Flask's newbie adventure

[flask28]

I had the pleasure of having a warm and funny potlatch with @desertcat on what had to be the nicest day of 2023 yet. It was the perfect backdrop for a awesome hours of coffee, baklava and shaving gear.

Peter is a great guy and reminds me of @Guido75 and many other B&B brothers in that he's incredibly thoughtful and generous. I just wanted to get a few samples and soaps I'm not using out of the house and @desertcat responded with an overwhelming show of creativity and charm.

Some of the work is getting framed and going up in the Den, so pictures of that to come .

But in a fever of thoughtfulness, @desertcat (who I'm pretty sure has memorized all the Journals) had read I was working on a Dopp Kit - - And made me a custom travel kit!

It's awesome!! First, hello little travel Tech - that is the cutest handle I've ever seen. It's about the size of half a finger . Dude, thank you!!! And check out the custom little mirror he put in there. I need to talk to @Cal and have him help me find a baby brush that will fit . And I think I have a mini diy soap stick that might fit in there.

New Flask Project!! Thank you @desertcat! This kit building you did seems pretty BOSC to me.

And if that wasn't enough, he has been following my GameChanger adventures and decided I needed a 84-P plate, purchased one and included it in the Travel Kit. OMG, I don't even know what to say. THANK YOU MAN!!! WOW! It's not just how generous this is, it's that you took the time to know where I'm at and what would be truly meaningful to me.

You, like so many here, are a true gentleman and scholar my friend.

As awesome as the art, kit and razors are, the best thing he did for me was adopt this unused product - it's out of my house!!! at least till we PIF it off . It's like this weighted blanket of "stuff anxiety" got thrown off and I can breathe again.

Great baklava, great gifts, great guy, great day!

 

[Guido75]

a few samples and soaps

A few? I saw the pictures over at @desertcat - you buried him in soap!! (and to think that a Dutchy from Europe has to tell him about the amazing soap from his hometown ).

Awesome exchange guys! Friendships made! B&B at its finest!

Enjoy!

Guido

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

I had the pleasure of having a warm and funny potlatch with @desertcat on what had to be the nicest day of 2023 yet. It was the perfect backdrop for a awesome hours of coffee, baklava and shaving gear.

Peter is a great guy and reminds me of @Guido75 and many other B&B brothers in that he's incredibly thoughtful and generous. I just wanted to get a few samples and soaps I'm not using out of the house and @desertcat responded with an overwhelming show of creativity and charm.

Some of the work is getting framed and going up in the Den, so pictures of that to come .

But in a fever of thoughtfulness, @desertcat (who I'm pretty sure has memorized all the Journals) had read I was working on a Dopp Kit - - And made me a custom travel kit!

View attachment 1622306

It's awesome!! First, hello little travel Tech - that is the cutest handle I've ever seen. It's about the size of half a finger . Dude, thank you!!! And check out the custom little mirror he put in there. I need to talk to @Cal and have him help me find a baby brush that will fit . And I think I have a mini diy soap stick that might fit in there.

New Flask Project!! Thank you @desertcat! This kit building you did seems pretty BOSC to me.

And if that wasn't enough, he has been following my GameChanger adventures and decided I needed a 84-P plate, purchased one and included it in the Travel Kit. OMG, I don't even know what to say. THANK YOU MAN!!! WOW! It's not just how generous this is, it's that you took the time to know where I'm at and what would be truly meaningful to me.

You, like so many here, are a true gentleman and scholar my friend.

As awesome as the art, kit and razors are, the best thing he did for me was adopt this unused product - it's out of my house!!! at least till we PIF it off . It's like this weighted blanket of "stuff anxiety" got thrown off and I can breathe again.

Great baklava, great gifts, great guy, great day!

Wow!

I'm impressed with the whole story and all of its components.

Not sure if the Omega Mighty Midget would fit, but it might. Shavemac and Rudy Vey could undoubtedly come up with something. Then there is the Simpson Wee Scot. Cal will know more as you are already aware.

Happy shaves,

Jim

 

[flask28]

Wow!

I'm impressed with the whole story and all of its components.


View attachment 1622603


Not sure if the Omega Mighty Midget would fit, but it might. Shavemac and Rudy Vey could undoubtedly come up with something. Then there is the Simpson Wee Scot. Cal will know more as you are already aware.

