Figured out vintage shaving mug/scuttle? yay Arko!

[Krodor]

You know what I'm talking about. You see them everywhere in antique stores: little ceramic measuring-cup like things with a tray at the top with holes in it. Called "shaving mugs" or vintage "scuttles", these things have been a mystery to me for years now.

• The space between the lip of the cup and the tray is too small to put a shaving brush!
• The tray is too small to let your brush rest on it unless everyone back in the day had Wee Scots, and the number of brushes in antique stores says that isn't the case.
• the tray is too small to put a cake of soap on it!
• if it is big enough to put in a cake, the tray is too shallow to keep the cake from sliding out when building lather.
• there HAS to be an obvious way these things work since there are so many hanging around!
• the holes...drain holes? drain for what? if your brush doesn't sit on there, and your soap doesn't stay on there and creams are obviously out of the picture, they must be "steam holes", allowing the hot water to steam your brush...again, how to do that if your brush won't stay on there?

I bought mine for 3 bucks a year and a half ago, thinking that I'd be the cool guy to figure it out. I'd researched them on the web on several forums, and though some answers explained how to use them, those answers usually ended up with something like "it never worked well for me, so I sold it/set it to the side/stopped using it."

Well here's my go at it...it might be unconventional, but is the only thing that works (for me....YMMV).

First, don't use hard soap, and don't use cream...use Arko! My Krodor Theory of Old Shaving Mugs (K-TOSM, say "kay-toss-'em" ) says that the holes are not drain holes nor steam holes, but stabilization holes. When you mush a chunk of Arko into place, the holes keep the Arko from sliding around, giving you a pic like this...note that the arko is not too deep here...maybe 1/4" or so:

Then (and this is likely the real case), the spout isn't meant for you to dip your brush into to get to hot water...

...but to start out with your dry brush in it, then pour in the hot water and let it soak. It took a little doing, but it wasn't too hard to get this knot in there...just a little "bunching up" for starters. That gives you a pic like this:

Then, you pour in the hot water and let it soak. Take out the brush, shake it off, build the later on the Arko (which is darn-near instant), then go to town on your face. After the shave, rinse out the brush, pour out the water, and you are done.

If you all knew this already, good on ya...I'm just a goober who's stumbled upon the obvious. If not, well...let's just say I was about to toss this thing cuz I hadn't used it in years and now it looks viable again! A nice little compact way to keep it all together.

 

[fine wine]

I have one, and like you was confused as to how it really worked. I'm curious, do you think men of those days used a lot of shaving sticks like ARKO? But the way you use it makes more since than the way I use it.....................JR

 

[mrb7]

OK, necro-posting here. So shoot me. But these things have fascinated me since I got one in a box of "stuff" from eBay.

I have been experimenting myself. And I think I have a better answer. But I might be completely wrong.

I figured they didn't have too many shave sticks like Arko, so I was trying to use plain old fashion box lye soap. You know, lard, water, and lye. There is an outfit around where I live that makes a bar that's sold in the local health food stores.

Well, the lard based soap isn't worth a hoot, but I can imagine someone making a tallow based soap just as easily, and then it becomes a commercial product. After all, tallow was just as available as lard. Look at the candle business. So Arko is probably a "reasonable" substitute for the soap of the day.

But, on to the scuttle operation.

I assumed that I didn't have running water, and I needed to boil water in a kettle. Also, get over the example in the video on YouTube where the guy is submerging the whole thing in a sink of hot water. If I had a sink with piped in hot water I wouldn't be using this thing in the first place. And if I don't have a sink with running hot water, how the devil can I submerge it in the non-existent sink.

And how am I going to cram this brush in to the mouth of this thing after I have it full of boiling water, anyway. Or if I stick the brush in first, how am I going to pour water into the thing?

Wait! How am I going to pour water into the thing with a brush sticking in the mouth of it? And how about a little warm water to soften up that soap up top, too.

DON'T plug the holes with the soap. We need the holes to fill the reservoir! We pour hot water *OVER* the soap so it runs through the holes into the reservoir with the brush already sticking in the mouth of the pot.

