Brush Chronicles #14: Omega B&B Essential Boar
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- #42
Tonight's shave was a quick face lather with the B&B .boar and a Boots stick.
Haven't face lathered in a while, but the lil bluey was up to the task. Soft on the skin whether painting or swirling.
If only my fave hadn't lit up like a beacon afterwards, it would have been perfect. Blaming the soap. I think.
Haven't face lathered in a while, but the lil bluey was up to the task. Soft on the skin whether painting or swirling.
If only my fave hadn't lit up like a beacon afterwards, it would have been perfect. Blaming the soap. I think.
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- #44
Day 5: Omega B&B Essential Boar and Palmolive Rinfrescante Cream or Wait, you mean there is another Italian cream that cools like Proraso?
Back to the creams today, and I pulled out of the box a tube of Palmolive Rinfrescante (Refreshing) cream that I binge bought from West Coast Shaving about a year ago, but have not used yet. As its name suggests, it is a cooling shave cream and contains no small dose of menthol. Like most Palmolive products it smells like something, but not really anything at all. The scent is generally innocuous. I squeezed a small dollop of the cream into my bowl (which, I should add, had the reassuringly green tint of every other Palmolive product):
I then took the soaked, squeezed and damp B&B Essential Boar and proceeded to whip up a nice lather. It came together easily and quickly, and three modest dips of the brush tips in water gave me a bowlful of lather that looked to be of very high quality, with infinetessimally small bubbles, and a nice, well-hydrated sheen to it:
I applied the cream to my face with a combination of painting and circular strokes, and proceeded to shave. I was in a bit of a hurry this morning, so I resorted to the Sensor. The lather was very slick, but lacked a bit in cushioning, something that could probably be remedied by leaving a bit of the water out. The shave was nice, comfortable and two passes later, quite smooth. Oh, but this is supposed to be refreshing, right? Well, it really is. In the middle of the first pass, the cooling sensation really kicked in, and for the rest of the shave, the menthol really did its job. The cold water splash was especially bracing. Don't get me wrong, this isn't Osage Rub or QCS Vostok cold, but it is on par with what you get from Proraso/Bigelow. In fact, if you like the cooling of Proraso, but don't dig the scent (which admittedly applies to me), the Palmolive is well worth a try. As far as the brush goes, what can I say? It is a really well broken in boar that doesn't care what lathering agent you throw at it. It whips up a nice lather without much fuss.
Back to the creams today, and I pulled out of the box a tube of Palmolive Rinfrescante (Refreshing) cream that I binge bought from West Coast Shaving about a year ago, but have not used yet. As its name suggests, it is a cooling shave cream and contains no small dose of menthol. Like most Palmolive products it smells like something, but not really anything at all. The scent is generally innocuous. I squeezed a small dollop of the cream into my bowl (which, I should add, had the reassuringly green tint of every other Palmolive product):
I then took the soaked, squeezed and damp B&B Essential Boar and proceeded to whip up a nice lather. It came together easily and quickly, and three modest dips of the brush tips in water gave me a bowlful of lather that looked to be of very high quality, with infinetessimally small bubbles, and a nice, well-hydrated sheen to it:
I applied the cream to my face with a combination of painting and circular strokes, and proceeded to shave. I was in a bit of a hurry this morning, so I resorted to the Sensor. The lather was very slick, but lacked a bit in cushioning, something that could probably be remedied by leaving a bit of the water out. The shave was nice, comfortable and two passes later, quite smooth. Oh, but this is supposed to be refreshing, right? Well, it really is. In the middle of the first pass, the cooling sensation really kicked in, and for the rest of the shave, the menthol really did its job. The cold water splash was especially bracing. Don't get me wrong, this isn't Osage Rub or QCS Vostok cold, but it is on par with what you get from Proraso/Bigelow. In fact, if you like the cooling of Proraso, but don't dig the scent (which admittedly applies to me), the Palmolive is well worth a try. As far as the brush goes, what can I say? It is a really well broken in boar that doesn't care what lathering agent you throw at it. It whips up a nice lather without much fuss.