Happy shaves,

Jim

Great call!! I didn't even think of trying the Mighty Midget @Tanuki gave me. Tonight's adventure

 

[flask28]

FFFMM Shave 14 | SWS Shave 7 | Daily Shave Sprint Day Nine

Razor: GameChanger .68P
Blade: Gillette Platinum (13)
Soap: Mike's Barber Shop (36)
Brush: Omega Jade Boar (54)

The crocus in the nearby park showed up in force on this beautiful almost spring day. I remember making fun of people in the past, kneeling there taking photos of their kids, dogs and food amidst the flowers. And here I found myself in late morning, on my knees with my soap kit. lol. The crow tastes good.

I was in a celebratory mood after my ninth consecutive daily shave went so well this morning and decided to put in some extra photo effort . I followed @Rapt_up's advice and had a long, luxurious shave today. I had a Tanuki style triple pre shave with the 25mm synth, a close two pass WTG / ATG-face-XTG-neck combo which was smooth and close. No blood baths today, thank goodness.

I went full post shave with witch hazel, Pinaud Clubman splash and PAA Mysterium Serum. My face felt fantastic all day as I got in three walks, a run to the dump and a radio planning meeting.

It was a really nice Saturday made all the better by a great kick off shave! I'm so glad I got into this hobby.

 

[Guido75]

Going strong with that blade! Double digits is where the fun starts! Slick lather and short strokes do the trick.

Cheers,

Guido

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

The crocus in the nearby park showed up in force on this beautiful almost spring day. I remember making fun of people in the past, kneeling there taking photos of their kids, dogs and food amidst the flowers. And here I found myself in late morning, on my knees with my soap kit.

It was a really nice Saturday made all the better by a great kick off shave! I'm so glad I got into this hobby.

Hard to find the gear amongst all those beautiful flowers.

Thanks for going to the park with your gear and camera.

Happy shaves,

Jim

 

[flask28]

This is a long story about a new brush I got a two weeks or so ago - you can just check out the pictures if you like. It's awesome!



I don't think I wrote about this here at the time, but I know I had a chat with @Tanuki about it way back. I eventually shared this story with @Chan Eil Whiskers as well and the ensuing correspondence we've since developed is one of my favorite parts of my week. @SgtCrppls also was a great sounding board about what direction to go here.

The story starts with @Time Bandit who did an amazing job covering the dozens of shaving giveaways in December of last year. And he was letting me know about the cool ones, which he still does to this day. THANK YOU @Time Bandit!! I hope you aren't getting washed out down in SoCal this week my friend. And congratulations again!

One of the giveaways was from a online shaving vendor and it was huge. It was this heavily promoted three hour holiday livestream with, no kidding, hundreds of items to give away from dozens of the big names in our hobby. Many of whom showed up on the stream to chat and do the giveaway. Some of the prizes were amazing but most of them were small dollar gift certificates for a big variety of different vendors.

He and I both won a gift certificate from different vendors that night, $25 and $20 respectively. Plus I was multi-tasking, catching up on episodes of Chainsaw Man, so it was big win-win!!

It got weird after that though. I won't go through the whole thing here but there was some miscommunication between three different participating vendors involved with my award. They all seemed to want to do the right thing but weren't sure who was doing what.

This ran well into January, like 4-5 weeks later, then sort of went silent. I'd just written it all off at this point, I mean really, it's the thought that counts . But every once in a while the sponsoring vendor would reach out with an update. They were trying to make it happen, they were serious invested here. By now, the award kept changing. It shifted from the gift card to blades to a few other things. lol.

One day I get an email from vendor #2 of the three, asking "What kind of handle did they send you?" Amused at this point, I replied I wasn't sure what he meant. I'm not kidding here, not 10 minutes after I replied to him there was a knock on my door and my mailperson was standing there with a package I wasn't expecting.

Opening it, I see there's an Alpha handle tube in there. Woha!! I take it out and at first I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. I take a few pictures and send them off in a new email saying oh, yeah, I did get a handle. It's this! He says fantastic, enjoy the handle!

The whole thing was pretty random and funny. I didn't realize, then, what I'd received and that it was going to evolve into one of the finest brushes around. I know that's a strong statement and even fightin' words for some but hear me out here.

I'm not sure why I didn't look into the providence of the handle at this point in the story. But I didn't . I did, however, reach out to a few brothers for their ideas about what to do with it. @SgtCrppls , @Phoenixkh , @Tanuki all gave me some excellent advice - sharp, funny men all.

But it was when I reached out to @Chan Eil Whiskers that my plan, and parts of my shaving journey, began to simultaneously solidify and splinter. After sharing decades of his experience with more badger brushes that I can grasp, he immediately and deftfully talked me into getting a completely different brush. Which we'll talk about later.

