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McVeyMac's Straight Razor (and other traditional wet shaving) Adventures
- Thread starter McVeyMac
- Start date
I have had some lathers, and I can't remember which soaps, where the heat was deleterious to the lather. But for the most part, I have no problems. Must be that weird Decatur, GA water.
I get it Dave. In the temperate NE, I enjoy warm lather year round. As stated before, even summer mornings are cool most of the time.
dkeester
"TSC's Master of Bourbon"
I do cold water in the winter too. My face seems to prefer cool or cold water.
Roger that. And you get the gold star for vocabulary today with the word, “deleterious”!
It was very good Chad, so much so I did it again today.
This morning I opted to use the Sorrentino TSC Barzini brush again, as I enjoy learning optimal application of any tool. Yesterday I commented that the shake of the brush into the soap dish to bloom the soap resulted in significantly less water than what my 26mm Finest Badger provides, but on the other hand, the amount of soap loaded onto the TSC brush is less as well. Today when I dipped the brush in the sink and got ready to shake it in the soap dish, I did not allow it to gravity drain as long. The result was there was more bloom water which is what I was going for, but not as much as I typically get from the Stirling brush. After dispensing the bloom water into the scuttle. my normal routine is to shake the brush dry, then load the brush. I must say that the badger brush holds a lot more residual water even after a fairly rigorous shake when compared to the TSC Barzini, hence, the reduced surface area of the knot along with not having as much water retained in the brush results in less soap being loaded onto the brush compared to the 26mm badger. Less soap plus less water then makes perfect sense when trying to get the water:soap ratio right. It all was making sense. When using the Stirling knot, I always have more lather than required to do a three pass shave, in fact two or three people could probably do a 3 pass shave.
This morning I made an observation though. When I started building the lather, everything was coming together as normal as the loaded soap began to dissolve completely in the bloom water, making it milky white. As i continued to work it it soon started developing into a lather as I always do. Then when the lather is such that it wont come slopping out of the scuttle, I start a more rigorous whipping to finish the build. What I found out is that the resulting lather definitely has different properties than does the same lather whipped with the Stirling brush. When I did the final brush load just prior to going to the face, I noticed that the lather had pronounced points when removing the brush from the scuttle. This never happens with the Stirling brush right after making the lather. With the Stirling I would characterize the points as being soft points, and I typically do have to work the brush quite a bit on the face with the initial application. With the TSC Barzini, the lather was perfect as it was, and it was simply a matter of applying it and relishing the softness of the bristles and the warmth of the lather. On the second pass, I did add a little more water by dipping the brush slightly into the hot tub. After working the lather a little, the points on the brush were just as pronounced and sharp as they were the first time. I went through the same process adding a bit more water for the areas that I perform a third pass on, and the result was the same. With the Stirling I never add any more water, and typically the points do not become pronounced in the lather until the second and third pass, which I have always interpreted as being a result of evaporative water loss in the lather.
Conclusion: The TSC Barzini produces an inherently different lather than does my Stirling 26mm Finest Badger when using the same soap with a similar soap/water ratio. And how is that for over thinking (and over-writing about) something that is so simple?
The razor for this AM was the Jade 7/8" BRW, and the result was just as good as yesterday! BBS+
This morning I made an observation though. When I started building the lather, everything was coming together as normal as the loaded soap began to dissolve completely in the bloom water, making it milky white. As i continued to work it it soon started developing into a lather as I always do. Then when the lather is such that it wont come slopping out of the scuttle, I start a more rigorous whipping to finish the build. What I found out is that the resulting lather definitely has different properties than does the same lather whipped with the Stirling brush. When I did the final brush load just prior to going to the face, I noticed that the lather had pronounced points when removing the brush from the scuttle. This never happens with the Stirling brush right after making the lather. With the Stirling I would characterize the points as being soft points, and I typically do have to work the brush quite a bit on the face with the initial application. With the TSC Barzini, the lather was perfect as it was, and it was simply a matter of applying it and relishing the softness of the bristles and the warmth of the lather. On the second pass, I did add a little more water by dipping the brush slightly into the hot tub. After working the lather a little, the points on the brush were just as pronounced and sharp as they were the first time. I went through the same process adding a bit more water for the areas that I perform a third pass on, and the result was the same. With the Stirling I never add any more water, and typically the points do not become pronounced in the lather until the second and third pass, which I have always interpreted as being a result of evaporative water loss in the lather.
