A couple of tests in the morning shave today. First, a brush comparison—and you’ll note the brushes are already getting flirty. (These French brushes! Really!)
The lather was superb, and Mickey Lee Soapworks’ The Drunken Goat is officially one of my favorites. Both brushes did a great job, but the side-by-side comparison was an eye-opening. I had thought I preferred the Omega S-series brush shown, $5.17 at Shoebox Shaveshop. It felt great on my face, and when I compared the two brushes by brushing my hand with the dry brushes, it felt slightly softer.
But in actual use? The Plisson synthetic from l’Occitane ($30 in the US) was clearly better, IMO. It felt better on the face: bigger and softer. And, in fairness, it should: it costs almost six times as much. Both brushes are good, the Plisson is better. My call.
Oversaturn pointed out in a comment on my slant article in Sharpologist that the #102 is based on the Mulcuto, not the Walhbusch. I happen to have a Mulcuto razor (shown in the photo above) and I took a close look, and he’s right: clearly the look of the #102 is much closer to the Mulcuto: the lack of a pronounced hump, the tilted baseplate: these are like the Mulcuto.
When I looked at the Walbusch more closely, though, I saw that some of the differences in appearance are cosmetic. For example, the Walbusch’s pronounced hump really is not necessary. If you look at the photos in this post, you see that the hump is just so the top of the cap will be horizontal rather than tilted. And the Walbusch’s baseplate isn’t tilted because the baseplate is much thicker at one end: if the baseplate were a uniform thickness, it would be tilted.
It’s almost as if Walbusch liked the Mulcuto performance but not its look, so added material to eliminate the tilted-head look. Or it’s as if Mulcuto like Walbusch performance, but decided to strip unnecessary material out of the head. (I really have no idea of the actual history.)
Now here’s where it gets interesting: I had described the #102 as related the Walbusch because of the asymmetric slant and because they shaved quite similarly: extremely comfortable, highly efficient, supremely smooth. The Mulcuto, when I had tried it, was not in the same class. And in fact, the Mulcuto was not all that good this morning. Halfway through the first pass, I checked the blade. It was a SuperMax Titanium, so I replaced it with a new Personna Lab Blue, the blade I generally use in slants. Improvement was modest. It is just not a very comfortable razor for me.
On the third pass, I picked up the #102—a totally different experience: smooth shaving, very comfortable, wonderful comfort. So the #102 looks like a Mulcuto but (for me, at any rate) shaves like a Walbusch: smooth, comfortable, and efficient.
The Mulcuto goes back on the shelf as a member of the collection, but I doubt I’ll be using it all that much. For some reason, it doesn’t come close to performing so well as the #102.
A good splash of Fougère Classique, and we are undergoing a big winter storm, snugly indoors.
Filed under: Shaving