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Omega croap with the B&B in a scuttle:
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- #46
I love the yellow handle on that one.
The yellow handle looks great with that beautiful scuttle. 
These brushes rock, guys. Thanks Bob and team for making this into a great edition of the Brush Chronicles already- let's hope that more owners can chime in with photos and their thoughts (did I mention photos?).
Your pictures are awesome gents, just examing them closely has been a lesson for me in producing better quality lathers. And of course your descriptions to get them their as well. knowing that this is possible with this humble but capable brush is inspiring.
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Day 6: Omega B&B Essential Boar and TOBS St. James Cream or Let's take a walk around Buckingham Palace
In the environs of Buckingham Palace and Green Park in London's City of Westminster sits St. James, Ground Zero for British wet shaving and gentlemanly pursuits. Nestled among bespoke tailors and bootmakers, one can find the three T's, DR Harris, Floris and the giants of our hobby. For the next several shaves, I will use products from these makers (primarily creams), and start with Taylor of Old Bond Street's St. James-scented cream. TOBS makes great creams, and their now-discontinued Shaving Shop scent was a favorite. Their Jermyn Street line is designed for gents with sensitive skin, and the scent is kind of aquatic (or some such modern scent). My personal, hands-down favorite is St. James, though. I don't know what it is about it, but it just gets me. So let's start with a dollop:
There is really not much in there. I had soaked the Essential Boar in my OS mug during my shower, squeezed almost all of the water out and went to work on the cream in the bowl. The lather came together really quickly and easily, and I had to go to the basin only twice to get a true lather explosion in the bowl. I note this only because the term lather explosion gets thrown around a lot, but St. James really did. The lather was copious and really high quality:
Two passes later and I was pretty darned close to a BBS. There was no sense pushing it, as it's a holiday after all. I know that many of us think that boars are "soap brushes," but my experience using the Essential Boar is that it really does anything, and does it well. Let's face it, any brush can do anything you put your mind to, and just requires some trial and error to adapt the brush for that particular purpose. Tomorrow it's back to the St. James neighborhood to give Trumpers Violet soap a try.
In the environs of Buckingham Palace and Green Park in London's City of Westminster sits St. James, Ground Zero for British wet shaving and gentlemanly pursuits. Nestled among bespoke tailors and bootmakers, one can find the three T's, DR Harris, Floris and the giants of our hobby. For the next several shaves, I will use products from these makers (primarily creams), and start with Taylor of Old Bond Street's St. James-scented cream. TOBS makes great creams, and their now-discontinued Shaving Shop scent was a favorite. Their Jermyn Street line is designed for gents with sensitive skin, and the scent is kind of aquatic (or some such modern scent). My personal, hands-down favorite is St. James, though. I don't know what it is about it, but it just gets me. So let's start with a dollop:
There is really not much in there. I had soaked the Essential Boar in my OS mug during my shower, squeezed almost all of the water out and went to work on the cream in the bowl. The lather came together really quickly and easily, and I had to go to the basin only twice to get a true lather explosion in the bowl. I note this only because the term lather explosion gets thrown around a lot, but St. James really did. The lather was copious and really high quality:
Two passes later and I was pretty darned close to a BBS. There was no sense pushing it, as it's a holiday after all. I know that many of us think that boars are "soap brushes," but my experience using the Essential Boar is that it really does anything, and does it well. Let's face it, any brush can do anything you put your mind to, and just requires some trial and error to adapt the brush for that particular purpose. Tomorrow it's back to the St. James neighborhood to give Trumpers Violet soap a try.
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I have not prepared any photographs with a lather yet, but here's my B&B Omega Boar (in blue):
​Put the B&B Essential boar to task with face lathering with Speick Rasierseif, 
wiped up the stick with ease, and the Speick is a fine soap with a wonderful scent......Plenty of slick lather.
Also this week I tried the B&B on a glycerin soap, Mama Bears once again face lathering it. View attachment 453623View attachment 453624
As you can see the B&B made short work of the soap and holds enough for several luxurious shaves.
Although the brush did shed a couple of hairs this morning.
wiped up the stick with ease, and the Speick is a fine soap with a wonderful scent......Plenty of slick lather.