But over the ensuing weeks and months of correspondence he strongly endorsed the suggestions made by others - That I should send this handle off to Mozingo Brushworks for one of Brett's knots. I'd seen the ZT4 knot in more than few SOTD posts, always from the guys with serious brush collections. I knew it was a high end and well thought of Manchurian knot. I did a ton of research and decided to reach out to Mozingo about the project.

This handle measured out to 27.1mm which fell into the 26mm service. When we were talking about that he mentioned that for his handles he sizes the knot chambers thusly:

24mm - 25.4mm
26mm - 26.98mm
28mm - 28.6mm

Which I thought was interesting. We worked it out and I sent the brush off to Brett. About four weeks later I got this back:

And then after the first soak it exploded! Like some great furry mushroom.

I haven't used it for a shave yet, FFFMM and all, but I've palm lathered it several times and used it for a preshave once. It's simply fantastic. Soft yet scrubby tips and a finely tuned backbone - just my kind of firm but with good splay. What's immediately noticeable is that's pleasantly dense yet lathers really well. The density is very even and consistent across the gigantic head surface, it's a noticeable, odd and very, very luxurious feel.

The whole brush has a serious heft now. The titanium handle works well with this big solid knot, the whole package is well balanced and feels purposeful in the hand, but it's not too heavy. The shape and design of the handle is GREAT. I'm enjoying taller handles that range around 60-70mm and this is right in the sweet spot. Ergonomically it's like it was designed with my hand in mind.

I was so impressed I started thinking about getting another of these handles and finally looked it up. WHAT?! I had no idea it was so expensive!! Wow, this whole time I was thinking it was like a $60-80 dollar handle. The retail price for this handle alone far exceeds any other single piece of shaving gear I have - in fact it's in there with with all my current brushes and razors combined. Heh.

So I'm a little sheepish about the whole thing, now that the project is done and knowing this titanium handle is more special that I had been thinking. Obviously, I won't be getting a matching twin unless I win the lottery! I never intended to be a guy with a super expensive brush. But hey, here we are. I'll get over it I think .

I am very appreciative to the four different vendors and the many B&B brothers who came together in a fantastically strange way to somehow manifest for me a top-level luxury brush at a relatively affordable cost. The unexpected bizarro-world journey it took just makes it all the more special to me.

I can't wait for March to end so I can try it!

 

[Guido75]

That is an amazing story Adam!! And congrats on your latest win/addition. It is beautiful. You said last year I was just ahead of you. Well I think we can safely say you have caught up (if you hadn’t already) my friend! And in a big way. This way we can walk side by side which is all the more pleasant company!

Cheers and enjoy!

Guido

Ps: so look sideways from time to time, because I might be falling behind!

 

[Phoenixkh]

This is a long story about a new brush I got a two weeks or so ago - you can just check out the pictures if you like. It's awesome!



I don't think I wrote about this here at the time, but I know I had a chat with @Tanuki about it way back. I eventually shared this story with @Chan Eil Whiskers as well and the ensuing correspondence we've since developed is one of my favorite parts of my week. @SgtCrppls also was a great sounding board about what direction to go here.

The story starts with @Time Bandit who did an amazing job covering the dozens of shaving giveaways in December of last year. And he was letting me know about the cool ones, which he still does to this day. THANK YOU @Time Bandit!! I hope you aren't getting washed out down in SoCal this week my friend. And congratulations again!

One of the giveaways was from a online shaving vendor and it was huge. It was this heavily promoted three hour holiday livestream with, no kidding, hundreds of items to give away from dozens of the big names in our hobby. Many of whom showed up on the stream to chat and do the giveaway. Some of the prizes were amazing but most of them were small dollar gift certificates for a big variety of different vendors.

He and I both won a gift certificate from different vendors that night, $25 and $20 respectively. Plus I was multi-tasking, catching up on episodes of Chainsaw Man, so it was big win-win!!

It got weird after that though. I won't go through the whole thing here but there was some miscommunication between three different participating vendors involved with my award. They all seemed to want to do the right thing but weren't sure who was doing what.

This ran well into January, like 4-5 weeks later, then sort of went silent. I'd just written it all off at this point, I mean really, it's the thought that counts . But every once in a while the sponsoring vendor would reach out with an update. They were trying to make it happen, they were serious invested here. By now, the award kept changing. It shifted from the gift card to blades to a few other things. lol.

One day I get an email from vendor #2 of the three, asking "What kind of handle did they send you?" Amused at this point, I replied I wasn't sure what he meant. I'm not kidding here, not 10 minutes after I replied to him there was a knock on my door and my mailperson was standing there with a package I wasn't expecting.

