MUHLE Silvertip Fiber pass around

[cxg231]

Hello again B&B - here is my fourth day, and last mini review of the Muehle Silvertip Fiber!

Alternative title:

FACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER.

Well, at least the final frontier for this reviewer! A little background: For whatever silly reason, I have been too intimidated to load off of a soap and proceed directly to face lathering. However, having been emboldened by my success yesterday loading off of a puck and then building awesome lather in a bowl, I decided if I was going to take the "leap" of skipping the bowl and going right to the face, it was now or never while I still have the Muehle Silvertip Fiber.

I soaked my puck of Mama Bear's Awakening, and squeezed out the brush per the recommendation of Codfish (see page 1).

After nearly icing the cat with errant lather while loading the brush yesterday, I only took about ten seconds to load the brush today. Right to the face it went. Starting with a swirling motion and transitioning to "paintbrush" strokes.

Success! I needed to add a little water to the tips of the brush, but soon I had a good lather. Not mind-blowingly thick and creamy like my past three days, but "good". I would say the lather I made today was about on par with the lather I normally make in my bowl with my other brushes. I feel the bowl gives me more margin of error than building right on my face, so I wasn't at all disappointed by merely good lather after three straight days of the best lather I had ever made.

Also, given the variables involved today:
1) The only glycerin based melt-n-pour soap of the test.
2) My first time face lathering right off of a puck with no bowl.

I felt the brush did quite well. Could another brush have done equally as well? I think so, at least my Simpsons Best. BUT, I know from experience that the Muehle Silvertip Fibre loads product faster than the Simpsons best. At least for me it does. I speculate loading technique may have a lot to do with it. And to be objective there is the possibility that *maybe* my technique it just what is needed to bring out the best in this brush, but I dare not give myself this kind of credit. I think this is just a good brush.

I will also temper my enthusiasm a bit by repeating the fact that I do not own any high-end/world-class silvertip natural badger brushes. However, I cannot afford a world-class brush, so for my money (bought one yesterday!) I am very happy with the Muehle. Better than my best brush without a silvertip price tag!

If any of you are car buffs, I would wager that this is the "Nissan GT-R of brushes". I contend it will hold it's own or slightly edge out some of the best brushes out there, much like the GT-R edges out and beats some very expensive super cars at a relatively low price. However, as I pass this brush along to the next participant, I eagerly look forward to the impressions of those more wise in the ways of the lather than myself. Then we will see if the Muehle has what it really takes!

I'm just happy that this wonderful brush has finally allowed me to conquer my personal "final frontier"!

Here are answers to the questions that were suggested for the brush review:
1) Water retention: Does it hold water sufficiently enough?
Yes! A lot of water! I think I have the water retention pretty much figured out after today, so the learning curve wasn't steep, but there is a curve!

2) Loading: Does it pick up soaps and creams easily?
You betcha! Ten seconds on the puck was enough for a 2.5 pass shave with plenty left in the brush!

3) Lather: Does it build and apply lather well?
Yes! Another nice lather today, but not as awesome as the previous three days, possibly due to the variables mentioned above.

4) Application/Backbone: Does it allow for a soft/smooth/effective application of lather to the skin.
Same as yesterday. Nice backbone with some flop on the tips. Very smooth lather application.

5) Quality feel: Does the synthetic brush have the “quality” feel against the skin? Would it pass a blindfold test against naturals?
Same as yesterday. Yes, face feel is outstanding. Lightly skritchy, but mostly just soft. I "painted" the lather on my face a bit longer than usual just to enjoy the feel of the brush.

6) Appearance: Is the look of the brush attractive?
Same.Look and grip on the handle are both good. I would say it looks better than it grips though.

So, in summary, after four uses I am extremely impressed with this brush, so much so that I bought one for myself!. Four significantly different product and applications, three with top notch results and the fourth with "good" results. I would say the Muehle has performed very well for me.

Here is a shot of today's set up. The Muehle Silvertip Fiber, after my shave with Mama Bear soap, Gillette pre-war Fat Handle Tech with an Astra SP blade, and my morning coffee!

Thanks for reading everyone, and as I said, I am really looking forward to seeing how the other participants in the pass around feel about this brush! At some point in the next few days, I will post a formal "B&B formatted" review for posterity. Enjoy your shaves!

 

[Codfish]

Chris,

Please consider keeping the brush through the weekend to see if your direct face-lathering improves with experience. You need not take the time you've been putting in here. Just enjoy!

Jim

 

[cxg231]

Chris,

Please consider keeping the brush through the weekend to see if your direct face-lathering improves with experience. You need not take the time you've been putting in here. Just enjoy!

Jim

Thanks Jim, a few thoughts on why I would like to pass it on tomorrow.

1) I have quite a full weekend coming up and *gasp* may not be able to shave! A sin, I know!
2) Having success with 4 different products and both face and bowl lathering, I feel that I can benefit a lot by hearing what another B&B member thinks about the brush.
3) I bought one for myself!

No disrespect intended at all by passing it along a bit early. I'm so excited about the brush I can't wait to hear what others think! Once my very own brush gets here, I will direct-face lather a few times and post up some impressions!

