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Brush Chronicles #1: The Body Shop Synthetic Brush

Great work!! Bob. These are not only top notch reviews of TBS synthetic, but great tutorials for the new wetshaver. Thanks for your time Bob!

Thanks. That's what we hope the chronicles will be, a user manual for each brush that anyone can look at and know how to make the brush work.

On a personal note, I have The Body Shop Synthetic Brush and didn't like the way it lathered compared to either a badger or boar. I don't think it's suitable for it. I had similar problems with the stiffness of the bristles. And the same airy lather. I have found a use for it though. I use it for applying talc after I shower. It's great for that.

It can be a frustrating brush, for sure. Since so many users of it have never tried a brush and cream or soap before, giving them some tips and tricks to make it work can only help keep them from going back to the dark side. :a45:
 
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SOTD Week 1, Day 4

TBS Synthetic Brush
Sara Bonnyman Lather Bowl
Taylor's of Old Bond Street Shaving Shop Cream
Mach 3 with Rooney Handle
Feather Kanwa ASB

As I mentioned in my first post in this thread, I don't have a lot of time in the morning, so I don't have any pics today. Having been flummoxed with bowl lathering the last couple of times, I changed strategy a bit, taking an approach that I hinted at yesterday. This brush is more like a whisk that aerates, and more water = more bubbles, no matter how small. The dip-mix technique hasn't been very effective, and made even a great cream like Musgo Real be a shadow of itself. Let's start from scratch.

Take my word for it that I started with the same amount of TOBS Shaving Shop cream as with the Maca Root and Musgo Real. This time, I took the soaked and shaken out brush, and mixed the cream aggressively in the bowl for about 20 seconds without adding any water. The only water were those few molecules in the brush that hung on for dear life when I shook it out, and the residual water in the bowl after taking it out of the sink. I also made point of pressing down with the brush so that it splayed in the bowl, hopefully reducing its whisking property. Rather than have the smear that I have shown before, I got a nice lather start to build and climb up the side of the bowl. It was still dry, though, and the volume of lather was far less than seen at the end of the previous days' latherings.

Now for the water. I dribbled about a quarter to half teaspoon of water from my hand into the bowl, and mixed with the splayed brush for about 10-15 seconds. I did this four times, and was left with a good volume of lather that had soft peaks instead of stiff peaks. I tested the dryness of the lather throughout by swiping the brush across the bottom of the bowl. If it swiped clean, it was still too dry, and I added a little more water. When I swiped and a thin smear of cream was left in the bottom, I knew that I was pretty much there. It told me that the cream was sufficiently wet to stick to the bowl.

From there to the face for one minute of application and painting. The lather felt far creamier than with the Musgo or Maca Root. I discount the comparison with the Maca Root, since the quality of the TOBS cream is much better. Topping Musgo, however, makes me take notice, and tells me that I'm on the right track. There was less transmogrification of the lather on the face this time as well, which tells me that I got it pretty close to right in the bowl this time :thumbup1:

The cartridge is starting to feel rough. I usually change cartridges after a week due to lack of comfort, and I'm starting to feel it after 4 days. Nevertheless, I persevered with my N-S pass, rinse, relather, and ATG pass. The shave was more comfortable than yesterday, and my shave is borderline DFS/BBS. I still felt a little rough at the end, but the Feather Kanwa ASB took care of that.

On a scale of 1-10, I got to a 7.5 today, which I'm pretty happy with. The face lathered shave with COB on Tuesday still tops it, but I'm making progress. Good badger and boar brushes do most of the lathering work for you, but the TBS Synthetic makes you do more work, pushing it down, being miserly with water, etc. I hate to say it, but for a brush that is supposed to introduce neophytes, you need a yellow belt in traditional wet shaving to make it work well for you, and get lather like a brush is supposed to give you. Tomorrow, I will be using a sample of Trumpers Coconut Oil cream. Let's see what we make it do!
 
SOTD Week 1, Day 5

TBS Synthetic Brush
Sara Bonnyman Lather Bowl
Trumpers Coconut Oil Cream
Mach 3 with Rooney Handle
Penhaligon's Endymion ASB

Apologies for a late post today. Having been encouraged by yesterday's lather with the TOBS cream, I took a nearly identical tack today. I don't have a tub or tube of Trumpers Coconut Oil cream, but it was the cream I used daily while I was learning DE shaving, and it is renowned for its rich, slick protective lather. I had a little sample pack of the cream, and decided to break it out today.

