Some six or seven years ago I finally gave in for my curiosity regarding Simpsons. At the time the Simpson Chubby 3 got so many spectacular reviews so I felt that I just had to find out what it was like even if it was, and still is, extremely expensive. The +30 millimetre knot might have been the largest available knot on the market at the time. Even if there are other brush makers today that makes as large brushes the Simpson Chubby stands out in one aspect: The knot is extremely dense. The badger hair is so tightly packed that there theoretically are enough hair in it to make a fairly large extra knot out of it while the original knot still would be rather tightly packed. This means that the face feeling is very nice, it’s very firm but still with those soft badger hair tips. This leads me to the downside; the knot can hold an enormous amount of soap, but it does its very best to keep it. I have on numerous occasions been thinking that it is a brush version of the Bermuda Triangle. It shouldn’t be possible for so much soap to seemingly disappear into a brush. In short I was a bit disappointed, but I’ve kept the brush, I do occasionally use it and I won’t sell it.
About a year later I saw a Simpson Chubby 2 on sale for about half the original price. I couldn’t stop myself from buying it just to find out if my Chubby 3 was an exception. It turned out that it wasn’t. The Chubby 2 had the very same nice face feeling, but it was just as greedy as Scrooge on Christmas eve when it came to sharing lather. I felt a bit stupid, but I’ve kept this one too and I do like it even if it’s very uneconomical in every aspect.
When the Chubby 2 synthetic was released I managed to get one from the batch that had a 52mm loft. It is one of my favourite brushes. It both loads lather and releases as a charm. My faith in Simpsons was restored. That was until Simpson released a second synthetic brush; The Simfix brush. It was cheap… in every aspect. Let’s leave the sad affair at that.
The years passed by and I didn’t feel any need for another Simpson brush, once bitten twice shy. So about a year ago I started to experiment with my smaller brushes both for bowl and face lathering. I found smaller (no larger than 24mm) to be more precise when face lathering and more economical when bowl lathering. When I got down to my 22mm brushes I added a Simpson Duke 2 to my collection, and this time I fell in love from day one. The knot is just as densely packed as the Chubby knots but since it’s much smaller it does let go of the lather without complaining. The dense knot is excellent on hard soaps, soft on the face and produces great lather.
After a couple of months I began to look at video reviews of the smaller Duke 1. I was hesitant, it was described as a travel brush or a very small brush and perhaps nothing you should use on a regular basis. I got off the fence when I saw it on sale. I got it about two months ago and I have used it every day since then, mostly for face lathering. This 21mm knot holds enough hair for a 24mm knot. It is stiff but with soft ends and produces large amounts of great lather. In short it’s a top of the line brush that has lost, me knowingly, two hairs so far (a hair is sticking up from the knot but it's not loose). After ever three pass shave I squeeze out the remaining lather, which is sufficient to use to clean out the faucet after shaving. The only time before that I’ve got this excited over a shaving brush was when I got my one and sadly only 28mm brush from Wiborg Shaving.
The only thing I wish I would have done differently when it comes to Simpsons is that I should have started out with the smaller knots and not the largest ones.
About a year later I saw a Simpson Chubby 2 on sale for about half the original price. I couldn’t stop myself from buying it just to find out if my Chubby 3 was an exception. It turned out that it wasn’t. The Chubby 2 had the very same nice face feeling, but it was just as greedy as Scrooge on Christmas eve when it came to sharing lather. I felt a bit stupid, but I’ve kept this one too and I do like it even if it’s very uneconomical in every aspect.
When the Chubby 2 synthetic was released I managed to get one from the batch that had a 52mm loft. It is one of my favourite brushes. It both loads lather and releases as a charm. My faith in Simpsons was restored. That was until Simpson released a second synthetic brush; The Simfix brush. It was cheap… in every aspect. Let’s leave the sad affair at that.
The years passed by and I didn’t feel any need for another Simpson brush, once bitten twice shy. So about a year ago I started to experiment with my smaller brushes both for bowl and face lathering. I found smaller (no larger than 24mm) to be more precise when face lathering and more economical when bowl lathering. When I got down to my 22mm brushes I added a Simpson Duke 2 to my collection, and this time I fell in love from day one. The knot is just as densely packed as the Chubby knots but since it’s much smaller it does let go of the lather without complaining. The dense knot is excellent on hard soaps, soft on the face and produces great lather.
After a couple of months I began to look at video reviews of the smaller Duke 1. I was hesitant, it was described as a travel brush or a very small brush and perhaps nothing you should use on a regular basis. I got off the fence when I saw it on sale. I got it about two months ago and I have used it every day since then, mostly for face lathering. This 21mm knot holds enough hair for a 24mm knot. It is stiff but with soft ends and produces large amounts of great lather. In short it’s a top of the line brush that has lost, me knowingly, two hairs so far (a hair is sticking up from the knot but it's not loose). After ever three pass shave I squeeze out the remaining lather, which is sufficient to use to clean out the faucet after shaving. The only time before that I’ve got this excited over a shaving brush was when I got my one and sadly only 28mm brush from Wiborg Shaving.
The only thing I wish I would have done differently when it comes to Simpsons is that I should have started out with the smaller knots and not the largest ones.
on Black Friday, the Keyhole KH3 Best Badger.