Also this week I tried the B&B on a glycerin soap, Mama Bears once again face lathering it. View attachment 453623View attachment 453624
As you can see the B&B made short work of the soap and holds enough for several luxurious shaves.
Although the brush did shed a couple of hairs this morning.
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Day 7: Omega B&B Essential Boar and Geo F. Trumper Violet Soap or Can that soap really be as bad as people say it is?
Continuing the walk through the neighborhood of St. James, we stop at Geo F. Trumper and pick up a bowl of their Violet Shave Soap. As most know, Trumper used to make one of the greatest shave soaps in the world, built on the tallow in its "toilet soap base." Sometime in 2008/9 or so, the company elected to reformulate its shave soaps and remove tallow from its recipe, converting to a veggie-derived, palm oil-based formula. To say that there were howls of disappointment would be an understatement. Suffice it to say that those who used the good stuff before found the no formula to be lacking in performance. A great soap turned mediocre, almost overnight. Fast forward a few years, and we began to see reports of sheer unlatherability for Trumper's soaps. Some attribute this to further reformulations, or the work of the factory that handled the soap production for several of the great British grooming houses. That this factory appears to now be closed (or at least not making shave soap anymore), has heartened some, and the significantly improved performance of Penhaligon's veggie soaps suggests that at least one great house has taken steps back toward respectability.
I, for one, will always have a soft spot in my heart for Trumper products. They made the first high end creams that I used, and I was a devotee of Coral Skin Food for a few years. One scent stands above them all, Violet. This scent is unique to the Trumper house among the British brands, as it eschewed the production of a lavender scented cream/soap in favor of the far more elusive violet. When I transitioned from creams to soaps a few years back, I made sure to get pucks of Trumpers Violet and Rose because I loved the scents so much. These pucks were the veggie versions, and I 3017'd a puck of Trumper's Rose. For me, this soap was a bit better than middle of the road, but I loved the scent so much, it will always be in my den. My puck of Violet has sat in the stockpile basically unused. I've gone to it for the odd lather here and there, but it's never gotten the daily use treatment.
That's a really long introduction for today's Chronicle post, in which we introduce the B&B Essential Boar to Trumper's Violet soap. As before, I soaked the brush in warm water during my shower, and put a little water on the surface of the soap to start softening it up. For Trumper's Rose, this was a key step, as my lathers were not as good without it. From there, I squeezed out the water from the brush, leaving a damp knot, and proceeded to load from the puck for a full minute. Now, I am a firm believer that when it comes to loading from hard soaps, water is your friend. I purposely squeeze water from the knot to avoid making piles of frothy bubbles when you get started. Still, there is a point with a damp brush that you just don't feel like you're making any more progress when loading, so I typically dip the very tips of the brush lightly in some water, and go back to the puck (this was done here about 30 seconds into the 1 minute load). My theory is that the additional water will start converting the soap already into the brush into some protolather, and allow you to pick up more from the puck. At the end of one minute, the loaded brush looked like this:
I know what you're thinking, "He's just puck lathering!" Well yeah, maybe. At this point, I usually complete the build of the lather by face lathering, but for kicks, I decided to complete it in a bowl. The usual process of swirling and adding drops of water progressively occurred, and I ended up with a bowl of lather that looked like this:
I would pay less attention to what's in the bowl. In this admittedly subpar photo, you can see a fair amount of large bubbles. In reality, the lather in the bowl around the outside was a nicely hydrated lather. If you look more closely at the lather in the knot itself, it's nicely built. This is what I used for my shave. Compared to the cream lathers the last few days, it's not as good cosmetically, but in use, it worked out very nicely, giving me a nice slick lather. Cushioning wasn't as good as with the creams, but when I 3017 this puck, I expect to dial it in and get consistently reliable lathers. The B&B Essential Boar can do anything, but to my mind, it was really built for hard soaps. The backbone of the knot allows you to load a hard soap with gusto, and just pick soap off of the puck. Softer brushes need more water to do their work in my experience. The endpoint for both kinds of brushes is the same, but how you get there is a bit different. And no, Trumper soaps are not as bad as people say they are, IMO.
