Ordered my first Simpson

[Boar Fighter]

Amazing review Boar Fighter,

I envy guys like u and Nav and especially Gray dog who have so many brushes,

With my tiny 409 Sq foot apartment I have to limit my brushes to ard 5 at most... Its on the orders of my gf lol.

Thank you, for the little it's worth. But, as with blades, it's very YMMV. What one thinks as high backbone, can be floppy for someone else...

I understand your space and girfriend problem. In a sense, i also face similar problem, because i have or had in the past several hobbies, which led me to occupy much space and my wife who is the "Queen of the House Order", never like me occupying even more space. And believe me, she thinks that i have suffered a regression to primitive state for going back to wetshaving. I don't expect her to gift me a shaving brush, anytime soon. Let's put it this way.

So, i want more brushes, she doesn't like brushes and doesn't like me occupying more space. There is a proverb here that more or less says: "What the eyes can't see, can't cause suffering". Counting the spare brushes, i am now at 50+ (boars, badgers, synths and horses). But i don't "show them off" to her. I keep only 5 in plain sight each month, in a little angle out of her way and in a place where she doesn't have to look all the time. I also take care of cleaning the brush stands on my own every while, because otherwise the dust will catch her eye. Because if you put something right on her face, it's easier to have her notice it and irritate her. The rest of the brushes, sit dispersed in various boxes in a storage room, some of them under other items. She knows that i don't have just 5 brushes, but she doesn't know the exact number, because she doesn't care to search boxes with items she hates (like items for house repair, car tools etc, machine oils, etc). They are also heavy and she doesn't even care to lift them so that she can open them.

The same holds true for soaps. Although since some soaps have very strong scent, i keep those together in the same box, open for inspection (because i have nothing to hide!), because it would be futile to try to hide something that has such strong scent that it would seep out of a box with "car tools". In the box with the "car tools", you put scentless soaps or sealed creams. A man's got to do what a man's got to do...

This system works well enough. Like i said, you have to work with what you have and adapt your strategy accordingly. The only problem is that even so, i am running out of space, because you can't just make the boxes vanish nor justify an ever increasing number of them appearing, so i will have to consume some soaps to make new space.

 

[Schnitzel52]

Thanks for the review it was good to read. There is a “crap shoot” quality about purchasing DE razors and brushes. Yes YMMV, but there is a lot of mythology about the gear. And much of that is due to the lack of retailers carrying the gear. The razor or brush is not experientially real until after the purchase.

 

[mawashi]

Thank you, for the little it's worth. But, as with blades, it's very YMMV. What one thinks as high backbone, can be floppy for someone else...

I understand your space and girfriend problem. In a sense, i also face similar problem, because i have or had in the past several hobbies, which led me to occupy much space and my wife who is the "Queen of the House Order", never like me occupying even more space. And believe me, she thinks that i have suffered a regression to primitive state for going back to wetshaving. I don't expect her to gift me a shaving brush, anytime soon. Let's put it this way.

So, i want more brushes, she doesn't like brushes and doesn't like me occupying more space. There is a proverb here that more or less says: "What the eyes can't see, can't cause suffering". Counting the spare brushes, i am now at 50+ (boars, badgers, synths and horses). But i don't "show them off" to her. I keep only 5 in plain sight each month, in a little angle out of her way and in a place where she doesn't have to look all the time. I also take care of cleaning the brush stands on my own every while, because otherwise the dust will catch her eye. Because if you put something right on her face, it's easier to have her notice it and irritate her. The rest of the brushes, sit dispersed in various boxes in a storage room, some of them under other items. She knows that i don't have just 5 brushes, but she doesn't know the exact number, because she doesn't care to search boxes with items she hates (like items for house repair, car tools etc, machine oils, etc). They are also heavy and she doesn't even care to lift them so that she can open them.

The same holds true for soaps. Although since some soaps have very strong scent, i keep those together in the same box, open for inspection (because i have nothing to hide!), because it would be futile to try to hide something that has such strong scent that it would seep out of a box with "car tools". In the box with the "car tools", you put scentless soaps or sealed creams. A man's got to do what a man's got to do...

This system works well enough. Like i said, you have to work with what you have and adapt your strategy accordingly. The only problem is that even so, i am running out of space, because you can't just make the boxes vanish nor justify an ever increasing number of them appearing, so i will have to consume some soaps to make new space.

I live by the motto of out of sight, peace of mind lol. What she can't see she won't hound me about it so I keep a large box that once held shoes from the US and keep whatever I need to inside under the shoes lol.

