Pre: Valobra Glycerlanolina soap, Castle Forbes pre-shave gel
Brush: Tony Forsyth P&C LE 2017 Platypus
Soap: Mitchell's Wool Fat
Razor: UFO Tornado / ATT S1
Blade: Vintage Gillette Platinum Plus (1)
Post: Myrsol Emulsion
EdT: Penhaligon's Bayolea
and debuting the PAA/Crown King Travel Scuttle
So, about a week ago, I watched a video espousing the virtues of the newly released PAA/Crown King travel scuttle (link below). The first 30 seconds absolutely grabbed me - the designer, Douglas Smythe, was driven by his shaving patterns of;
- Being a regular shower shaver
- Being a frequent traveller, and
- Having a history of travel shaves being of significantly lower quality than home shaves.
Yes, yes and yes, I exclaimed! I knew right then I was going to try this design. As I watched the video, I became more enthusiastic, as I saw the clever design features built into the scuttle. I won't elaborate further - you can view the video via the link below if you so desire for more information. I placed an order, and the scuttle arrived today.
How did it work? Well, the video claims that the scuttle is a "lather machine", so what better to use as a test soap than my Love/Hate soap, Mitchell's Wool Fat. This soap performs very well indeed for me when I get the lather right; the problem is that this only happens about 50% of the time. I know I am not the lone ranger here, many others have similar experience. So, following my normal prep, I loaded up the Platypus and let rip. It took me a little while to dial in the lather; I realised after a short whip that the scuttle was in fact aerating and building the lather so quickly that I was over-aerating it. A quick adjustment and bingo - just the right consistency, and ridiculous amounts of lovely warm slick glossy lather.
Three passes, plus some buffing, for a BBS result, helped by the beautifully sharp vintage Gillette blade. The other thing I noticed was how quickly more lather could be generated in the scuttle by additional working of the brush, without necessarily loading more soap. I've got to concede that Douglas is right - it
is a lather machine!
The post shave was sublime - just a superb all round experience. Will I always load up the scuttle with hot water for warm lather? Probably not - I'll leave this for cold weather and special shaves. Will it replace a beautiful ceramic scuttle? No, and it is not intended to. It is designed and built for purpose, and that's what I find so impressive. I suspect that I'll use it mainly as a shower bowl and a travel scuttle/bowl. It will certainly accompany me on the next business trip for a thorough field test.
Congratulations to Douglas and PAA / Crown King for thinking out of the box and bringing such a cool product to the market!