As some have noted over on the Shaving Cream forum the Trumpers samples can be a bit on the dry side, and truth be told, a sample of the Trumper Almond cream that I got at the same time, was so dry as to be unusable. The Coconut Oil sample was a bit on the dry side, but plenty usable. I took about half of the sample and pressed it into the bottom of my lather bowl. I had soaked my TBS brush in a sink full of hot water along with the lather bowl during my shower. After giving the brush a couple of good shakes, I went to work. No water was added, so the only water was what was left in the brush and what was left in the bowl after pouring the water out. I took the brush, really splayed it on the cream, and then started aggressively swirling the brush in the bowl. Whisking with the tips makes for airy lather, so I pressed down while I swirled for about twenty seconds, and got this:


You can see the lather creeping up the side of the bowl, and it looks even better than the TOBS cream looked yesterday. I then started slowly dribbling in water about a 1/4 teaspoon at a time, and pressing/mixing. I regularly checked the lather by swiping the brush across the bottom of the bowl, and if it wiped clean, I added more water. I didn't time how long it took, but after a short while, the bottom of the bowl stayed coated after I swiped the brush. This gave me this:


You can clearly see how the cream looks rich and slick, and I was very happy with how it looked. I started swirling and painting for about a minute to apply the lather and it just felt great on my face, exactly the way I remembered it. Once more to the cartridge, starting day 5 with this Mach 3. As an aside, the Mach 3 blades just start tugging and pulling after such few shaves, it's no wonder I switched to DEs (M3's do perform better than the Mach 3). The N-S pass was uneventful, and I rinsed, relathered and started ATG. I was a little nervous about this because the cartridge was tugging, but the lather really kept things in order and was left with a very nice DFS with no nicks or weepers. WWR, CWR and an application of Penhaligon's Endymion ASB left me in good shape.

On a scale of 1-10, Trumpers Coconut scored an 8. It was different from the 8 I gave to COB on Tuesday. The Trumpers lather was really rich and luxurious, not too wet and by no means dry or airy. It applied easily and was really nice and protective.

My next cream to use will be Castle Forbes Lavender, which is more of a soft soap and I lather it differently from other creams. It will provide a nice transition to the soap week next week. That said, there are a few conclusions that come to mind with this brush when it comes to bowl lathering creams. One really needs to use a dry brush and press the brush down in the bowl when mixing. This forces the whole knot to participate in the lathering, and better incorporates water. Water should be added in dribbles and really incorporated with the brush. Checking the cream consistency as you go really makes sure you add enough water and don't go too far. The TBS Synthetic can handle creams well, but you have to make it work for you.
 
SOTD Week 1, Day 7

TBS Synthetic Brush
Castle Forbes Lavender Cream
Mach 3 with Rooney Handle
DR Harris After Shave Milk

I looked forward to today's shave because I was using Castle Forbes Lavender cream. It is rightfully considered one of the finest creams available. I have used both it and its Lime Oil cousin, and they never fail to give absolutely stellar lathers, regardless of brush. I had the choice of continuing bowl lathering, which I have always done with CF cream, but I wanted to try something different, knowing that tomorrow kicks off a week of soaps. CF creams are more like soft soaps than they are creams, and the old scoop and smear in the bowl technique was always a bit dodgy for me. Instead, I treat the cream like a soap, and swirl the brush on top before heading to the bowl. I followed suit today, but instead of bowl lathering, I went for a face lather. You will recall that the TBS brush did an awesome job face lathering CO Bigelow, and hoped it would follow suit today.

Kicking off, I soaked the brush in hot water in the sink while I showered. I then shook the brush out, as I have been doing religiously since I started with the brush, and swirled a few times on top of the CF Lavender in travel size tub.


