Quite a wonderful shave today: a two-day stubble is always a pleasant shave. My Rooney Style 2 Finest whipped up a terrific lather from Mickey Lee Soapworks The Drunken Goat, a soap I really like. However, I always look at the level of soap and wish that he used a shorter tub so the tub would be more filled. I know the soap is sold by weight, but the fact that the tub is less than half-filled when new does not create a good impression. A squat jar 1.5″ tall would be very nice, especially since it could then be shipped in a USPS Priority Mail Small Flat-Rate Box. (The current tub is too tall for that.)
Quibbles aside, I did enjoy the lather. One guy on Wicked_Edge recently was asking whether brushless shave creams would work as well as using a brush. My response:
By a true lather, I mean specifically a lather made with a shaving brush from shaving soap or shaving cream and water, but more broadly any prep that uses shaving soap/cream and water whether or not a brush is involved. However, even though some brushless shave creams are excellent—see this post—I generally mean involving a shaving brush—and the reason is that I think most find that using a brush is enjoyable. You’re going to have to spread stuff around in any case, so you can use your hand or a brush. I think most prefer the brush (once they’ve actually tried it, not merely speculating) because it is more enjoyable: it increases the pleasure of the shave.
In part this is because the making of the lather is a skill, and a skill once learned is enjoyable to practice—and, to be honest, this is a pretty easily learned skill. So there’s that: watching how skillfully you whip up a really fine lather—and while you’re at it, enjoying the fragrance that emanates from it.
And then you touch brush to face, and that is truly enjoyable if you have a brush of any quality at all—and if touching brush to face is not a pure pleasure, then you have the wrong brush. Try one of these and, since I’ve been advised the minimum order is $15, a tub of J.M. Fraser shaving cream, a really wonderful and curiously effective shaving cream (for use with brush, note) that is a total knockout bargain: $15 for a 1-lb tub.
Since Shoebox Shaveshop (which is where the product links take you) also sells the Parker 26C, you can get my recommended beginner’s kit from them. Throw in a blade sampler pack, a styptic, and an alum block with the brushes, shaving cream, and razor, and Bob’s your uncle.
I used the Above the Tie S1 slant on an iKon Bulldog in response to a request. It works and feels fine. I like the UFO handle a lot (appearance, weight, and feel), but UFO handles are difficult to procure—the drawback of an artisanal operation that becomes popular—and so someone who has an iKon Bulldog handle wanted to know how it would work with this head. It works fine. Three passes to BBS.
A good splash of Fine’s Clean Vetiver, and we’re all back at work.
Filed under: Shaving