I can't justify having 5 much less 50 brushes lol so I'll search n keep/replace as necessary but I am happy now that I know what I need and have gotten great advice from guys like you, Nav etc, etc as to the brushes that best suit me.

Cheers,

Mawashi

 

[Boar Fighter]

I live by the motto of out of sight, peace of mind lol. What she can't see she won't hound me about it so I keep a large box that once held shoes from the US and keep whatever I need to inside under the shoes lol.

I can't justify having 5 much less 50 brushes lol so I'll search n keep/replace as necessary but I am happy now that I know what I need and have gotten great advice from guys like you, Nav etc, etc as to the brushes that best suit me.

Cheers,

Mawashi

Proverbs come out of popular wisdom! I don't justify my brushes either. I am aware that as our American friends call it, it's SBAD. I just want to have variety in shaving. I don't care to search all the $200 brushes to see if i find the "one". I shave even with my worst brushes, because even the worst, are different than the day before, when you have another brush. Variety is the salt of life. If every day was Christmas, would Christmas be special? I also think that us men, are more honest. Women might already have 30 pair of shoes and want 30 pairs more, but they don't even call it an acquisition disorder. They call it being "fashionable" and being able to "combine the right shoes to the right dress".

So, why aren't we entitled to some "shoes" too? I could claim that i want to combine the right brush to the right blade or soap. But i am being more honest and i admit i have SBAD. I am close to the point that i am saturated with brushes and i should just use the brushes i already have. By evading SWMBO, i am doing a favour to both of us. She isn't upset, i am not whined at, i still have my brushes, everyone is happy!

If i was helpful to your brush selection, i am glad to hear it.

 

[naughtilus]

I'll be the party pooper guy and say you bought the wrong brush for your intentions.

Car analogy: "I wonder what the fuss is about owning a luxury Mercedes, so I'll buy a family A class and satisfy my curriosity".

See my point? You should have went with Duke 3 or Chubby 2 in Best as a minimum.


(good luck sleeping at night after reading this)

 

[mawashi]

Proverbs come out of popular wisdom! I don't justify my brushes either. I am aware that as our American friends call it, it's SBAD. I just want to have variety in shaving. I don't care to search all the $200 brushes to see if i find the "one". I shave even with my worst brushes, because even the worst, are different than the day before, when you have another brush. Variety is the salt of life. If every day was Christmas, would Christmas be special? I also think that us men, are more honest. Women might already have 30 pair of shoes and want 30 pairs more, but they don't even call it an acquisition disorder. They call it being "fashionable" and being able to "combine the right shoes to the right dress".

So, why aren't we entitled to some "shoes" too? I could claim that i want to combine the right brush to the right blade or soap. But i am being more honest and i admit i have SBAD. I am close to the point that i am saturated with brushes and i should just use the brushes i already have. By evading SWMBO, i am doing a favour to both of us. She isn't upset, i am not whined at, i still have my brushes, everyone is happy!

If i was helpful to your brush selection, i am glad to hear it.

If only logic worked on the SOS in our lives lol!

If you get a $10 brush you'll need to balance it out with a $100 meal, shoe or something that she already has a few dozen off!

Playing hide and seek with my gf can get expensive quick lol!

Happy shaves!

 

[Boar Fighter]

I'll be the party pooper guy and say you bought the wrong brush for your intentions.

Car analogy: "I wonder what the fuss is about owning a luxury Mercedes, so I'll buy a family A class and satisfy my curriosity".

See my point? You should have went with Duke 3 or Chubby 2 in Best as a minimum.


(good luck sleeping at night after reading this)

Please refer here about cars, so that i don't have to write it all again:

Why brushes cost so much?

I can also add summarise again a few points that i mentioned here and in other threads, but are more meaningful clustered together in one place:

1) I like variety. I also don't like being a sucker.
2) I don't believe that the final result of a brush depends simply on how good the individual hair is.
3) What one likes is extremely subjective. My EUR 7 Omega 11574 feels just as good as the Simpson to ME.
4) Each person has different expectations and also different idea about a brush and its cost.
5) I am not crazy about ivory colour handles. I would certainly not pay 100 EUR for an ivory colour brush.
6) I don't like handles with horizontal "ridges". These are soap and salt (from water) traps. I have one such Yaqi synth, which although i wash after every shave, it has a ridge and now i need i toothbrush to really clean it. By pure coincidence, Simpson loves handles with ridges.
7) People always buy a brush and 95% of the time, they rush and make a very positive review. Unfortunately very few of them, come back later to add that they sold their once amazing brush. But this is also very interesting from a psychological point of view.
8) I don't "trade" brushes. I am too old and tired of the long queues in my crowded post office to even care.
9) And if Chubby wasn't amazing either, then there is also super, manchurian, maybe a Paladin, what about a delcaration grooming (is that the one with the distorted knots that people pay $200 and brag about it too? Not sure i remember), there is Muhle silvertip, there is Shavemac, and oh yes, looks like this forum is a hunting ground and we are the pray!
10) And why shouldn't i just give 50 EUR and get a huge Zenith silvertip at half the price? Oh, because Zenith hasn't 100 years of history, when import taxes were the norm and protectionism was helping few brands dominate the market... But then again, Zenith hasn't gone belly up ever, so this might also be good for some reason. Unfortunately, i don't like big badger knots, so this excludes both the huge Zeniths and the huge Chubbies, which i have read are denser than their lesser brothers and if you ask me, any denser than my X2 Commodore, isn't for me. I 'd rather get a Proraso brush if i want more backbone.

And trust me when i say, that i know 2 things about marketing and badger market is the perfect playground of "make believe" for any product. In these days, a Boker (rebranded Muhle) badger is sold temporarily at our Amazon for EUR 19. The rest of the year, it was 45. What does this tell us? That their profits of margin, are huge.

So, how much do you finally want to spend on brushes before you find "the one"? I 've spent enough and i am very happy with variety without spending 200$ to get a distorted knot and look at it with admiration because i paid 200 for it. And if you bother to read the "what brush did you use today", you will notice that i use equally, all my brushes, be them "better" or "worse". Because i enjoy them all and i can build a perfectly good lather with any of them. I was never on the search for the "one". And i surely don't intend to pay 200 EUR on one brush, that i will be using 1 month a year, due to the very long rotation cycles.

The rest, is in the mind of people and in their personal taste.

 

[Boar Fighter]

If only logic worked on the SOS in our lives lol!

If you get a $10 brush you'll need to balance it out with a $100 meal, shoe or something that she already has a few dozen off!

Playing hide and seek with my gf can get expensive quick lol!

Happy shaves!

That's true, but only if she learns about the brush. Of course, i understand your difficulty to evade her surveillance, given the restricted possible space.

One has to work with the cards he was dealt with... Some are luckier than others... If you need to butter her up at X10 the price of your brush, then you sure are in a tough spot.

 

[naughtilus]

10) And why shouldn't i just give 50 EUR and get a huge Zenith silvertip at half the price?

Do you only like/buy silvertips? Of course not. I'm talking to a guy with appreciation for fine brushes and their idiosyncratic nuances. So I'm saying get moar Simpsons and moar Zeniths. I think you will really like the Duke 3 in Best. You will even love the horizontal ridges.

No one buys a Simpson thinking they are a great deal or with objective performance in mind. Better to have the right brush for the wrong reasons than vice versa.

 

[Boar Fighter]

Do you only like/buy silvertips? Of course not. I'm talking to a guy with appreciation for fine brushes and their idiosyncratic nuances. So I'm saying get moar Simpsons and moar Zeniths. I think you will really like the Duke 3 in Best. You will even love the horizontal ridges.

No one buys a Simpson thinking they are a great deal or with objective performance in mind. Better to have the right brush for the wrong reasons than vice versa.

Let me make just a wild guess here. Do you by any chance have a Duke 3?

Look. Going down the path you propose, you are in essence proposing, moar Simpsons, moar Zeniths, moar Shaveamacs, moar Declaration, moar Paladins, moar this, moar that and there is no end to it. In the name of appreciating "fine brushes". And doing so, i will even love the horizontal ridges. This looks like a sales pitch to me, but not very logical.

If i wanted to be in appreciation of "fine" brushes, i would have now 5 200$ brushes. Instead i have about, i don't know 25 unique models, which are not "fine" (as in expensive), but which appreciate them all the same.

I checked the Duke 3 specs, aside the hideous ridge (which i will love), the only big difference i see, is that the knot is 2mm larger than the Commodore X2. And to get these 2mm more, i only have to pay another EUR 100. And maybe i will also feel the hair this time will be absolutely amazing-unbelievable-never seen before, just because i will have forked another EUR 100. And maybe this time i won't have lather on my fingers, even if the dimensions seem very similar and maybe i will also like the handle ergonomy, even though i prefer handles with a curve. Many maybes here...