I then proceeded to face lather for a minute or two, first spreading the cream over my beard completely, and then going back to the sink periodically for water as I lathered. Remember how I ditched the dip and swirl method while bowl lathering, as I could not control the actual amount of water getting into the bowl? I don't think it matters as much when face lathering because a bunch of water runs off unincorporated after each dip, so you can still get a very nice lather out of it without it becoming airy. Anyway, after much swirling and painting, the brush was left with this:


I easily had enough lather for at least 3 more passes. The lather was great, rich and slick at the same time, with nice cushioning. I was using this Mach 3 cartridge for the last time before swapping in a new one for tomorrow. How do I know it was a good lather? I couldn't feel the cartridge at all. Today's shave was N-S followed by a quick rinse, relather (again a nice stable lather), then change direction to S-N (I don't go crazy for BBS with an ATG pass on the weekend). Both passes were smooth and uneventful. I can frequently count on at least one weeper or nick on a week old cartridge, but not today. When done, WWR, CWR, pat dry and then DR Harris Aftershave Milk. The Milk has a light, dusty rose scent that works quite nicely with the lavender cream. :thumbup1:

I think this lather topped the one I had with COB on Tuesday, and I will give it an 8.5. It had all of the qualities that a Castle Forbes lather is renowned for, and not even an aging cartridge could spoil this shave. As odd as this may sound, this very stiff brush is dynamite when it comes to face lathering. TBS Synthetic + Face = better lather, whether you start in the bowl or on your face.

Tomorrow kicks off a week with soaps. I will confess up front that I have a pretty good idea how it will turn out. The wild cards for me will be using Ogallala Bay Rum on Tuesday, as I have never used it before, and MWF bowl lathered next weekend. Who knows how THAT one will turn out? One week down and one to go. Anyone who may be lathering along at home with this brush is welcome to post their experience as well.
 
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SOTD Week 2, Day 1

The Body Shop Synthetic Brush
Sara Bonnyman Lather Bowl
Art of Shaving Lavender Soap
Mach 3 with Rooney Handle
DR Harris After Shave Milk

Today represents a sort of homecoming, as this week I will be using soaps exclusively with the TBS Synthetic. As some of you know, I have become a devotee of the one soap at a time/use it up approach proposed by johnniegold in his 2017 Challenge. Using one soap (or any lathering product, for that matter) at a time really gives you a handle on how to make that soap or cream lather best. Since the end of July, I have been using AoS Lavender soap, and it has been giving me fantastic shaves. As a tallow-based soap, it lathers like crazy, works well in both face and bowl lathering and leaves my face feeling great. AoS soaps are manufactured by Valobra in Italy (who also manufacture the Czech and Speake soaps), and may be the best soaps available today (YMMV).

Lathering a soap is very similar to lathering cream, with the primary difference being that you have to load your brush from the soap, as opposed to squeezing cream from a tube or taking it out of a tub. Jim wrote (for me) the definitive treatise on soap lathering, and I follow it religiously. You will find that if you can't get a decent lather from a soap, it is usually one of two reasons: not enough product loaded on the brush or too much water.

One confession, I have used the TBS Synthetic doing a fair amount of travel over the summer, and either brought a travel tin of soap or a shave stick. This brush, for all of its finickiness bowl lathering creams, is a great one for soaps, particularly when face lathering. The soft tips but stiff bristles make it very easy to load, and really can do a nice job lathering up. With that in mind, I had high hopes starting today.

Here is how it went:
I soaked the brush and bowl in the sink full of hot water while I showered. In addition, I soaked the puck of AoS Lavender as well. After showering, I poured off the excess water from the soap (I know, I know....you can use a lot of soap this way, but I'm trying to move through my many soaps one by one...so it's ok for me), removed the brush from the sink and shook it out, and emptied the water from the lather bowl. Next, I proceeded to swirl the brush on the puck of AoS for about 30 seconds, plunging up and down as I swirled, yielding this:


The primary lesson I took home from my work with creams last week was to make sure I really got a lather started in the bowl before adding much water, so I swirled the splayed brush for 20 seconds in the bowl, and got this:


I then progressively dribbled in water and alternately mixed with the splayed brush to increase the volume of lather. I regularly checked the consistency of the lather by swiping the bottom of the bowl, and if it came up clean, I concluded that it was too dry and added more water. After about 2 minutes of working the lather in the bowl, I achieved this:


This lather had the same consistency in the bowl as what I regularly achieve with a badger brush. I then proceeded to apply the lather to my wet face for about a minute or so, swirling and painting. The lather felt great, and I set to work with the cartridge. I put a fresh one in this morning, as it is my habit to change every week when cartridge shaving. The N-S pass was smooth and uneventful. I did a quick rinse, and noticed how slick my skin felt after the rinse and before putting on more lather for the second pass. The ATG pass was no problem at all, and followed with a CWR, WWR, pat dry and application of DR Harris Aftershave Milk. All in all, it was a very good shave, and was left with a nice DFS.