Continuing the walk through the neighborhood of St. James, we stop at Geo F. Trumper and pick up a bowl of their Violet Shave Soap. As most know, Trumper used to make one of the greatest shave soaps in the world, built on the tallow in its "toilet soap base." Sometime in 2008/9 or so, the company elected to reformulate its shave soaps and remove tallow from its recipe, converting to a veggie-derived, palm oil-based formula. To say that there were howls of disappointment would be an understatement. Suffice it to say that those who used the good stuff before found the no formula to be lacking in performance. A great soap turned mediocre, almost overnight. Fast forward a few years, and we began to see reports of sheer unlatherability for Trumper's soaps. Some attribute this to further reformulations, or the work of the factory that handled the soap production for several of the great British grooming houses. That this factory appears to now be closed (or at least not making shave soap anymore), has heartened some, and the significantly improved performance of Penhaligon's veggie soaps suggests that at least one great house has taken steps back toward respectability.
I, for one, will always have a soft spot in my heart for Trumper products. They made the first high end creams that I used, and I was a devotee of Coral Skin Food for a few years. One scent stands above them all, Violet. This scent is unique to the Trumper house among the British brands, as it eschewed the production of a lavender scented cream/soap in favor of the far more elusive violet. When I transitioned from creams to soaps a few years back, I made sure to get pucks of Trumpers Violet and Rose because I loved the scents so much. These pucks were the veggie versions, and I 3017'd a puck of Trumper's Rose. For me, this soap was a bit better than middle of the road, but I loved the scent so much, it will always be in my den. My puck of Violet has sat in the stockpile basically unused. I've gone to it for the odd lather here and there, but it's never gotten the daily use treatment.
That's a really long introduction for today's Chronicle post, in which we introduce the B&B Essential Boar to Trumper's Violet soap. As before, I soaked the brush in warm water during my shower, and put a little water on the surface of the soap to start softening it up. For Trumper's Rose, this was a key step, as my lathers were not as good without it. From there, I squeezed out the water from the brush, leaving a damp knot, and proceeded to load from the puck for a full minute. Now, I am a firm believer that when it comes to loading from hard soaps, water is your friend. I purposely squeeze water from the knot to avoid making piles of frothy bubbles when you get started. Still, there is a point with a damp brush that you just don't feel like you're making any more progress when loading, so I typically dip the very tips of the brush lightly in some water, and go back to the puck (this was done here about 30 seconds into the 1 minute load). My theory is that the additional water will start converting the soap already into the brush into some protolather, and allow you to pick up more from the puck. At the end of one minute, the loaded brush looked like this:
I know what you're thinking, "He's just puck lathering!" Well yeah, maybe. At this point, I usually complete the build of the lather by face lathering, but for kicks, I decided to complete it in a bowl. The usual process of swirling and adding drops of water progressively occurred, and I ended up with a bowl of lather that looked like this:
I would pay less attention to what's in the bowl. In this admittedly subpar photo, you can see a fair amount of large bubbles. In reality, the lather in the bowl around the outside was a nicely hydrated lather. If you look more closely at the lather in the knot itself, it's nicely built. This is what I used for my shave. Compared to the cream lathers the last few days, it's not as good cosmetically, but in use, it worked out very nicely, giving me a nice slick lather. Cushioning wasn't as good as with the creams, but when I 3017 this puck, I expect to dial it in and get consistently reliable lathers. The B&B Essential Boar can do anything, but to my mind, it was really built for hard soaps. The backbone of the knot allows you to load a hard soap with gusto, and just pick soap off of the puck. Softer brushes need more water to do their work in my experience. The endpoint for both kinds of brushes is the same, but how you get there is a bit different. And no, Trumper soaps are not as bad as people say they are, IMO.
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Day 8: Omega B&B Essential Boar and DR Harris Rose cream or A rose by any other name....
