Thu 14 Nov 2024

• Brush: Mühle Purist (21 mm silvertip badger, ebonite handle)
• Razor: Mühle R41 GT Berlin edition
• Blade: Feather new Hi-Stainless
• Lather: Barrister and Mann – Braeburn
• Post Shave: Chanel – Bleu de Chanel

Sweet Braeburn for an on theme SLS. I smell delicious.

Thu 14 Nov 2024

• Brush: Mühle Purist (21 mm silvertip badger, ebonite handle)
• Razor: Mühle R41 GT Berlin edition
• Blade: Feather new Hi-Stainless
• Lather: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Roman Spice
• Post Shave: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Roman Spice
• Fragrance: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Roman Spice

This concludes my run through all Seaforth! Fragrances. I skipped Sea Ice Lime because it shares the fragrance with Sea Spice Lime and nobody needs koolada in western Swiss November. With Black Watch, Sea Spice Line, Heather, Spiced, and Fleur de France, Dennis and Shawn brought five of my all-time favourite fragrances in wetshaving, an astonishing hit ratio.

One thing I realised over the last week is that i prefer the 20.1 base over highland, but I get great performance from both, so I conclude that I must prefer the uNoBtAiNiUm one solely because it’s gone. Silly, but apparently I’m that guy.

Roman Spice was my AA setup, so it immediately felt routine. Great shave, nice šmellz.

The R41 GT still rocks, the Purist badger still sucks, now off to the office.

I wonder whether it may be more a function of the shape. The R41 GT in titanium has a matte, stone washed-like finish, and I don’t feel any drag from it either. So smooth stainless steel (polished), zamac (chrome plated), and rough surface titanium all don’t drag.

Indeed!

“Sniff, sniff – ooh, is this my favourite?” - my wife

Yes, we are on the same page, I think.

my Stando Perun really pisses me off in that regard. A 100+€ stainless steel razor simply shouldn’t catch rust, period. 😞

Yeah, this one is infuriating. I’m sorry this happened to you.

Both PantaRei and Zenith could be good examples for Mühle IMO. Luxury quality, or good value.

It’s cool that they even came out with the GS model after the success of the Rocca.

Yeah, it really is. The GS is really well made too, tight fits, good surface quality. For a European made razor, even the price seems reasonable.

I apologize for rambling way too much, but you brought up so many valid points and instigated such a meaningful discussion that I wanted to share my two cents, but instead dropped my whole bank account on you. Sorry 😅

Oh please, this is exactly what we have this instance for 😊

Glide for His Pleasure Wed 13 Nov 2024

• Brush: Mühle Purist (21 mm silvertip badger, ebonite handle)
• Razor: Mühle R41 GS
• Blade: Feather new Hi-Stainless
• Razor: Mühle R41 Twist
• Blade: Feather new Hi-Stainless
• Lather: Saponificio Varesino - Settantesimo
• Post Shave: Saponificio Varesino - Settantesimo

@PorkButtsNTaters666@sub.wetshaving.social mentioned that he finds that chrome-plated razors glide better on his skin that stainless steel razors. Since I have my R41 comparison going anyway, I used them both and tried to feel a difference. It’s tricky since they feel different being of vastly different weight, but I couldn’t really feel a meaningful difference in how they slide over the lather. YKMV, I guess.

I never noticed a difference. Now I have a homework for my SLS 🙂

Because if we’re being honest, a well made safety razor (or straight razor, or shaving brush) is a luxury item.

I both agree and don’t. Yes, in the sense that nobody needs a stainless steel safety razor for over €100 if a brass Tech will cost a fraction. On the other hand, nobody would call it luxury if you shave with Mach3 cartridges, but those are more expensive than the “luxury” stainless steel razor in just a few years. So it’s all kind of messed up in my opinion.

Worst case scenario, someone has a broken and unusable razor at home that has cost them 200+€.

Yeah, this one gets to me. The meissner series they sell is a porcelain handle zamac razor that might just break after a some years of use because the threads wear through the plating for €655, and a brush that has the same lame knot as my brush and costs €675. I don’t understand.

Compared to razors offered in plastic with many tiny blades of the cheapest possible stainless, chrome-covered zamac is still a large improvement in quality. :)

I agree! I still recommend the Merkur 34C for beginners for instance. It’s just praising it as peak durability that irks me and it leaves no room for making the case for steel.

Was it just that special edition

Yes, they made just two editions, the London and the Berlin edition with I think a couple hundred razors.

few would buy the machined one if they sold it at the same margins as the zinc alloy.

That sounds right, unfortunately.

the time it takes to winnow the quality offerings from the grift as doing my part to signal a better direction for society.