Conclusion: The TSC Barzini produces an inherently different lather than does my Stirling 26mm Finest Badger when using the same soap with a similar soap/water ratio. And how is that for over thinking (and over-writing about) something that is so simple?
The razor for this AM was the Jade 7/8" BRW, and the result was just as good as yesterday! BBS+
It's very interesting to see the different characteristics of brushes. The synthetic brushes are very different from their real hair counterparts. But in the end each accomplishes the mission.
Thanks Chris. As you can tell I am a creature of habit, and I can go long periods of time being completely content using the same razor, same brush and same soap. Whenever I change something, I just have to tear it apart into its individual parts and write about it.
I own now 4 synthetic brushes. One is a 24mm Whipped dog that is relegated for travel, and the only soap I ever used with it was my travel soap, an Arko stick. I had him reduce the loft (increase the depth of set) on that one as I always face lather the Arko, and I wanted to feel some backbone. The other two are both from Stirling, the 26mm x 63mm Kong, and the 26mm x 54mm. The first one I got was the Kong, and I ever only used it one time. I felt that it was too much loft making it feel quite floppy. This is what prompted me to order the 26mm x 54mm, which I only ever used one time as well, but I did prefer it to the Kong. I do not remember it feeling floppy at all. My go to brush for the last 1.5 years has been my Stirling 26mm x 54mm Finest Badger. I received this as a gift from my daughter for Christmas of 2016, and I have shaved with it practically every day in the den since. It is the densest badger I own (I only own one other badger, the others I have gifted to my grandson). So now I am curious if the Stirling 26mm x 54mm synthetic will behave similarly to the TSC Barzini? The finest badger is a bit of a lather hog, which I am not particularly fond of, but it feels great on the face, , has a gel like tip feel, has the right amount of scrub for me for exfoliating, and I have learned to coax the lather out of it regardless of how much of a hog it is. To me the Stirling Best Badger , for under $40.00, is one of the best values in brushes out there.
You have that right Don. In the event you have not noticed, I am a very value driven consumer. I am not cheap in that I have some pretty expensive hardware, but that hardware will last 3 or 4 lifetimes or more with proper care and maintenance. To me, that is a good value (i.e. ATT DEs, ATT SE2s, Asylum RX). Even my straight razors will last my lifetime, may grandsons lifetime once I'm gone, his son's lifetime, and many more generations assuming that the number of razors does not change (except culling due to wear) and the maintenance is performed on them. To me that is value. The first shaving soap I got when returning to wet shaving was Arko, because I feel, and still do feel, that it was the best value in commercially available shaving soap. Now I make my own at essentially a fraction of the cost of Arko, and I love it. My Ansgar scuttle is hand made from Germany, because when I first saw one, I had to have it. Again this was a gift from my daughter for Christmas of 2014 along with the matching soap dish. It just seemed more fitting than any other scuttle design I had ever seen, with the extra large handle and hot tub spout. My daughter also gave me a Magic Eye coffee mug back in the early 1990s for Christmas with a Humming Bird pattern on it. I have used that coffee mug every day since she has given it to me. Each morning that coffee mug sits right next to that scuttle on a hand towel when I shave. Every now and then I tell my daughter about how I use the gifts that she has given me every single day. She always responds, "that makes me happy." And in that there is great value. Because I think that your statement above is very true, the one rabbit hole I have not really jumped down was the brush rabbit hole. I do have multiple brushes, but I have never paid much for one (most expensive of all of them, one being a gift, and the other the Legacy TSC). I have no doubt that the likes of Paladin and others have exceptional suppliers of knots, and their handles are works of art. But I could never bring myself to pay for this luxury because I felt that it would not improve my shave one little bit. It might improve the shave experience, and I really do value quality, but I just could never justify it. To me, it is all about the shave.
Thanks Doug.
Thanks Tom, I certainly can do that. This, and I am sitting around waiting for some raw material to created an integrated development project plan and a WBS for the proposal that is due on Friday. SO I guess I have too much time on my hands this AM because I have to react the second it hits the inbox.
That's a great comparison between the two brushes, Walt. I tend to use synthetics as my baseline brush whenever I get a new soap base in to gauge how the soap will perform. Because they hold so much less water, (I squeeze them then give them some very vigorous shakes so they are barely damp) I can be more exact with seeing how much water it takes to get a lather where I like it, hence telling me what kind of water band the soap has. The variable of how much water is released from the natural hair bristles while loading/lathering is taken out of the equation.
That makes very good sense Josh, eliminating the variables to assess the soap.
Thanks Craig.