I know how to lather this soap inside and out. It is a stellar performer, and everyone owes it to himself/herself to give AoS soaps a try. Yes, they are that good. This lather was superior in every respect to those of the creams I used last week. It was thick, slick and protective in a way that only a soap can give, and a cream cannot. It was every bit as good as the AoS lather that my badger brushes make, but it took about twice as long to get it. I attribute this to the fact that the brush is pretty dry when I start, and have to compensate for that by stopping to add and incorporate more water along the way. All in all, it was a great shave.

Tomorrow, I am taking an Ogallala Bay Rum stick out for its maiden voyage. I have no problem whatsoever getting dense, tallow or veggie based sticks (like Valobra and La Toja, respectively) to give me a great lather. I have had some issues in the past using softer sticks like the Ogallala stick, so I will be sure to use more product.
 
SOTD Week 2, Day 2

TBS Synthetic Brush
Ogallala Bay Rum Stick
Mach 3 with Rooney Handle
Feather Kanwa ASB

Today I did something dangerous. Very dangerous. Well, it was dangerous for a reviewer and tutorial creator. Today I used a soap that I had never used before, and in stick form no less. It's always a bit dicey to try something new and then write about it. After all, what if it doesn't work? Then I have egg on my face instead of fine lather, and have to write about the embarrassment. Fortunately, that did not happen. Today I used an Ogallala Bay Rum Shave Stick. Bay rum is just a great fragrance, but it can be a little hard to find in a good soap or cream. After spending a bunch of time looking through reviews in the Spring, I settled on Ogallala, which is prized for its performance as well as its scent. It's other Bay Rum-based scents are enjoyed even more than plain old Bay Rum.

Anyway, enough background, on to the shave. Once again, my prep consisted of a hot shower, and the TBS Synthetic Brush soaked in the sink of hot water. I also dipped the end of the shave stick in the water to soften it up a bit. Once done, I proceeded to follow Joel's Instructions on Shave Stick Use. After completely coating my beard with soap, I shook out the brush and started working the soap into a lather. Many dips and swirls later, I was left with the following:


There was enough lather there for 3-4 more passes. With that, I went to work with a N-S pass. For some reason, the cartridge felt pretty uncomfortable. When I finished the pass, I rinsed with warm water, and the skin still felt very slick. I re-lathered and did my ATG pass, this time backing off the pressure, and everything went fine. I did a WWR, CWR, pat dry and applied Feather's Kanwa ASB. That initial irritation settled down just fine, and I was left with a DFS.

The lather was very good, but not ideal. Being very slick, it gave a lot of glide for the cartridge, but it was not very cushioning (as is the case with many soaps), so I will give the lather a 7. The brush did just fine lathering the soap on my face. With its stiff backbone, it can be a little challenging to get a good, massaging lather going, but it is manageable. I don't have this issue with badger brushes with face lathering. The points deducted for the lather have to do with the properties of the soap, rather than the performance of the brush. The soap has a great scent, and did a fine job. I will look forward to using Ogallala Bay Rum again.

Tomorrow, we go back to another favorite of mine, Trumpers Rose soap.
 
