BBS comes easily when you have a two-day stubble and use a good slant—and the white bakelite vintage Merkur slant is one of the best, though now scarce. Italian Barber had a trove for a while, but it went quickly. (Some cynics thought—and said—that additional troves would turn up repeatedly and the supposed scarcity was merely a marketing move. They were wrong, but the Stealth slant from Italian Barber was modeled on this razor, and the Stealth—though still in short supply—is comparable.)
The brush is the Plisson synthetic now being sold by l’Occitane for $30, which to my mind is a great bargain. There’s a rumor that the pricing is low because the line is discontinued and they’re clearing out stock. I have no idea whether that’s true, but I got one and ordered one for The Son after mine arrived.
The knot is what some call “floppy,” and I have figured out what that means. It does not mean that the knot has a tendency to flop over (I’ve never seen a brush that does that). The term exists because saying a brush is “soft” is somewhat ambiguous: it might mean that the tips of the bristles are quite soft—in that sense, a velvet-covered iron ball is “soft”—or it might mean that the entire knot is soft—like a very fluffy (but resilient) pillow.
Some really like a dense and stiff brush, one that is resilient like a steel spring, but they still want soft tips. Those are probably the originators of the “floppy” nomenclature because they want a brush that is scrubby, and knot that is soft overall is not scrubby.
I like knots that are soft and yielding (though still resilient: the knot deforms under very slight pressure, unlike denser, stiffer brush, but when pressure is released the knot resumes it shape immediately), and this Plisson Synthetic knot fills the bill—and in addition, the tips feel like velvet.
The softness of the knot has no effect on lathering ability, given that the water is reasonably soft: I got a wonderfully thick lather instantly from my (old formulation) Geo. F. Trumper Sandalwood: fragrant, thick, lubricating lather.
Three passes of the redoubtable bakelite slant holding a Personna Lab Blue blade, and BBS emerged—with no nicks at all. In fact the second pass revealed several BBS areas: they had been there all along, under the stubble.
A good splash of TOBS Sandalwood aftershave and the week begins.
Filed under: Shaving