Continuing our trip through St. James, we lather today with DR Harris Rose cream. This is the one "shaving product" scent they offer that is not available as a shave soap, and if I didn't know better, I would think that they're aiming this product at women. Surely they know that rose is a traditional scent for men's grooming products. I have, in the past, sent them emails begging that they offer a Rose-scented shave soap, but they begged off with the excuse that they were too busy launching the Windsor fragrance. As if.
Virtually all of the English grooming houses offer a rose scented cream and/or soap of some sort. Personally, I'm a big fan of Trumper's Rose, though there are many that feel that T&H makes a great version as well. TOBS is no slouch either. The tube of Harris Rose that I own was another one of those impulse buys, and I think I may have even gotten it in that same shipment that brought Palmolive Refreshing cream into the den. As with virtually all of the rose products, the DR Harris Rose has a garish pink color, and for those concerned about it, the cream has not stained the tips of any of the badger, boar or synthetic brushes with which I've used it. For today's shave, I squeezed a small amount of the cream into my bowl.
I squeezed the water from my pre-soaked Essential Boar, and went to work on the cream in the bowl. Unlike the explosion I got with TOBS St. James, the Harris Rose required a bit more water (5-6 trips to the basin) to really develop fully into a rich, wet lather. Too little water and I got a a fairly dry lather that could be easily swept clean from the bowl.
The lather was quite good, as was the shave, but the quality of the lather wasn't as good as the TOBS or Palmolive. I've used this cream quite a bit over the last several months, so I feel pretty qualified to say that it's a second tier cream. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly pleasant and effective, but it doesn't deliver the way that Musgo Real does, not by a long shot. Still, the Essential Boar had no problem whipping this cream into a lather.
Continuing our trip through St. James, we lather today with DR Harris Rose cream. This is the one "shaving product" scent they offer that is not available as a shave soap, and if I didn't know better, I would think that they're aiming this product at women. Surely they know that rose is a traditional scent for men's grooming products. I have, in the past, sent them emails begging that they offer a Rose-scented shave soap, but they begged off with the excuse that they were too busy launching the Windsor fragrance. As if.
Virtually all of the English grooming houses offer a rose scented cream and/or soap of some sort. Personally, I'm a big fan of Trumper's Rose, though there are many that feel that T&H makes a great version as well. TOBS is no slouch either. The tube of Harris Rose that I own was another one of those impulse buys, and I think I may have even gotten it in that same shipment that brought Palmolive Refreshing cream into the den. As with virtually all of the rose products, the DR Harris Rose has a garish pink color, and for those concerned about it, the cream has not stained the tips of any of the badger, boar or synthetic brushes with which I've used it. For today's shave, I squeezed a small amount of the cream into my bowl.
I squeezed the water from my pre-soaked Essential Boar, and went to work on the cream in the bowl. Unlike the explosion I got with TOBS St. James, the Harris Rose required a bit more water (5-6 trips to the basin) to really develop fully into a rich, wet lather. Too little water and I got a a fairly dry lather that could be easily swept clean from the bowl.
The lather was quite good, as was the shave, but the quality of the lather wasn't as good as the TOBS or Palmolive. I've used this cream quite a bit over the last several months, so I feel pretty qualified to say that it's a second tier cream. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly pleasant and effective, but it doesn't deliver the way that Musgo Real does, not by a long shot. Still, the Essential Boar had no problem whipping this cream into a lather.
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These brushes are without a doubt some of the best boar brushes I've ever used. They work so well, and are much softer than most would think. It is my go to whenever I am using a soap. (I prefer a badger for creams, but these work nicely with creams as well.). I can not say enough good things about these brushes!
Day 8: Omega B&B Essential Boar and DR Harris Rose cream or A rose by any other name....
Continuing our trip through St. James, we lather today with DR Harris Rose cream. This is the one "shaving product" scent they offer that is not available as a shave soap, and if I didn't know better, I would think that they're aiming this product at women. Surely they know that rose is a traditional scent for men's grooming products. I have, in the past, sent them emails begging that they offer a Rose-scented shave soap, but they begged off with the excuse that they were too busy launching the Windsor fragrance. As if.