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I am going to change the list and order of soaps for the rest of this week (host's prerogative :001_smile). I indulged a little over the weekend :)whistling:), and picked up a tub of QED's Special 218 soap. This is glycerin based, and we did not have a glycerin soap in the lineup, so in the interest of science and completeness, the new order is:

  • Wednesday: Trumpers Rose
  • Thursday: Palmolive Stick
  • Friday: QED Special 218
  • Saturday/Sunday: Mitchell's Wool Fat--Bowl Lathered
 
SOTD Week 2, Day 3

TBS Synthetic Brush
Geo F. Trumper Rose Soap
Mach 3 with Rooney Handle
DR Harris Aftershave Milk

In today's installment, we will face lather the veggie-based Rose soap from Geo F. Trumper. The approach to lather is a blend of the brush loading method from Jim, and the face lathering from shave stick method of Joel. Trumper was one of the first English houses to convert their legendary tallow soaps to a vegetable base, and after a few purported hiccups at the beginning, the current soap lathers very well. My first foray into traditional wet shaving products (after using TBS cream and brush for a few years), was with Trumpers line of creams, and I quickly fell for their Violet and Rose floral scents. Since migrating to soaps a year and a half ago, I was pleased to find that the soaps had the same great scent, and lathered quite well.

This morning, I used the same brush loading technique as on Monday, soaking the brush in a sink of hot water, and soaking the soap. I find Trumpers triple milled soaps to be a bit harder than those from AoS, and since I haven't used it in awhile, I gave it a chance for the surface to loosen up. I shook the brush out, but didn't get all of the water out, and proceeded to follow Jim's method for brush loading, swirling for ~30 seconds. The brush loaded very easily, and the residual extra water started a lather on the puck, all of which was moved to the brush:


With a nicely loaded brush, I proceeded to face lather, first applying the soap to my face, and then progressively dipping the brush in water lightly, and lathering with scrubbing and painting motions. This left me with a nice, slick lather with enough for 2-3 more passes:


The N-S pass was uneventful, and the lather felt nice and slick. After a quick rinse with warm water and re-lather, the ATG pass felt a little rough. WWR, CWR, pat dry and application of DR Harris Aftershave Milk, and I was left with a DFS.

The Trumpers Rose soap lathers up very easily, with its ease on par with AoS Lavender. The qualities of the lather are a bit different, and I do not find the Trumpers lather to be as cushioning as the AoS lather. Once again, this doesn't have anything to do with the brush itself. The TBS Synthetic does a very nice job loading soaps and face lathering. Even with its stiff backbone, I am finding myself getting quite used to it. When I go back to badger next week, it will probably feel like lathering with a pillow. On the scale of 1-10, I give this lather a 7, just like that from Ogallala. Tomorrow, I break out the world's best bargain soap, the Palmolive Shave Stick (with Tallow).
 
SOTD Week 2, Day 4

TBS Synthetic Brush
Palmolive Shave Stick
Mach 3 with Rooney Handle
Feather Kanwa ASB

We are back to face lathering with a shave stick today. Unlike the Ogallala Bay Rum stick on Tuesday, the Palmolive Shave Stick is tallow-based. Let me state right at the outset that the Palmolive stick is one of the finest values in shaving today. Priced at a couple of bucks, the stick can give you 40+ shaves and makes you wonder why you drop $25 for a refill puck of AoS. Time was short this morning, so no pics today.

As usual, my prep consisted of a hot shower, and I soaked the brush in a sink full of hot water. The tallow-based sticks like Palmolive are a little harder than the veggie stick, and I dipped the end of the stick in the water to help soften it up a bit. When I got to the sink, I loaded my beard with soap following Joel's very effective technique. I then took the brush out of the sink and gave it 2 good shakes to get most of the water out, and set to working the soap in my beard with the brush. I took care to make sure that I got good splay with the brush. Having been using this for a couple of weeks now, the stiffness of the bristles does not bother me. I worked the lather up with circular and painting motions, and went back and forth between sink and beard until I had a nice rich, slick lather. I easily had enough lather left in the brush for 3 more passes.

On to the shave. I started off with the N-S pass and immediately noticed how much more comfortable the cartridge felt than with either of the veggie-based Ogallala and Trumpers soaps. Tallow just makes soaps have a nice combination of slickness and cushion that I have found only one veggie soap to match (La Toja Stick). The first pass was uneventful, and after a quick rinse with warm water, I reapplied the nice, stable lather, and set to work on the ATG pass. This pass, too, went off without a hitch, and a WWR, CWR and pat dry were followed by a dose of Feather's Kanwa ASB.