Opening it, I see there's an Alpha handle tube in there. Woha!! I take it out and at first I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. I take a few pictures and send them off in a new email saying oh, yeah, I did get a handle. It's this! He says fantastic, enjoy the handle!

View attachment 1624880

The whole thing was pretty random and funny. I didn't realize, then, what I'd received and that it was going to evolve into one of the finest brushes around. I know that's a strong statement and even fightin' words for some but hear me out here.

I'm not sure why I didn't look into the providence of the handle at this point in the story. But I didn't . I did, however, reach out to a few brothers for their ideas about what to do with it. @SgtCrppls , @Phoenixkh , @Tanuki all gave me some excellent advice - sharp, funny men all.

But it was when I reached out to @Chan Eil Whiskers that my plan, and parts of my shaving journey, began to simultaneously solidify and splinter. After sharing decades of his experience with more badger brushes that I can grasp, he immediately and deftfully talked me into getting a completely different brush. Which we'll talk about later.

But over the ensuing weeks and months of correspondence he strongly endorsed the suggestions made by others - That I should send this handle off to Mozingo Brushworks for one of Brett's knots. I'd seen the ZT4 knot in more than few SOTD posts, always from the guys with serious brush collections. I knew it was a high end and well thought of Manchurian knot. I did a ton of research and decided to reach out to Mozingo about the project.

This handle measured out to 27.1mm which fell into the 26mm service. When we were talking about that he mentioned that for his handles he sizes the knot chambers thusly:

24mm - 25.4mm
26mm - 26.98mm
28mm - 28.6mm

Which I thought was interesting. We worked it out and I sent the brush off to Brett. About four weeks later I got this back:

View attachment 1624881

And then after the first soak it exploded! Like some great furry mushroom.

View attachment 1624886

I haven't used it for a shave yet, FFFMM and all, but I've palm lathered it several times and used it for a preshave once. It's simply fantastic. Soft yet scrubby tips and a finely tuned backbone - just my kind of firm but with good splay. What's immediately noticeable is that's pleasantly dense yet lathers really well. The density is very even and consistent across the gigantic head surface, it's a noticeable, odd and very, very luxurious feel.

The whole brush has a serious heft now. The titanium handle works well with this big solid knot, the whole package is well balanced and feels purposeful in the hand, but it's not too heavy. The shape and design of the handle is GREAT. I'm enjoying taller handles that range around 60-70mm and this is right in the sweet spot. Ergonomically it's like it was designed with my hand in mind.

I was so impressed I started thinking about getting another of these handles and finally looked it up. WHAT?! I had no idea it was so expensive!! Wow, this whole time I was thinking it was like a $60-80 dollar handle. The retail price for this handle alone far exceeds any other single piece of shaving gear I have - in fact it's in there with with all my current brushes and razors combined. Heh.

So I'm a little sheepish about the whole thing, now that the project is done and knowing this titanium handle is more special that I had been thinking. Obviously, I won't be getting a matching twin unless I win the lottery! I never intended to be a guy with a super expensive brush. But hey, here we are. I'll get over it I think .

I am very appreciative to the four different vendors and the many B&B brothers who came together in a fantastically strange way to somehow manifest for me a top-level luxury brush at a relatively affordable cost. The unexpected bizarro-world journey it took just makes it all the more special to me.

View attachment 1624883View attachment 1624885

I can't wait for March to end so I can try it!

Flask/Adam,

What a wonderful story.... well written too, I might add. Isn't our community great? I have an Alpha Shaving brush, but in blue aluminum. My wife has claimed that one as her own... synth G5 "D" knot. Your titanium handle is even that much nicer... and what a great knot for it.

Congrats on that new addition to your brush collection. I'm so happy for you.

 

[Time Bandit]

This is a long story about a new brush I got a two weeks or so ago - you can just check out the pictures if you like. It's awesome!



I don't think I wrote about this here at the time, but I know I had a chat with @Tanuki about it way back. I eventually shared this story with @Chan Eil Whiskers as well and the ensuing correspondence we've since developed is one of my favorite parts of my week. @SgtCrppls also was a great sounding board about what direction to go here.

The story starts with @Time Bandit who did an amazing job covering the dozens of shaving giveaways in December of last year. And he was letting me know about the cool ones, which he still does to this day. THANK YOU @Time Bandit!! I hope you aren't getting washed out down in SoCal this week my friend. And congratulations again!

