss scuttle. usually good for 3 passes. With the MWF by the time I go for the second pass, the lather has faded to a very light and almost non-existant foam and I have to add more soap to the brush.

I've experimented with varying the water content from little to lots and it doesn't seem to make much difference, although too much water does seem to thin it out even further.

I like this soap but I'm wondering how other people find the lather when compared to a cream or another soap once you've got used to creating it. I have some Tabac coming in the next couple of weeks which will be an interesting comparison.

Cheers,

J.