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Williams Mug Soap, as it is known nowadays, a faded shell of its former self, began as Genuine Yankee Soap, introduced in 1840 and made by Williams & Brothers of Manchester, Connecticut. The poster above shows the later name of the company, J.B. Williams & Co., located in Glastonbury, Connecticut.
Williams Mug Soap, I’ve read, has now been discontinued, stubbornly resistant to lathering by the end of its life, due to a few reformulations too many, but we are told that it once was a great tallow-based soap.
Razor Emporium did some research, and says that they have found the original formula and resurrected it under the name Connecticut Yankee, in recognition of the original name and location (and, I think, in appreciation of the time-traveling aspect—if you’ve not read Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, I recommend it highly).
I had to purchase a tin, and this morning I used it for the first. If this was what Williams Mug Soap once was, its decline and fall is even more sobering, for this soap easily produces a fine lather indeed. Razor Emporium said that they wanted to be fully authentic and kept the original citronella scent, which is not off-putting but more ascetic than the lush fragrances of some modern soaps: a no-folderol sort of fragrance.
I used my Simpson Persian Jar and easily loaded it, working up a fine thick lathering, even having to add a driblet of water as I worked it up on my beard. Not merely a curiosity, Connecticut Yankee is a very good shaving soap.
The RazoRock Baby Smooth, which made a brief reappearance for $100 and now seems to be sold out again, is a wonderful razor, extremely comfortable, markedly reluctant to nick, and highly efficient, easily producing a BBS result. It did a fine job this morning and indeed once again left my face BBS.
A splash of Ginger’s Garden Havana Cognac, and the weekend opens before me.
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