Sweet Braeburn for an on theme SLS. I smell delicious.
This concludes my run through all Seaforth! Fragrances. I skipped Sea Ice Lime because it shares the fragrance with Sea Spice Lime and nobody needs koolada in western Swiss November. With Black Watch, Sea Spice Line, Heather, Spiced, and Fleur de France, Dennis and Shawn brought five of my all-time favourite fragrances in wetshaving, an astonishing hit ratio.
One thing I realised over the last week is that i prefer the 20.1 base over highland, but I get great performance from both, so I conclude that I must prefer the uNoBtAiNiUm one solely because it's gone. Silly, but apparently I'm that guy.
Roman Spice was my AA setup, so it immediately felt routine. Great shave, nice šmellz.
The R41 GT still rocks, the Purist badger still sucks, now off to the office.
I wonder whether it may be more a function of the shape. The R41 GT in titanium has a matte, stone washed-like finish, and I don't feel any drag from it either. So smooth stainless steel (polished), zamac (chrome plated), and rough surface titanium all don't drag.
Indeed!
"Sniff, sniff – ooh, is this my favourite?" - my wife
Yes, we are on the same page, I think.
my Stando Perun really pisses me off in that regard. A 100+€ stainless steel razor simply shouldn't catch rust, period. 😞
Yeah, this one is infuriating. I'm sorry this happened to you.
Both PantaRei and Zenith could be good examples for Mühle IMO. Luxury quality, or good value.
It's cool that they even came out with the GS model after the success of the Rocca.
Yeah, it really is. The GS is really well made too, tight fits, good surface quality. For a European made razor, even the price seems reasonable.
I apologize for rambling way too much, but you brought up so many valid points and instigated such a meaningful discussion that I wanted to share my two cents, but instead dropped my whole bank account on you. Sorry 😅
Oh please, this is exactly what we have this instance for 😊
@PorkButtsNTaters666@sub.wetshaving.social mentioned that he finds that chrome-plated razors glide better on his skin that stainless steel razors. Since I have my R41 comparison going anyway, I used them both and tried to feel a difference. It's tricky since they feel different being of vastly different weight, but I couldn't really feel a meaningful difference in how they slide over the lather. YKMV, I guess.
I never noticed a difference. Now I have a homework for my SLS 🙂
Because if we're being honest, a well made safety razor (or straight razor, or shaving brush) is a luxury item.
I both agree and don't. Yes, in the sense that nobody needs a stainless steel safety razor for over €100 if a brass Tech will cost a fraction. On the other hand, nobody would call it luxury if you shave with Mach3 cartridges, but those are more expensive than the "luxury" stainless steel razor in just a few years. So it's all kind of messed up in my opinion.
Worst case scenario, someone has a broken and unusable razor at home that has cost them 200+€.
Yeah, this one gets to me. The meissner series they sell is a porcelain handle zamac razor that might just break after a some years of use because the threads wear through the plating for €655, and a brush that has the same lame knot as my brush and costs €675. I don't understand.
Compared to razors offered in plastic with many tiny blades of the cheapest possible stainless, chrome-covered zamac is still a large improvement in quality. :)
I agree! I still recommend the Merkur 34C for beginners for instance. It's just praising it as peak durability that irks me and it leaves no room for making the case for steel.
Was it just that special edition
Yes, they made just two editions, the London and the Berlin edition with I think a couple hundred razors.
few would buy the machined one if they sold it at the same margins as the zinc alloy.
That sounds right, unfortunately.
the time it takes to winnow the quality offerings from the grift as doing my part to signal a better direction for society.
I like this perspective a lot.
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.
This Moar Boar of a sub member was loosing a lot of bristles. They were done with it and let me have it.
I was surprised how hard it is to cut off all the bristles of a boar knot!
It was so hard that I was convinced I was cutting into the glue bump and had finally figured out its shape:
But the actual glue came a few mm deeper.
I was worried at first that the tiny hand mill wouldn't be up to the task and that I'd need to find a 32 mm Forstner bit and figure out a way to grip the handle strong enough to withstand the torque of the Forstner bit on a drill press without ruining it, but as it turns out, it was quite easy and quick to get the hole deep enough:
I've set the handle with a 30 mm Maggard Silvertip knot, and I'm looking forward to trying the most exclusive of all subbrooshes, the Moar Badger soon.
Like @DaveWave94@sub.wetshaving.social the other day, I also have taken advantage of Yourshaving's anniversary sale and got myself three new brushies to break in:
I've been meaning to try a Semogue Owner's club for a while now, mainly because of @Old_Hiker@sub.wetshaving.social singing its praises and this is going to be perfect for this year's AA Raw Hoggin'. The pretty Butterscotch brush is a Zenith 506B Manchurian. It's my first Zenith badger, and my first silver tip badger. I'm curious to break this one in, but will probably wait for after LG. Finally, the black one is a Zenith 506N XS (you can see, I like the 506 form factor), an extra soft horse hair brush, which was recommended by @PorkButtsNTaters666@sub.wetshaving.social among others. This one will wait for LG.
A combined shipment from Stirling and Barrister and Mann arrived today. From Stirling, I finally got my replacement Varen tub (and added the frag) and got a tub of Mountain man to replace my soon-to-be-killed sample of it.
Braeburn was pointed out to me as a possible alternative to SBS Teacher's Pet (now sadly UnObTaInIuM) and it was a great tip. Dickens is a replacement from balm that has... not aged well, and Beaudelaire was on discount and I certainly can't resist trying a Fougère with Mousse de Saxe. Especially not if this is how Will describes it:
edit: I just only now realised that Beaudelaire the frag isn't spelled like the Baudelaire the author.
I cleaned, polished, and honed these three vintage razors a while ago, but didn't get to posting a mail call. The main act here is definitely the big Henckels 14:
It is in great condition, just a bit of surface corrosion at the toe where the hollow grind touches the scales. I'm always amazed by how quickly these extra hollow 14 razors hone up. It really barely takes any work to get a great edge. This is my third 14 razor, the other two being a Filarmónica 14 and a Henckels Friodur 14 (the stainless successor of this new acquisition). Two shaves with this were wonderful.
The little Puma 88 is a fairly standard ⅝" round tip German hollow ground, but it seems extremely well-made. The absolutely even stamp on the shank, the completely regular jimps, and the pretty scales with brass inlay and the stamp around the pivot pin all scream quality without opulence. I get the hard-to-describe feeling from this razor that I also get from a well made hammer or screw driver. Great shaver.
Finally, this poor Frio 72½ took some serious abuse from its previous owner. If you look closely, you can see that the bevel looks wavy around the middle of the blade.
Here's a close-up.
The reason is that the edge has been bent out of true in three places. When I bought the razor, the images for the offer were taken in a way that didn't show this issue. I almost tossed the razor after it arrived, but then I decided to give it a try and it turns out it has no impact on shave quality. I'm still not sure whether to keep this razor of PIF it maybe.
Share your TabacTuesday shave of the day!
Right? Galling.