This shave was excellent by every measure. I am writing this 15 hours after the deed, and I still have a DFS. I would forego a shave in the morning, but know that I would look like a vagrant by noon :tongue_sm. The lather was measurably better than that from Ogallala and Trumper, but slightly less cushioning than AoS, so I will give it an 8.5 out of 10. For a brush that is most often bought by people just trying traditional shave creams for the first time, I find it to be a far superior performer with soaps, and it excels at face lathering. In fact, this brush along with a good shave stick is more than adequate for travel. :thumbup1:

Time to change the schedule up again, as I don't have the Special 218 tub in hand yet, so I will break out Da Fat tomorrow morning, and will take pics. Given the extra work it takes to make lather in a bowl with this brush, I am taking a risk here, but bowl lathered Fat is my crucible for all brushes. If you can bowl lather Da Fat, you can bowl lather anything.
 

johnniegold

"Got Shoes?"
For crying out loud, Bob. After reading this thread is there any reason to own any other brush than TBS Synthetic Brush. :biggrin:

Thanks for all the obvious hard-work you are putting into this project.

Get ready for the 21 Badger Salute! Please remove your badger caps, fellas.

:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
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SOTD Week 2, Day 5

TBS Synthetic Brush
Sara Bonnyman Lather Bowl
Mitchell's Wool Fat Soap
Mach 3 with Rooney Handle
DR Harris Aftershave Milk

To soar with Eagles, you have to stretch your wings a bit, regardless of whether that Eagle has feathers or is made by Simpson. My benchmark lathering test of any brush is whether it can handle Mitchell's Wool Fat. This soap, prized for its magical combination of tallow and lanolin has entranced and baffled wet shavers for decades. In some hands, this soap produces a magical shaving elixir about which songs are sung. In others.....not so much. I am fortunate to live in an area where the tap water is Fat-compatible, and after my shaves with it, I sing. We have thrown just about every kind of lathering material at the TBS Synthetic, so let's try MWF.

I soaked the brush in a sink of hot water, and also soaked the soap in water as well, since I had not used it in awhile and the top was cracked. I proceeded with my usual hot shower prep, and then poured off the water from the MWF bowl, and shook out the brush. I then swirled the brush on the cake of MWF pretty aggressively for about a minute, using Jim's previously referenced technique, so that my brush looked like this:


Some lather had started to build on top of the cake of soap, which I dutifully transferred to the brush. I then swirled the loaded brush pretty aggressively in the bowl before adding any water, giving me this:


I knew right away that this did not look good. Not at all. There were far too many large bubbles, so I swirled the brush, splaying all the time, trying to incorporate that water as much as possible, and get the bubbles down to nanoscopic size. Only once did I dribble in any additional water. At the end of my two minutes of mixing, I had this:


Not good. REALLY not good. Time was short, however, so I threw caution to the wind and lathered up, swirling and painting this bubbly mess on my face for about a minute. I glanced down at the bowl and was horrified to find it disintegrating in the bowl:


I wiped the tear from my eye, and kept applying, praying that something good would happen. Much to my relief, lather transformation happened again while applying airy lather with the TBS brush. The lather was certainly not the caliber that I have come to expect from MWF, but it was acceptable, and the brush looked like this with the stable, well-formed lather:


I took my fifth shave with this cartridge, and the N-S pass went fine, if a little rough. After the brief rinse, I could still feel a slick coating from the lather, and then reapplied for pass 2. The ATG pass was also a little rough, so I didn't push the touch ups to get a BBS, and was left with a perfectly acceptable DFS. WWR, CWR and pat dry followed again by the DR Harris Aftershave Milk. :001_wub:

I have seen reference to quotes made by the makers of MWF that the soap performs best when face lathered. My prior experience with it certainly supports that, as face lathered MWF has always given me great lather and excellent shaves. The nice transformation I was fortunate to have gotten with the TBS Synthetic this morning when applying the lather saved the shave in the nick of time. I can only guess that there was still too much residual water sitting on the cake of soap and in its bowl when I went to load the brush, so I was left with a mess of bubbles. Putting it in the bowl only made it worse. I hate to say it, but this brush is not up to lathering Da Fat. On a scale of 1-10, I give it a 5, but only because a diving catch was made at the end. My face still feels great, with the lanolin and tallow working their magic, so I am left humming a tune today instead.
 