I like this perspective a lot.

R41 gang 🍻🍻

Black Watchday 13 Nov 2024

• Brush: Mühle Purist (21 mm silvertip badger, ebonite handle)
• Razor: Mühle R41 GS
• Blade: Feather new Hi-Stainless
• Lather: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Black Watch
• Post Shave: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Black Watch
• Fragrance: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Black Watch

Black Watch is an all time favourite of mine. I like to combine it with Cerberus, Braeburn or other warm fruity fragrances, but this is trickhole week for me, so I’m trickholing it. It never disappoints.

The stainless R41 Gs is a heavy beast and my favourite version of the R41 family. It has that heft that inspires a (sometimes misguided) sense of quality like a good tool. It’s one of my favourite DE razors on par with my Wolfies. This and the Rocca are underrated products IMO and it might have to do with Mühle’s awkward positioning in the shave market. The bulk of their offering is this annoying combination of a cheap product with a luxury packaging. For example, if you go on their website, the majority of their razors are cheap zamac heads with expensive (pretty) handles. This brush is the same, pretty handle and lacklustre knot. My travel synth is similar with a nice folding handle and an unpleasant knot. I don’t get it. Mühle is a small family-run business, they could easily run in the “German Quality” direction, this razor and the Rocca are proof they can make quality products at good prices. Instead they compete with cheap mass produced products by attaching pretty handles to their cheap mass produced product. I think they may be stuck and unable to advertise their good razors (stainless steel and titanium) as quality worth a few extra Euros while still praising their “high quality” zamac razors which cost the almost the same despite a fancy porcelain handle. How do you tell your customers to choose between quality and luxury when many would expect the two to go hand in hand?

In their words, stainless steel vs zamac (which they refuse to name, so they call it chrome instead. This is close to dishonest IMO since chrome is only the plating on the zamac):

Edelstahl steht wie kaum ein anderes Material für kühle Eleganz und Robustheit. Es ist besonders beständig und bringt eine zeitlose Schönheit, die bleibt. (Stainless steel represents cool elegance and robustness like almost no other material. It is extra durable and brings a timeless beauty that persists.)

Ohne Chrom würde die Welt viel von ihrem Glanz einbüßen. In der Verarbeitung für unsere Nassrasur-Accessoires beweist er seine besten Eigenschaften: Die Oberfläche ist korrosionsbeständig, besonders langlebig und hat einen kostbaren, verführerischen Glanz. Im Kontrast dazu kommen Farben und Formen anderer hochwertiger Werkstoffe besonders gut zur Geltung. (Without chrome, the world would lose a lot of its lustre. It shows its best properties in its use for wetshaving-accessories: The surface is corrosion resistant, extra durable and has a precious, seductive shine. The colours and shapes of other quality material come into play particularly well in contrast to it.)

From this marketing speak, how would someone who doesn’t know that chrome is just a plating and that the underlying zamac breaks when you drop the razor or corrodes away when wear (micro)cracks the plating on the threads understand that the stainless steel razor head is worth a few extra Euros if you care about durability? Both are “extra durable”, and the chrome one is described as prettier, and also of superlative quality if you believe this text.

Then you won’t be surprised to hear that I bought them just because they looked cool😅

What’s ssl red?

Scum! Tue 12 Nov 2024

• Brush: Mühle Purist (21 mm silvertip badger, ebonite handle)
• Razor: Mühle R41 Twist
• Blade: Feather new Hi-Stainless
• Lather: Schmiere Abschaum
• Post Shave: Schmiere 1959

Abschaum has the biggest discrepancy between the fragrance and its name. This scum smells clean and fresh like laundry detergent and I love it. The splash has a grandpa-y almost medicinal fragrance. It’s impossible not to enjoy this combination.

The big R41 Twist felt good, but since @gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social suggested I should use all three R41s, one pass each, I feel like I’m doing it wrong 😅.

Surprisingly, they feel much rougher on my face than boar or badger do. Perhaps I just haven’t tried a nice enough synth yet?

Synths can be super soft. A motherlode fir instance is softer than any boar, badger, or horse I’ve ever tried

Fully agree. No notes

Yeah, I also have a saved search for Iberia razors on the bay, but everything so far was way outside my budget

Get better soon!

R41++;

That’s a good idea. I’ll do that on day three.

Three razors of the same model.

Yes, that’s just proper methodology. How else are you going to form an opinion on which material you prefer? Anything else would be highly irresponsible. Same goes for matching stainless/carbon steel Rausts, or soon-to-be-complete weekly sets of 14s 😇