A terrific shave. The three-brush thing came about in one of the many discussions that begin with a statement that soft brushes don’t work on hard soaps—for those one needs a stiff, dense, scrubby brush. This idea is, based on my own experience, completely false. The softest brush I own can quickly make a lather from a hard soap—in this case Geo. F. Trumper’s Rose shaving soap. The same discussion mentioned specifically the Ecotools brush as not making lather well and lacking in lather capacity: my experience contradicts that.
So I used a different brush on each pass:
Pass 1: The Ecotools. Loaded for 10 seconds, which was ample. Moved to beard and worked up the lather for 25-30 seconds. I know the Ecotools has ample capacity—I’ve used it for many three-pass shaves—but this time I was merely verifying, yet again, that makes an excellent lather quickly and easily. I quite understand that some may prefer the feel a stiff, dense, scrubby brush, so I am merely discussing performance. The Ecotools quite obviously performs well, based on my continuing use.
Pass 2: An Omega silvertip. This and another Omega brush very much like it have the softest, fluffiest knots of any brush I have. It has enormous capacity, which of course was not brought into play today. Again, I loaded the brush for 10 seconds, worked the lather up on my face for 25-30 seconds. Absolutely no trouble in creating lather with a soft, fluffy brush. Again, some may prefer a different feel for their shaving brush, but in terms of performance a soft, fluffy knot works just fine on hard soap.
Pass 3: The Simpson Chubby 1 in Best. This was my comparison brush, and it, too, did a fine job: again, loading for 10 seconds and working up the lather for 25-30 seconds. The Chubby did no better and no worse than the other two brushes. It does have a difference feel, but in terms of performance, I would say that the brushes are equal.
The razor was my new Axwell, and it did a fine job. Because of its red handle, I went with Rose as the shave theme, so finished the shave with Saint Charles Shave’s Savory Rose.
An excellent, BBS shave, and loads of lather.
Filed under: Shaving