The soap is warmed and a little wet. The brush is in place conveniently instead of in the way. And I have a little pot of hot water I can carry to my wash basin or Don Quixote style shaving bowl.

I suspect the knots on old brushes were not as generous as the knots of today, so it wouldn't be as much "cramming" in as the knot I've been working with. One thing I have noticed about the old Ever Ready knots is that they don't bloom the way a modern knot does. So it would be a better fit.

Anyone got a different way? What am I missing?

 

[Trek2100]

Please, just shoot me. It's 2:50am and my mind doesn't want to think about this. I'll have to remind myself that if I ever see one walk quickly to the next cabinet, table, etc, lol. I have an idea. Put tea bags in the top where the holes reside and slowly pour really hot water over the tea bags. Then pour the tea out of the spout into a cup and drink. Going to bed now. I'll think about this in the morning, oh, it is morning

 

[sarimento1]

Really sad.

 

[duderubble]

Almost all of these that I've seen (and I own a couple from a box of two dozen mugs I bought at an auction) have feminine decor on them, flowers and such. Also the brushes I've seen in women's sets are small. I've thought they were meant to be used with leftover slivers of bar soap, But I don't think they were for men, at least not most of them.

 

[mrb7]

I don't know that "most" of them are effeminate. Many of the ones I've seen on eBay are golfers, sailing ships, stuff like that. Certainly there are a lot of frilly ones. But by no means all of them.

 

[duderubble]

True, but those are aoften larger in size. Again, not always.

 

[4freek]

Put fresh cut flowers in the holes and water them from the bottom,

 

[KW Driver]

I'll hang a picture of mine next week. No holes up top, a sample size fits in it beautifully, big enough lip to get all my brushes in, and has a hottie in a skimpy two piece, reclining gloriously. On each side.

 

[Trek2100]

It looks like a loose tea diffuser. If the holes are small that is where you put loose tea and pour in your hot water. My previous post was almost correct. Instead of tea bags you use loose tea. Information courtesy of my wife. She has not seen one exactly like this one but very similar.

 

[shave/brush]

I have a real old one I bought in an antique store around 1976. I never really used it because I like the way the new scuttles work. It was make in England.

 

[duderubble]

I'm pretty sure that's a toilet for Barbie.

 

[mrb7]

I have a real old one I bought in an antique store around 1976. I never really used it because I like the way the new scuttles work. It was make in England.

View attachment 388195

That's exactly what mine looks like, except it has a snow scene of what appears to be a New England town. But the shape is identical. There are scads of them out there.

I'll give you that these aren't going to replace modern plumbing. But their historical place is no less interesting than that of straight razors. Straights aren't convenient either. And I own a number of those, too.

If all we care about is convenience we may as well go buy a bunch of Fusions at Walmart. I can shave with those and get a BBS, and I mean a real baby butt smooth not a hint of discernible stubble for hours, while I'm blindfolded, and I literally mean blindfolded if desired, seven mornings a week without a hint of razor burn or ingrown hair. I shaved for 35 years in the shower with no mirror about 350 days a year and got a BBS every time. But the cartridges cost a fortune, and it was as entertaining as watching paint dry.

So here I am entertaining myself with blades, straight razors, and antique scuttles.

But I admit I have a new brush scuttle on order. Got the notice it shipped this afternoon. So sometimes I do care about convenience. I am willing to step in and out of the historical experimenting mode as the circumstance dictates.

My original question was whether the methodology I described seemed more suited to the antique scuttle's use or not. This thread was one I found a few months ago trying to figure out how the thing worked, and when I thought I might have a more correct answer I threw it out for critique.

So slice off a round of an Arko stick, put it in the scuttle, and give it a whirl! What do you think? Am I perhaps better on track? Or off the mark with how Gramps actually used the thing.