One of the giveaways was from a online shaving vendor and it was huge. It was this heavily promoted three hour holiday livestream with, no kidding, hundreds of items to give away from dozens of the big names in our hobby. Many of whom showed up on the stream to chat and do the giveaway. Some of the prizes were amazing but most of them were small dollar gift certificates for a big variety of different vendors.

He and I both won a gift certificate from different vendors that night, $25 and $20 respectively. Plus I was multi-tasking, catching up on episodes of Chainsaw Man, so it was big win-win!!

It got weird after that though. I won't go through the whole thing here but there was some miscommunication between three different participating vendors involved with my award. They all seemed to want to do the right thing but weren't sure who was doing what.

This ran well into January, like 4-5 weeks later, then sort of went silent. I'd just written it all off at this point, I mean really, it's the thought that counts . But every once in a while the sponsoring vendor would reach out with an update. They were trying to make it happen, they were serious invested here. By now, the award kept changing. It shifted from the gift card to blades to a few other things. lol.

One day I get an email from vendor #2 of the three, asking "What kind of handle did they send you?" Amused at this point, I replied I wasn't sure what he meant. I'm not kidding here, not 10 minutes after I replied to him there was a knock on my door and my mailperson was standing there with a package I wasn't expecting.

Opening it, I see there's an Alpha handle tube in there. Woha!! I take it out and at first I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. I take a few pictures and send them off in a new email saying oh, yeah, I did get a handle. It's this! He says fantastic, enjoy the handle!

View attachment 1624880

The whole thing was pretty random and funny. I didn't realize, then, what I'd received and that it was going to evolve into one of the finest brushes around. I know that's a strong statement and even fightin' words for some but hear me out here.

I'm not sure why I didn't look into the providence of the handle at this point in the story. But I didn't . I did, however, reach out to a few brothers for their ideas about what to do with it. @SgtCrppls , @Phoenixkh , @Tanuki all gave me some excellent advice - sharp, funny men all.

But it was when I reached out to @Chan Eil Whiskers that my plan, and parts of my shaving journey, began to simultaneously solidify and splinter. After sharing decades of his experience with more badger brushes that I can grasp, he immediately and deftfully talked me into getting a completely different brush. Which we'll talk about later.

But over the ensuing weeks and months of correspondence he strongly endorsed the suggestions made by others - That I should send this handle off to Mozingo Brushworks for one of Brett's knots. I'd seen the ZT4 knot in more than few SOTD posts, always from the guys with serious brush collections. I knew it was a high end and well thought of Manchurian knot. I did a ton of research and decided to reach out to Mozingo about the project.

This handle measured out to 27.1mm which fell into the 26mm service. When we were talking about that he mentioned that for his handles he sizes the knot chambers thusly:

24mm - 25.4mm
26mm - 26.98mm
28mm - 28.6mm

Which I thought was interesting. We worked it out and I sent the brush off to Brett. About four weeks later I got this back:

View attachment 1624881

And then after the first soak it exploded! Like some great furry mushroom.

View attachment 1624886

I haven't used it for a shave yet, FFFMM and all, but I've palm lathered it several times and used it for a preshave once. It's simply fantastic. Soft yet scrubby tips and a finely tuned backbone - just my kind of firm but with good splay. What's immediately noticeable is that's pleasantly dense yet lathers really well. The density is very even and consistent across the gigantic head surface, it's a noticeable, odd and very, very luxurious feel.

The whole brush has a serious heft now. The titanium handle works well with this big solid knot, the whole package is well balanced and feels purposeful in the hand, but it's not too heavy. The shape and design of the handle is GREAT. I'm enjoying taller handles that range around 60-70mm and this is right in the sweet spot. Ergonomically it's like it was designed with my hand in mind.

I was so impressed I started thinking about getting another of these handles and finally looked it up. WHAT?! I had no idea it was so expensive!! Wow, this whole time I was thinking it was like a $60-80 dollar handle. The retail price for this handle alone far exceeds any other single piece of shaving gear I have - in fact it's in there with with all my current brushes and razors combined. Heh.

So I'm a little sheepish about the whole thing, now that the project is done and knowing this titanium handle is more special that I had been thinking. Obviously, I won't be getting a matching twin unless I win the lottery! I never intended to be a guy with a super expensive brush. But hey, here we are. I'll get over it I think .

I am very appreciative to the four different vendors and the many B&B brothers who came together in a fantastically strange way to somehow manifest for me a top-level luxury brush at a relatively affordable cost. The unexpected bizarro-world journey it took just makes it all the more special to me.

View attachment 1624883View attachment 1624885

I can't wait for March to end so I can try it!