Virtually all of the English grooming houses offer a rose scented cream and/or soap of some sort. Personally, I'm a big fan of Trumper's Rose, though there are many that feel that T&H makes a great version as well. TOBS is no slouch either. The tube of Harris Rose that I own was another one of those impulse buys, and I think I may have even gotten it in that same shipment that brought Palmolive Refreshing cream into the den. As with virtually all of the rose products, the DR Harris Rose has a garish pink color, and for those concerned about it, the cream has not stained the tips of any of the badger, boar or synthetic brushes with which I've used it. For today's shave, I squeezed a small amount of the cream into my bowl.
I squeezed the water from my pre-soaked Essential Boar, and went to work on the cream in the bowl. Unlike the explosion I got with TOBS St. James, the Harris Rose required a bit more water (5-6 trips to the basin) to really develop fully into a rich, wet lather. Too little water and I got a a fairly dry lather that could be easily swept clean from the bowl.
The lather was quite good, as was the shave, but the quality of the lather wasn't as good as the TOBS or Palmolive. I've used this cream quite a bit over the last several months, so I feel pretty qualified to say that it's a second tier cream. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly pleasant and effective, but it doesn't deliver the way that Musgo Real does, not by a long shot. Still, the Essential Boar had no problem whipping this cream into a lather.
Excellent posts...I look forward to reading them every day!
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I've been using my B&B boar daily since the beginning of this Chronicle. Now this is a first for me since I joined B&B, since I can't recall ever using the same brush more than 2 or 3 days in a row, since I've had more than one brush. If you've been following the 3017 thread, you'll know I'm nearing the end of a partial puck of Trumpet's Violet. It would have been fitting to have done this yesterday to parallel Bob's experience, but alas, time was not on my side. I will echo some of his thoughts, though, about the soap. It isn't as bad as the rumors made it out to be. I almost sent it to the shower before even starting, but decided to give it a shot.
I have 3 boar brushes. The red Omega was my first, though it got, and gets, very little use. To be fair, I never really broke it in, and once I got the Semogue, that took over my boar spot. The B&B brush, however was softer than the used red Omega, out of the box, and the other two see about half the use, combined.
I've been using soaps for years, before I found B&B, though no one ever "taught" me, so I just lathered away with my puck of Williams in the mug. Turns out that that may be the only way to lather it
, but I digress. Since I anticipated this to be sub par, I decided to do the same with this puck. I'm using a vintage Stanley insulated bowl I picked up at an antique store. Hold a puck perfectly in the semi -rounded bottom, and has a nice lid for the vanity top. I start with a fairly dry brush to pick up the usual protolather, but instead of face lathering like I usually do now, I start adding water and stay right on the puck.
Some days are better than others, and today I got too much water too fast and ended up with some small bubbles, but they don't really effect the shave. It's still very dense and slick, and I ended up with an irritation free 3 pass shave. I still usually finish the lathering on the face just to fine tune it with a series of painting strokes'
All in all, this little brush is a real winner.
I have 3 boar brushes. The red Omega was my first, though it got, and gets, very little use. To be fair, I never really broke it in, and once I got the Semogue, that took over my boar spot. The B&B brush, however was softer than the used red Omega, out of the box, and the other two see about half the use, combined.
I've been using soaps for years, before I found B&B, though no one ever "taught" me, so I just lathered away with my puck of Williams in the mug. Turns out that that may be the only way to lather it
, but I digress. Since I anticipated this to be sub par, I decided to do the same with this puck. I'm using a vintage Stanley insulated bowl I picked up at an antique store. Hold a puck perfectly in the semi -rounded bottom, and has a nice lid for the vanity top. I start with a fairly dry brush to pick up the usual protolather, but instead of face lathering like I usually do now, I start adding water and stay right on the puck. Some days are better than others, and today I got too much water too fast and ended up with some small bubbles, but they don't really effect the shave. It's still very dense and slick, and I ended up with an irritation free 3 pass shave. I still usually finish the lathering on the face just to fine tune it with a series of painting strokes'
All in all, this little brush is a real winner.
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- #59
That's some great looking lather, Mark.
That Stanley insulated bowl is boss.
Nice brush too.
And lather!
Nice brush too.
And lather!
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