 

[shave/brush]

I believe they put the soap puck on top as in my picture and they put hot water in the scuttle. The soap back in the day was very hard the hot water would heat it up and soften it. After a little time the soap would be softer and the water would be cooler so you could stick your brush in the spout to let it absorb warm water.
I think that is how it worked. I'm not 100% sure.

 

[mrb7]

I believe they put the soap puck on top as in my picture and they put hot water in the scuttle. The soap back in the day was very hard the hot water would heat it up and soften it. After a little time the soap would be softer and the water would be cooler so you could stick your brush in the spout to let it absorb warm water.
I think that is how it worked. I'm not 100% sure.

Well, what I'm saying is that I think you put the brush in dry. And, yes, there was a cake of soap in top. So you have an empty container with a brush sticking in it. Then you pour water, as hot as you want, but no hotter than boiling (it's a joke) over the soap.

The water drains down through the holes into the reservoir, but on the journey it has moistened and substantially warmed the soap too.

Remember there's no plumbing with hot water piped in. So once you take it off the fire that's the end. It begins to return to equilibrium instantly. On a frigidly cold morning you only have a short while before you have tepid water. Remember there's no central heat either, so unless you're in the kitchen with the fire it's cold as ice in your shave den, too.

But pouring the water in this way avoids the hassle of either filling around the brush or cramming the brush in with scalding hot water in the pot. And it puts your brush to soaking in warm water as soon as you pour.

The chamber will heat some, warming the soap more. If your shave towel conveniently covers the top as you get ready the whole thing is insulated somewhat.

I tried it this way, and it seemed to work pretty well, except as I noted I used a very poor soap. I'll try it again with a real shave soap puck when I get back, but I'm traveling for the next six weeks. I don't fart around with this stuff in hotels. I fart around with other more portable stuff.

Where's Krodrer in this? He started the ball.

 

[Krodor]

Ha! My original post was more tounge-in-cheek than anything else. I doubt they had Arko, and that little lip with only a slight bowl allows next to no soap action on mine. Really, if you drop a puck on top, even if you get it the right size to fit, as soon as you try to swirl a brush on it, the puck flops out. I'd just seen so many of these things out there and many folks claiming how to use it, but it never worked for me. I think after I posted that, I haven't used it since. Just sittin there cluttering up the place....

 

[mrb7]

Ha! My original post was more tounge-in-cheek than anything else. I doubt they had Arko, and that little lip with only a slight bowl allows next to no soap action on mine. Really, if you drop a puck on top, even if you get it the right size to fit, as soon as you try to swirl a brush on it, the puck flops out. I'd just seen so many of these things out there and many folks claiming how to use it, but it never worked for me. I think after I posted that, I haven't used it since. Just sittin there cluttering up the place....

Well, the one I have is a crockery version, much like the picture above. Exactly the same style just a different hand painted scene.

The one you posted seemed almost like its china. But maybe not. Regardless, mine is much more pedestrian. And there were clearly scads of these things made, so they must have had some anticipated method of use. The bowl section on the crock versions seems to be a lot deeper than the China ones.

I just have a lot of trouble believing you wrestle a brush into a spout of scalding water. Or that you maneuver scalding water around a brush that's in the way to pour into the spout. People to. The 19th century may not have had the technical store yo build on that we have, but they were inherently unintelligent. So I figure we must be missing something. The only other place to get water in is the holes. So I'm voting for the obvious.

 

[shave/brush]

If you put your brush in scalding water you may damage the brush. This is why I said you put the scalding water in thru the spout while the soap sits in place. You let the soap soften and let the water cool just a bit. Then you should not have a problem putting the brush into the spout. You don't want to over think this.

 

[briggs]

I use C&E scuttles with large spouts. I fill the scuttle with hot water and immerse it in the basin to heat it thoroughly. I pour about a tablespoon of water from the scuttle into the soap mug, put the scuttle on a folded facecloth to insulate it from the counter top, dip the brush to collapse the knot, then rotate it into the spout, to avoid jamming the bristles.

After completing my face prep, I pour the water off the soap, flick out the brush, and, in a few swirls, pick up the soap in the brush, and lather it in the top of the scuttle.