For crying out loud, Bob. After reading this thread is there any reason to own any other brush than TBS Synthetic Brush. :biggrin:

Why yes, yes there is. :yesnod:

Thanks for all the obvious hard-work you are putting into this project.

Get ready for the 21 Badger Salute! Please remove your badger caps, fellas.

:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:

Thank you! It has been fun so far, and we have one more shave to go. I have the QED Special 218 in hand, and we'll see what this brush can do with a glycerin soap over the weekend.








I am looking forward to using a badger again!
 
For crying out loud, Bob. After reading this thread is there any reason to own any other brush than TBS Synthetic Brush. :biggrin:

Thanks for all the obvious hard-work you are putting into this project.

Get ready for the 21 Badger Salute! Please remove your badger caps, fellas.

:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:
:badger: :badger: :badger:

:thumbsup:
 
SOTD Week 2, Day 7

TBS Synthetic Brush
QED Special 218 Soap
Mach 3 with Rooney Handle
Feather Kanwa ASB

Up until now, we have tried all variety of creams and soaps to put The Body Shop Synthetic Brush through its paces. Today, in the final installment of The Brush Chronicles #1, we use the brush with glycerin-based soap. We heap praise on tallow-based and triple milled veggie soaps with good reason, but glycerin-based soaps sometimes don't get the respect they deserve. Many of our fine craft soapmakers use glycerin as their medium, and give us soaps in a dazzling variety of scents. The good news is that they work, and very well at that.

For my final chronicled shave with The Body Shop brush, I am using Special 218 soap from QED. When you first remove the lid from the tub, you are hit with an amazing scent. I can't quite put my finger on what's in it, but it's a great combination. As before, I soaked the brush in a sink of hot water during my shower, and put a little warm water on the surface of the soap. I took the brush out of the sink, gave it a good shake, and poured the water off of the soap. I then swirled for about 45 seconds, plunging up and down as I went to load the brush (time is at a premium this morning, so my apologies for no pics today).

I have not enjoyed the bowl lathering process with this brush, so I went for a face lather today. I re-wet my beard with warm water, and proceeded to apply the soap all over. I then scrubbed and painted with periodic trips to the sink for additional water, and generated a nice, thick lather with no trouble. This is day 6 with this cartridge, and given time constraints, I only planned to do a single N-S pass. This I did with no problems. The lather was nice and slick, and I felt no irritation from the cartridge. WWR, CWR, pat dry and an application of Feather's Kanwa ASB, leaving me with an intentional close comfortable shave.

The soap performed very well, giving me a nice slick lather. Irritation was not an issue, but it was not as cushioning as the lathers I get from tallow- or other veggie-based soaps. It was slick as the dickens, though, and I give it a 7 on a scale of 10. I have used glycerin soaps in stick form in the past, and this was my first go with QED's soap in a tub. I look forward to the next one!

I will follow up with a concluding post later today.
 
A few final thoughts to round out the first installment of The Brush Chronicles. Having used this brush for two weeks straight, with almost every conceivable kind of soap and cream, lathered under as many conditions as I can think of, I am favorably impressed with this brush. This is a brush with a learning curve given its inability to hold water and very stiff backbone, but anyone who picks this brush up should be able to read through this thread and get right to work with it. It can be a pain to bowl lather with, so you have to take care to really splay the bristles and dribble in water by hand as needed. Still the end result is nearly as good as your typical badger brush.

Where I think it really shines is in face lathering applications. With cream or soap (in both stick and puck form), you get a really great lather. Again, you have to make the brush splay out for you, but you will be rewarded with a great lather.

For me, I do not see it joining my regular brush rotation. It works fine, but I have much more enjoyable brushes to use. Rather, I will use it as my travel brush, as I only face lather while traveling, and it is convenient to have the brush dry quickly. Further, it is only $11, so if something bad happens to it, so be it.

Thanks to everyone for reading. As the Chronicles continue, each discussion will be shaped by the leader for that discussion. I'm a bit OCD about things, which was probably pretty obvious. :yesnod:

Johnniegold is up next with the Edwin Jagger. Back to badger for me!
 
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