Black Watchday 13 Nov 2024

• Brush: Mühle Purist (21 mm silvertip badger, ebonite handle)
• Razor: Mühle R41 GS
• Blade: Feather new Hi-Stainless
• Lather: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Black Watch
• Post Shave: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Black Watch
• Fragrance: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Black Watch

Black Watch is an all time favourite of mine. I like to combine it with Cerberus, Braeburn or other warm fruity fragrances, but this is trickhole week for me, so I'm trickholing it. It never disappoints.

The stainless R41 Gs is a heavy beast and my favourite version of the R41 family. It has that heft that inspires a (sometimes misguided) sense of quality like a good tool. It's one of my favourite DE razors on par with my Wolfies. This and the Rocca are underrated products IMO and it might have to do with Mühle's awkward positioning in the shave market. The bulk of their offering is this annoying combination of a cheap product with a luxury packaging. For example, if you go on their website, the majority of their razors are cheap zamac heads with expensive (pretty) handles. This brush is the same, pretty handle and lacklustre knot. My travel synth is similar with a nice folding handle and an unpleasant knot. I don't get it. Mühle is a small family-run business, they could easily run in the "German Quality" direction, this razor and the Rocca are proof they can make quality products at good prices. Instead they compete with cheap mass produced products by attaching pretty handles to their cheap mass produced product. I think they may be stuck and unable to advertise their good razors (stainless steel and titanium) as quality worth a few extra Euros while still praising their "high quality" zamac razors which cost the almost the same despite a fancy porcelain handle. How do you tell your customers to choose between quality and luxury when many would expect the two to go hand in hand?

In their words, stainless steel vs zamac (which they refuse to name, so they call it chrome instead. This is close to dishonest IMO since chrome is only the plating on the zamac):

Edelstahl steht wie kaum ein anderes Material für kühle Eleganz und Robustheit. Es ist besonders beständig und bringt eine zeitlose Schönheit, die bleibt. (Stainless steel represents cool elegance and robustness like almost no other material. It is extra durable and brings a timeless beauty that persists.)

Ohne Chrom würde die Welt viel von ihrem Glanz einbüßen. In der Verarbeitung für unsere Nassrasur-Accessoires beweist er seine besten Eigenschaften: Die Oberfläche ist korrosionsbeständig, besonders langlebig und hat einen kostbaren, verführerischen Glanz. Im Kontrast dazu kommen Farben und Formen anderer hochwertiger Werkstoffe besonders gut zur Geltung. (Without chrome, the world would lose a lot of its lustre. It shows its best properties in its use for wetshaving-accessories: The surface is corrosion resistant, extra durable and has a precious, seductive shine. The colours and shapes of other quality material come into play particularly well in contrast to it.)

From this marketing speak, how would someone who doesn't know that chrome is just a plating and that the underlying zamac breaks when you drop the razor or corrodes away when wear (micro)cracks the plating on the threads understand that the stainless steel razor head is worth a few extra Euros if you care about durability? Both are "extra durable", and the chrome one is described as prettier, and also of superlative quality if you believe this text.