Dead of old age?

I've got a cake of Taylor soap (Sandalwood) that's about 18 months old and about 3/4 used up. Within the last month or so it's just utterly pooped out on me. My usual lather-building technique, which used to work well with this cake and still does with the other half-dozen or so that I use in my rotation, now gets me nowhere. I have to work it like crazy to get anywhere with it, and even with that the lather is thin and dries out quickly. Can shaving soap degrade like this just from the passage of time?

Steve B

Not that I know of. I have a cake of Trumpers that's almost three years old and most of it is gone as well but it still lathers up a storm. You may just gotten an "off" cake that didn't completely go right. It's rare but it happens.

Regards,
EL

Actually my son is currently using taylors sandlewood and as much as he shaves a cake lasts about 8 months or so and his still works fine after about that much time.

Steve,

Has there been anything that has happened that could have changed the characteristics of the water you are using. Differences in the water generally are why one person will say they get better performance from a product than another person. Try using warmed distilled water and see if the soap lathers any better. If not, at least you have removed that variable. Generally, you can find distilled water in the grocery store in the same area as the other bottled water. A lot of people use it in their steam irons to avoid clogging them up.

Have you tried scraping off the top layer with a knife?
If it has been polluted somehow, that could also be a cause for problems.

I can't speak to the cakes, but from what I was told in the ToOBS shop when I dropped by a few years ago, the creams last from a year to eighteen months or so before they start to go off. I had some that was older than that and it worked just fine.

Not to be a jerk or anything, but if it's that old and so much of it is already used, why not just bin it and get a new one?

I have a puck of Yardley Black Label soap that has to be at least 20 years old. Lathers up as good as my new soaps and smells fantastic.

That's what I love about soaps. Hoard your favourites and store them forever (they may get discontinued!).