To meet the annual continuing education requirements of my BOSC membership, it is necessary for me to either:
1. Advance the science of shaving in some extraordinary or dubious way
2. Provide evidence of unrepentant indulgence in one or more acquisition disorders.
Unfortunately, my spouse has recently discovered the 10'x10' storage unit I've been renting for my shaving necessities, so the latter is not an option at present. Therefore, it must be science.
One problem that I think worthy of study is the firmness of various cremes, croaps, and soaps. Some cremes are firmer than croaps, and some croaps are harder than soaps. Mitchells Wool Fat soap is the only known material harder than diamond. It's gets downright confusing. This would not be an issue if no one cared, but studies show that 0.03% of shavers have a strong preference for a specific degree of firmness in their soaps. Shamefully, manufacturers offer little to no information on this key parameter. It would be helpful therefore to have an easy, repeatable way to measure the firmness of soaps, such that any hobbyist soap hoarder can measure the firmness of soap/croap for the purposes of posting more edifying reviews to this message board.
It's a vexing problem, but fortunately we may stand on the shoulders of giants; the rubber and plastics industry has devised such a tool, which is called a durometer. I have used these devices myself, and find them indispensable. It is a simple tool, that consists of a "needle" affixed to a spring. The tool is pressed down on the material to be measured, and the shore durometer is displayed on a dial indicator. The OOO Scale Durometer would be perfect for this purpose, but sadly many wet shavers do not have this tool in their shaving den.
Thus a new methodology must be devised. I believe that this new methodology should have the following characteristics:
1. Advance the science of shaving in some extraordinary or dubious way
2. Provide evidence of unrepentant indulgence in one or more acquisition disorders.
Unfortunately, my spouse has recently discovered the 10'x10' storage unit I've been renting for my shaving necessities, so the latter is not an option at present. Therefore, it must be science.
One problem that I think worthy of study is the firmness of various cremes, croaps, and soaps. Some cremes are firmer than croaps, and some croaps are harder than soaps. Mitchells Wool Fat soap is the only known material harder than diamond. It's gets downright confusing. This would not be an issue if no one cared, but studies show that 0.03% of shavers have a strong preference for a specific degree of firmness in their soaps. Shamefully, manufacturers offer little to no information on this key parameter. It would be helpful therefore to have an easy, repeatable way to measure the firmness of soaps, such that any hobbyist soap hoarder can measure the firmness of soap/croap for the purposes of posting more edifying reviews to this message board.
It's a vexing problem, but fortunately we may stand on the shoulders of giants; the rubber and plastics industry has devised such a tool, which is called a durometer. I have used these devices myself, and find them indispensable. It is a simple tool, that consists of a "needle" affixed to a spring. The tool is pressed down on the material to be measured, and the shore durometer is displayed on a dial indicator. The OOO Scale Durometer would be perfect for this purpose, but sadly many wet shavers do not have this tool in their shaving den.
Thus a new methodology must be devised. I believe that this new methodology should have the following characteristics:
- Measurement should be on an interval scale (not ordinal or nominal)
- It must use only household materials costing in total no more than $1.00
- It should be possible to make the measurement apparatus in less than 5 minutes
- Individual measurement should take no more than 10 seconds
- Accuracy must be +/- 13.7%
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