Right on! I'm so very happy to see the finised product and the end of this long journey. Lol.

I just want to say that you're a good man and a great friend. You absolutely deserve an amazing brush like this. I knew what you were given and how special it was. I enjoyed every minute talking over with you what knot to put in it. At this point, I think you make a fantastic choice! Bravo my friend. Enjoy your B.A. (AZT4) brush.

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

This is a long story about a new brush I got a two weeks or so ago - you can just check out the pictures if you like. It's awesome!

Great story, Adam, and nicely illustrated.

It is certainly a unique brush. If there is any way to buy the unknotted handle I don't know what that way is. Perhaps it's as simple as getting in touch with the vendor. In any case I know of no other brush like yours.

I was pretty sure the Mozingo knot would look great in the Alpha titanium handle, work perfectly, and be an appropriately high end knot for such an expensive handle. I can't imagine it won't be a joy to use the brush come April.

Lucky you. Also, lucky me to have been allowed to vicariously enjoy the ride.

Happy shaves,

Jim

 

[flask28]

Thanks everyone!! I appreciate the feedback, you know how it is when you are stupidly excited about something. It's fun to share.

That is an amazing story Adam!! And congrats on your latest win/addition. It is beautiful. You said last year I was just ahead of you. Well I think we can safely say you have caught up (if you hadn’t already) my friend! And in a big way. This way we can walk side by side which is all the more pleasant company!

Hmmm. I have a little more gear now but I don't have the SUPER BOSC data collection and analysis system you are rocking. Your journal is like a shaving Data Lake. I feel like I'm in Tron's world when I'm reading it.

I have a long way to go still. But thank you my friend, you were (and continue to be) the accelerant in this hobby for me.

Flask/Adam,

What a wonderful story.... well written too, I might add. Isn't our community great? I have an Alpha Shaving brush, but in blue aluminum. My wife has claimed that one as her own... synth G5 "D" knot. Your titanium handle is even that much nicer... and what a great knot for it.

Congrats on that new addition to your brush collection. I'm so happy for you.

Thank you sir, your journey has been a model for me. Like you I am shooting for an efficient journey to a curated selection of favorites. I hope your trip goes well!!

I completely forgot they made that same shape in aluminum. Nice, thanks Kim!

The knot cavity extends down through most of the handle...you know, I bet you could add some weights to one of these to beef it up a bit and hardly be able to tell the difference between it and the titanium! Well, until you dropped it and it dented perhaps.

That makes me wish I'd weighed the handle before the knot was installed. @thombrogan, that scale you recommended is on the weigh! LOLOL ok I'm sorry.

Right on! I'm so very happy to see the finised product and the end of this long journey. Lol.

I just want to say that you're a good man and a great friend. You absolutely deserve an amazing brush like this. I knew what you were given and how special it was. I enjoyed every minute talking over with you what knot to put in it. At this point, I think you make a fantastic choice! Bravo my friend. Enjoy your B.A. (AZT4) brush.

My man. THANK YOU for making this happen. This brush is insane and I have you to thank for it. Not to mention everything you've taught me about soaps and scents. I owe you big time, call in that chit anytime!

Great story, Adam, and nicely illustrated.

It is certainly a unique brush. If there is any way to buy the unknotted handle I don't know what that way is. Perhaps it's as simple as getting in touch with the vendor. In any case I know of no other brush like yours.

I was pretty sure the Mozingo knot would look great in the Alpha titanium handle, work perfectly, and be an appropriately high end knot for such an expensive handle. I can't imagine it won't be a joy to use the brush come April.

Jim. I can't thank you enough for the dozens of hours you must have collectively spent sharing your thoughts with me. About brushes and so many other things. It's been a delight getting to know you.

And I pre apologize for all the tags you are going to get once this brush gets into my SOTD posts .

 

[Guido75]

An absolute gentlemanly post! Excellent conduct sir!

B&B coming together once again to help a brother score the brush of a lifetime for pure luxurious shaves from now on.

And thank you for the compliments. My journal satisfies my (data) OCD and apparently helps others too. Sounds like a win win!

Cheers,

Guido

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

You are so kind, Adam.

 

[Leverspro]

Great story. If I were to consider another badger brush, which I'm not presently, I think it would be a Mozingo fan. Sorry if I missed it, what's the model number of that knot, is it the #4? I've seen different numbers referenced as favorites around here.

 

[flask28]

Great story. If I were to consider another badger brush, which I'm not presently, I think it would be a Mozingo fan. Sorry if I missed it, what's the model number of that knot, is it the #4? I've seen different numbers referenced as favorites around here.

