Experiment #4 with hard water and Mystic Water soap

WyzeOne - I understand that you (and a bunch of others as well) have lathering this soap dialed in. Others have a lot of problems with it. Still others (and I include myself here), are able to eventually develop pretty good success, but still have problems with it from time to time. A quick search on Google will confirm that this is something that has been ongoing for quite awhile now with MW soaps. I have not heard about nor encountered this phenomena with any of the other major artisan soapers, except Stirling and he made som changes awhile back in response that fixed the issues some people had with his soaps. Even the B&M artisan has made tweaks to his soaps in response to a minority of people having problems of various sorts.

For me, I just cannot chance lather problems on a work morning due to time constraints - simple as that. I take my daughter to school most mornings - can't be late. If I get it right on the first take, it is not a time issue, true; but if there is a problem with the lather, time can become an issue.

It is a testament to the quality of MW that despite this, the soap remains highly coveted and respected in the wet shaving community. I am still working at it too, because I recognize and appreciate its quality. Hopefully, as the MW artisan herself posted in response to me above, we will soon see an updated version of her soap that eliminates the lathering issues that a sizeable segment of us have, for whatever reason. If she can deliver on that, MW could potentially be at the apex of the artisan shave soaps right now because it absolutely aces every other variable that most wet shavers care about in a shaving soap. I, for one, am hoping that she can deliver it.

Incidentally Mystic Water, I forgot to ask - is there a timeline for when the new formula will be available, and in what scents? Also, will the non-sensitive version contain lanolin? I really like the lanolin version of Bay Rum but plan on holding off if it is being released in the new formula.

As someone pointed out, I prefer to do things quietly, without a lot of fanfare. If this new tweak is an improvement that enables folks with hard water to achieve more lather more easily, there's no reason not to add it to all of my shaving soaps, and that's my plan, but it will be a gradual introduction as product turnover happens naturally. Any new scents that come out will have the sodium citrate addition first. I hope I won't have to throw away all of the soap that I have in stock; if you don't have hard water you probably won't notice a difference - it's not a big formula change, just a tweak. Anything with lanolin will continue to have lanolin. So if you already like my soap and have no trouble lathering it, there's no reason to hold off for something new.

Thanks Mystic Water! I didn't think it would be a huge difference in terms of general performance, since your soaps are already great. The main update though seems to be in the mitigation of hard water issues, which obviously doesn't affect everyone. I don't have that problem anymore, but I'm still curious to try the new version (I'll use unsoftened water to test) so I can update my review - otherwise I'd buy the current version. The only thing that stops me from recommending this soap more widely is that a good number of people have very hard water.

I'm sure that your current formula will sell just as well as usual since most people don't seem to have lathering issues. On the other hand, it will be nice to be able to point folks with hard water to a particular product that is designed to mitigate those issues.

Please let us know when the first batch is available. I'm still enjoying the samples that I've been using so I'm in no rush. Bay Rum and Poggio di Pini are awesome .

Michelle, I can offer to take that unused soap off of your hands if you are going to throw it away, as I am sure others would, as well.

Michelle, I can offer to take that unused soap off of your hands if you are going to throw it away, as I am sure others would, as well.  

+1 - just set it aside ...