While i do understand this from a marketing point of view, this time i act from the side of the consumer and thus, i don't find much logic in it. The reason why i bought the Commodore X2, was exactly so that i can assess the hair and see if it's miraculous. I don't see what 2mm more in the knot will change. By the same reasoning, i got Edwin Jagger best and i don't like it. At 37 EUR, i can get right now the 23mm Edwin Jagger SUPER badger. I don't because i have already tested the best hair and found it floppy, so logic says their super hair, will be even floppier, so giving another 37 EUR, is a bad bet.

About silvertips. No, i don't have or like only silvertips. But fact is, almost every badger i have, has strong backbone. The silvertips, stand apart, as being the most badgery badgers, while not being floppy. Because i also have a small army of boars and synthetics, which also have high backbone. So, at this point, i am leaning more towards something on the softer side, because i am near the point of brush saturation. Meaning, i have enough brushes candidates to monthly rotation, that there isn't space for many more. And more so, it's a waste to buy a 100 EUR brush, to be used 1 or 2 months a year. Because this is going to happen. I won't kick out of rotation my existing brushes just to accomodate the EUR 100 "diva".

The proposals of "buy this, buy that", never end. If i make a new thread asking people in this forum to propose me "one last brush", i would be 10.000 EUR short after a month.

Believe it or not, i appreciate every one of my lowly brushes and i take equally care of all of them. Even of the "unlucky" EJ best, which is the floppy king of the family. I try not to soak it right up to the handle. This gives it some backbone.

It's time for me to settle down and just enjoy what i have.

 

[rockviper]

...Even of the "unlucky" EJ best, which is the floppy king of the family. I try not to soak it right up to the handle. This gives it some backbone....

I added 2 o-rings to my EJ; it improved the knot feel quite a bit.

 

[Boar Fighter]

I added 2 o-rings to my EJ; it improved the knot feel quite a bit.

Ah! To "tighten" the knot at the base? I hadn't thought of that! Thanks! I will include some in my next Amazon order! This sounds like a great idea!

 

[naughtilus]

Let me make just a wild guess here. Do you by any chance have a Duke 3?

I do and I like the Zenith 507 Manchurian moar, because I like big brushes. This dense 24.5mm Duke best badger knot is something I imagine you would enjoy moar than me. You can buy $30 cheaper big Zenith silvertip, but it's too big for you, yet perfectly sized for me. Remember YMMV? Value is relative.

BTW, Zenith badgers aren't exactly cheap either. $65-$130 for a shaving brush is bonkers for everyone except shaving hobbyists. I consider Omega $10 boars as fine brushes. Just think of how many (millions) men shaved with much inferior brushes than a 10049 for decades. When I got mine I was mind blown for months with its awesomeness.

It's time for me to settle down and just enjoy what i have.

 

[naughtilus]

 

[Boar Fighter]

I do and I like the Zenith 507 Manchurian moar, because I like big brushes. This dense 24.5mm Duke best badger knot is something I imagine you would enjoy moar than me. You can buy $30 cheaper big Zenith silvertip, but it's too big for you, yet perfectly sized for me. Remember YMMV? Value is relative.

BTW, Zenith badgers aren't exactly cheap either. $65-$130 for a shaving brush is bonkers for everyone except shaving hobbyists. I consider Omega $10 boars as fine brushes. Just think of how many (millions) men shaved with much inferior brushes than a 10049 for decades. When I got mine I was mind blown for months with its awesomeness.

I agree especially with your last paragraph. My father was using 1 boar all his life. He would have probably thought i am mad if he knew how many brushes i 've bought. But, imagination of what we would like, is a bottomless pit and as some point, one must decide where the red line will be. If i were to use 3 brushes like you do, maybe i would have gone for the Duke 3 or a Chubby right from the beginning. But i went another way, because i value variety more than supposed or real quality. I have already given much more money than i would have imagined in wet shaving. I 've done enough experiments, it's a 10-15 minute routine, quite frankly, like with most "luxury" items (because what we do, is luxury shaving nowdays, compared to canned foam), there is a point, past which, you are paying very much for very small return. And in Simpson brushes, their own website says that the Commodore is the most sold brush in North America and the best value.

The brush, will be in a random monthly rotation where each month, will have 1 out of 6 chances to be picked. So, at the end, how much money are you willing to pay, for a brush that each month will have these chances to be used? In Simpson, like with all "old" and "famous" brands, part of the cost, is the label itself. At the price of a Simpson pure, you can get Edwin Jagger super, just to say one example. My "sucker alert" starts ringing rapidly past 60 EUR. The same applies to Zenith. If you buy the 160 EUR Zenith, you are not getting a great deal. Prices also vary from a country to another. Here Zenith silvertips start at 52 EUR and maybe less if you contact directly the factory.

