Thanks to George P., who kindly lent me his Simpson Wee Scot, I can now directly compare the pre-Vulfix-acquisition Wee Scot (mine) with a post-Vulfix-acquisition Wee Scot (his). The two are shown side by side in the photo above, and someday I’ll tell you which is which. You can examine them more closely by clicking the photo.
Given the two Wee Scots, the choice of shaving soap was obvious: Meißner Tremonia’s Strong ‘n Scottish.After doing my regular pre-shave routine using Grooming Dept Moisturizing Pre-Shave, I loaded each brush well. I had deliberately mixed the brushes so that I didn’t know which was which. (Before opening the package from George, I affixed a label to the bottom of my Wee Scot to avoid any possibility that I would not know which was which. Once I opened the two packages, I could see that the two brushes differed somewhat in appearance. The label, though, insures against a mixup. )
With both brushes well-loaded, I lathered my face, once with each brush. The two brushes have very different feels. One feels soft and somewhat wide, the other feels — well, not stiff, but quite resilient, and narrow in comparison to the first. I knew — okay, strongly suspected — that the brush with the soft, somewhat wide knot was the Simpson Wee Scot and the stiffer, narrower knot was the Vulfix. But I didn’t look.
The razor this morning is the very nice German 37 from Italian Barber, a bargain of a slant in the Merkur 37 pattern with the superior 3-piece design — superior, IMO, because it allows you to swap handles if you want, though I have not done that to date.
I did a very comfortable and efficient three-pass shave. At the end, I tried lathering for a fourth pass just to check brush capacity. Though both brushes had ample lather for a fourth pass, the wider, softer Wee Scot clearly held more lather.
At the end of the shave, I checked to see which brush had the label, and my impression was correct: the softer knot was the pre-Vulfix Wee Scot. My understanding is that Simpson selected extremely fine bristles for their Wee Scot knot. That accounts for the softness, and it also means that the total wetted surface — the total surface area of all the knot’s bristles — is quite large, giving the brush a surprisingly large lather capacity.
The Vulfix Wee Scot is not so old as mine, of course, and that may account for some of the difference, but I do think Vulfix’s bristle selection is different, which produces a knot of greater resilience (not to say that my brush’s knot was “floppy,” just that it was softer, with greater “give”) and less lather capacity (though still enough for a three-pass shave).
A good experiment, showing a clear difference between the brushes. I notice also that the lettering is done somewhat differently, and the two brushes have somewhat different coloration (obvious in the magnified image you get by clicking the photo above).
The tea this morning is Murchie’s Queen Victoria, a blend I have come to like a lot: “rich Darjeeling and Ceylon, smoky Lapsang Souchong and sweet Jasmine.”rich Darjeeling and Ceylon, smoky Lapsang Souchong and sweet Jasmine.”
I’m still enjoying the post-shave feel of my face. 