Thank you! This is the ZT4 knot, from his current batch of bristle.

You have a ton of great badger brushes, I imagine it would be hard to add much in quality to it at this point. Just some differences.

 

[Elliot]

This is a long story about a new brush I got a two weeks or so ago - you can just check out the pictures if you like. It's awesome!



I don't think I wrote about this here at the time, but I know I had a chat with @Tanuki about it way back. I eventually shared this story with @Chan Eil Whiskers as well and the ensuing correspondence we've since developed is one of my favorite parts of my week. @SgtCrppls also was a great sounding board about what direction to go here.

The story starts with @Time Bandit who did an amazing job covering the dozens of shaving giveaways in December of last year. And he was letting me know about the cool ones, which he still does to this day. THANK YOU @Time Bandit!! I hope you aren't getting washed out down in SoCal this week my friend. And congratulations again!

One of the giveaways was from a online shaving vendor and it was huge. It was this heavily promoted three hour holiday livestream with, no kidding, hundreds of items to give away from dozens of the big names in our hobby. Many of whom showed up on the stream to chat and do the giveaway. Some of the prizes were amazing but most of them were small dollar gift certificates for a big variety of different vendors.

He and I both won a gift certificate from different vendors that night, $25 and $20 respectively. Plus I was multi-tasking, catching up on episodes of Chainsaw Man, so it was big win-win!!

It got weird after that though. I won't go through the whole thing here but there was some miscommunication between three different participating vendors involved with my award. They all seemed to want to do the right thing but weren't sure who was doing what.

This ran well into January, like 4-5 weeks later, then sort of went silent. I'd just written it all off at this point, I mean really, it's the thought that counts . But every once in a while the sponsoring vendor would reach out with an update. They were trying to make it happen, they were serious invested here. By now, the award kept changing. It shifted from the gift card to blades to a few other things. lol.

One day I get an email from vendor #2 of the three, asking "What kind of handle did they send you?" Amused at this point, I replied I wasn't sure what he meant. I'm not kidding here, not 10 minutes after I replied to him there was a knock on my door and my mailperson was standing there with a package I wasn't expecting.

Opening it, I see there's an Alpha handle tube in there. Woha!! I take it out and at first I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. I take a few pictures and send them off in a new email saying oh, yeah, I did get a handle. It's this! He says fantastic, enjoy the handle!

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The whole thing was pretty random and funny. I didn't realize, then, what I'd received and that it was going to evolve into one of the finest brushes around. I know that's a strong statement and even fightin' words for some but hear me out here.

I'm not sure why I didn't look into the providence of the handle at this point in the story. But I didn't . I did, however, reach out to a few brothers for their ideas about what to do with it. @SgtCrppls , @Phoenixkh , @Tanuki all gave me some excellent advice - sharp, funny men all.

But it was when I reached out to @Chan Eil Whiskers that my plan, and parts of my shaving journey, began to simultaneously solidify and splinter. After sharing decades of his experience with more badger brushes that I can grasp, he immediately and deftfully talked me into getting a completely different brush. Which we'll talk about later.

But over the ensuing weeks and months of correspondence he strongly endorsed the suggestions made by others - That I should send this handle off to Mozingo Brushworks for one of Brett's knots. I'd seen the ZT4 knot in more than few SOTD posts, always from the guys with serious brush collections. I knew it was a high end and well thought of Manchurian knot. I did a ton of research and decided to reach out to Mozingo about the project.

This handle measured out to 27.1mm which fell into the 26mm service. When we were talking about that he mentioned that for his handles he sizes the knot chambers thusly:

24mm - 25.4mm
26mm - 26.98mm
28mm - 28.6mm

Which I thought was interesting. We worked it out and I sent the brush off to Brett. About four weeks later I got this back:

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And then after the first soak it exploded! Like some great furry mushroom.

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I haven't used it for a shave yet, FFFMM and all, but I've palm lathered it several times and used it for a preshave once. It's simply fantastic. Soft yet scrubby tips and a finely tuned backbone - just my kind of firm but with good splay. What's immediately noticeable is that's pleasantly dense yet lathers really well. The density is very even and consistent across the gigantic head surface, it's a noticeable, odd and very, very luxurious feel.

The whole brush has a serious heft now. The titanium handle works well with this big solid knot, the whole package is well balanced and feels purposeful in the hand, but it's not too heavy. The shape and design of the handle is GREAT. I'm enjoying taller handles that range around 60-70mm and this is right in the sweet spot. Ergonomically it's like it was designed with my hand in mind.