I have seen people be happy just because their brush is "so dense". Density doesn't equal "better" to me. Too much density can kill the flow of lather or give too much backbone. I have seen Simpson Chubby synth users describe the backbone as "great". I have seen others say that it's so "great" that sold the brush after 5 shaves because it wouldn't splay. I have watch a youtuber called "iLather", who is a sort of synth guru, explain that it's so hard on backbone, that when it splays, the lather moves down and you find it on the handle. That's the description of everything i hate in synths. Yet, it's the most expensive synth and has also a fanatic army of supporters. How many of them draw their satisfaction from the price and rationalizing the amount of backbone as great, is another story and anyone's guess.

I am seriously thinking "why don't i just buy a 4th of the german silvertips, even at full price and just close the silvertip chapter too". I like it so much. Their weak spot is the plastic handle. So let's say the knot comes out. If you have spares, who cares. One has lost 1 hair the other none.

Nice family!

 

[Boar Fighter]

By pure luck of the draw (literally, i draw lots every month), the Simpson is out of the rotation and the lowly Fantasia 21.5mm silvertip is in... I used it a few hours ago so it's still wet:



So i now have still a very vivid memory of the Simpson and i can go into more detail.

- Both brushes dry, the silvertip has a bit more backbone than the Simpson (i put them loft vs loft and the silvertip won).
- Simpson seems to have hair that is more "sleek" to the touch. It might also be that it's been used much less, but that's how it is.
- Once wet, the feeling is very similar. The amount of backbone, is very similar too. The biggest difference once more, is that the silvertip has no prickliness (the hair is a bit thinner i think) and that the backbone is more "bouncy". It is more like a pillow that bounces on your cheek. Simpson, is very similar, but the more you press, the more the backbone becomes more "solid". I prefer the silvertip in this regard.
- The silvertip has 52mm loft, which probably is why it feels more pillowy (the higher loft gives more depth to the backbone). It is also why i don't finish with lather on my fingers.
- Of course Simpson has better handle and more "looked after" knot, the band is more regular etc, the hair is probably better quality (if we take slickness as measure), but at the end of the day, judging the knot, i prefer the silvertip. If Simpson had 52mm knot, things would probably be inverted.

But, at the end, eyes closed and brushes loaded, one would have to be very careful to perceive which brush is which.

Bottom line, the Simpson, quality wise, is the better brush. But construction quality isn't the only criteria in judging a brush.

Overall though, i think the 21mm Simpson best knots, are the best value for money brushes of the house and in the future i will probably buy a second best badger. Today i arrived very close to ordering a Simpson pure, but after much thought, i aborted, because i thought i should not buy another prickly brush, since i already have some pure badgers. But i can see a Colonel 2XL in the future, since i noticed the handle is longer than my Commodore. This might be the cure to the soap on my hands. The downside is, that i regard the Colonel as uglier brush, because of a disproportionately long handle compared to the loft. Still, it has no horizontal ridge and the handle is 5mm higher and it's still within EUR 60, which is the arbitrary limit i have set.

I 've thought of buying Yaqi silvertips, since they appear to be great deals (and the 2bands really are), but, every time i see a video, i can't help thinking that they are too big for my taste... I may end up buying all the same, if i stumble in some good deal on them, but i prefer something smaller. And right now, i think Simpson 21mm best deserves yet another purchase (i will probably keep one brush as spare for some years, so that i don't clutter the rotation with 2 Simpsons).

Back to the May Sabbatical...for now.

P.S.: I just checked my purchase history, i bought the silvertip for EUR 8,89 (though now it costs about 30). You can't beat that.

 

[naughtilus]

I believe the bulb shape on the Fantasia yields more backbone.

I don't see the X2L as a brush that would satisfy you for face lathering. Why the need for longer handle?

 

[Boar Fighter]

I believe the bulb shape on the Fantasia yields more backbone.

I don't see the X2L as a brush that would satisfy you for face lathering. Why the need for longer handle?

Yes, bulb helps in that. Because i hate having to rinse my fingers at every pass. And since Simpson lofts are 45mm, the other way to avoid lather on fingers, is a longer handle. Hopefully. The X2L has 5mm longer handle.

 

[naughtilus]

Yes, bulb helps in that. Because i hate having to rinse my fingers at every pass. And since Simpson lofts are 45mm, the other way to avoid lather on fingers, is a longer handle. Hopefully. The X2L has 5mm longer handle.

5mm longer handle yeah, like that's gonna help.

That's why I got the Polo 8 bro.

 

[naughtilus]

Simpson Harvard H6 would fit you well.

See top row for size comparison.