I was so impressed I started thinking about getting another of these handles and finally looked it up. WHAT?! I had no idea it was so expensive!! Wow, this whole time I was thinking it was like a $60-80 dollar handle. The retail price for this handle alone far exceeds any other single piece of shaving gear I have - in fact it's in there with with all my current brushes and razors combined. Heh.

So I'm a little sheepish about the whole thing, now that the project is done and knowing this titanium handle is more special that I had been thinking. Obviously, I won't be getting a matching twin unless I win the lottery! I never intended to be a guy with a super expensive brush. But hey, here we are. I'll get over it I think .

I am very appreciative to the four different vendors and the many B&B brothers who came together in a fantastically strange way to somehow manifest for me a top-level luxury brush at a relatively affordable cost. The unexpected bizarro-world journey it took just makes it all the more special to me.

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I can't wait for March to end so I can try it!

Oh my word!!! Brush envy has ensued. Looking forward to hearing your feedback over time. I’d been looking at Mozingo, Varlet and Declaration for my next brush. I know some easier to get than others

 

[flask28]

My first SV Saturday!

Preshave Soap: PAA Cube - in a bowl
Preshave Brush: Zenith M15 28mm Manchurian Badger
Razor: GameChanger .84-P
Blade: Gillette Platinum (5)
Soap: Saponificio Varesino Flying Mango (2016 forum edition)
Brush: 26mm Mozingo ZT4 on and Alpha Titanium Outlaw V2 handle
Post: Ethos Skin Food Lotion Succès

This luxurious Saturday shave saw the introduction of a few new pieces of kit and it was quite the adventure. Unfamiliar soap, new brush, new 84P plate on the gamechanger - after a month of FFFMM and two months exclusively using the Omega Jade boar brush I felt like I was starting from scratch. Or maybe using a different car's clutch for the first time.

Let's start with the headline first - I had a semi-amazing two-pass shave this morning. Closer than any of the FFFMM shaves with the GC 68-P, the 84p is no joke. After finishing the right side I took a moment to evaluate and decided I couldn't really feel much difference from the 68-P. There was a moment that I though, perhaps, the 84 had a hint more blade feel but by the time I'd finished the first pass I wasn't so sure of that anymore.

But I sure could notice an increase in efficiency however. The 84 is just as smooth as the 68p but is doing about 25% more work per stroke it feels like. This shave was the first time I can really say a two pass shave equaled my earlier February three pass shaves. I think a three pass with this setup (once I get it dialed in) may be the ticket to my first true BBS.

I had a little trouble with the lather. The ZT4 is so different than the boar I've been using I felt like a complete rookie again. In hindsight I think I shook too much water from the brush and didn't load long enough. I ended up with a pretty thin lather that wasn't that well hydrated, it dried out quicker than I wanted it to.

The older SV Flying Mango has a nice but not at all mangoish scent. I got this slightly used (and sort of beat up) off Reddit a while back and have been looking forward to trying it, but I guess I just assumed it was mango-y. LOL, no. Flask, it's called that because it has mango butter in it, not because it's mango scented. OMG. I should read once in a while.

Luckily I enjoy the scent. It's brightly citrus forward, almost MdC Agrumes bright, but is quickly tempered by a woody, floral musk base. It's typical SV in that it's more of a cologne-like scents and I'd put it close to Cubebe in character and vibe.

The ZT4 is a little overwhelming. I'm wrestling with a few things there, the biggest being the fact this is my first shave with a badger brush. Moving from boars to this monster-sized Manchurian has got a little something of a learning curve it turns out.

Something @Mr. Shavington posted recently about the ZT4 stuck with me, he characterized the ZT4 as a brush with a very firm backbone and very soft tips. Rather than splaying a ZT4, it was more about useing it to scrub with the tips. As I started face lathering I quickly felt exactly what he meant. This felt like softly, gently scrubbing your face with a velvet-furred giant mushroom.

I can see now why he tied the knot to be this dinner plate sized fan, that complements the other characteristics of the design. It's a different scrubbing technique from what I'm used to - But I like it!! These tips almost gel, but not quite. You can feel the individual hairs, unlike my broken in boars, but they are soft. This (to me) greatly enhances the feel and luxuriousness of the scrubbing action.

I'm looking forward to dialing in this soap and brush over the next few weeks.

 

[Guido75]

Excellent long read! And good intel on the difference between the GC baseplates - something to bear in mind for the future.

Awesome brushes! Very happy for you that it is behaving this way and that you like it.

Have a great Sunday!

Guido