Thank you again for your generosity and for the opportunity to try this wonderful brush! As I hope you can tell, I really enjoyed it!

 

[Codfish]

No worries. My point was you've earned the right to relax and enjoy. You've done a terrific job with it, and earned a break. Maybe there's another way to thank you for a job well done...

 

[cxg231]

No worries. My point was you've earned the right to relax and enjoy. You've done a terrific job with it, and earned a break. Maybe there's another way to thank you for a job well done...

Thanks Jim, I will gladly accept either a trail period with a great synthetic brush (oh wait...) or a New Improved Big Fellow!

 

[wimbouman]

yes, that is a good looking brush. not sure what the loft if, but it looks like it would have quite a bit of backbone.

It does indeed!

A regular 33 K 257 is 23mm * 56mm
The knot is now at 25mm * 50mm.

When new techniques allow for bigger, I would love to see a 29mm * 50 mm.

 

[RPTheLefty]

Just finished reading all the posts on this topic. I definitely feel like getting one now. Where are some stores to buy this at? I've having difficulty locating it. The only place i see it at is from the official Muhle website.

 

[itsmedave]

Just finished reading all the posts on this topic. I definitely feel like getting one now. Where are some stores to buy this at? I've having difficulty locating it. The only place i see it at is from the official Muhle website.

At Bullgoose you can get the 21 and 23mm, at Superior Shave you can get the 19mm, 21, and 23mm, and at Connaught you can get all 3 as well.

 

[mblakele]

We probably have a couple of days until USPS delivers Jim's brush to me. Here are some thoughts about how I plan to test it. I will probably use a NEW De Luxe in chrome, with maybe a BRW short-comb NEW or a Probak for variety. I mostly use soaps, and all but two of my soaps are sticks or have been stick-ified. So loading prowess will not be very important.

But I am less clear on which soaps to try with the Mühle fibres. I have considered alphabetical order: Arko, Boots, Calani, Dittmar.... Or maybe I should try some soaps with a poor reputation? I have a little modern Williams left. It might be fun to start a poll. Or I could also construct a menu of non-tallow soaps, for folks who are interested in avoiding animal products.

I should probably mention that I am not one of those folks. I recognize and respect that others make different decisions about their lives, but I wear leather, eat meat, and lather with animal-based brushes. So I will be comparing the Mühle fibres to my existing zoo. Here are the most important competitors:



Front and center are the Rooney 3/1 super and the Simpsons Colonel. I think those are in the right price range to compare with this Mühle? Probably I will also mention how it compares to brushes outside that range too: the pricier Rooney finest and Simpsons Classic 2, and the more reasonable Bull Goose LE natural horse or Semogue boars. But brushes in the $70-80 range will be my primary reference point.

 

[mblakele]

Deliveries to my humble abode have been fast lately. While the brush arrived too late for my shave, here are some first impressions.

The appearance of the brush is nice - and for anyone who wonders about the model number, it is "33 K 256". The grey cardboard tube is at least two steps up from the toilet-paper tube that my travel brushes sometimes occupy. I wonder how it will hold up as the pass-around continues? Right now it is in excellent shape.

Here is a top-view of the Simpson Colonel in best, Mühle 33 K 256, and Rooney 3/1 super. I am not quite satisfied with the quality, and the Rooney is a bit bloomy and clumpy because it is still damp from this morning. But the image matches my subjective impression that the Mühle is less dense than the Colonel, which is a shade less dense than the 3/1 super. For myself I prefer medium-dense brushes, so that may be fine.



The photo does not show this, but the coloring of the Mühle fibres is a bit more inform than silvertip badger is. There is no reddish-brown tint mixed in with the silvery-grey fibres, so they look greyish next to a silvertip. There is also something slightly shiny about the real hair, so the fibres look a bit duller in comparison. The band is also different: purplish-black rather than very dark brown. I think I might prefer an all black or all grey version, just as I prefer unsketched boars and natural horses.

On the handle and loft I check Bull Goose's measurements: 48-mm and 56-mm respectively. But I measure a 21-mm knot diameter as it exits the handle. I can only get 23-mm if I do not squeeze at all, and using that technique my Colonel comes in at 23-mm and my 3/1 at 24-mm, larger than their specs. Potential buyers may want to scale the expectations accordingly.

Since I am unfamiliar with the Mühle sandalwood shaving cream that came along for the ride, I opened the tube. The scent is not very strong, but it reminds me a little bit of the sandalwood body soaps from Mysore. A quick palm lather yielded good results. You may note some foaminess, but I did not work very hard on that aspect. It felt slick and cushiony, and had an attractive sheen.



While I do not find any of the Mühle handles very attractive, this one is comfortable enough. Once wet, the hairs feel very slightly sticky. That may help for loading soap. When fluffed they tend to fling water around. Between that and the medium density, this brush ought to dry out quickly.

The knot releases lather easily, another benefit of not being too dense. My palm detected no scratchiness, but I could feet the tips of the hairs. The slight stickiness was gone as soon as the lather developed. The backbone seemed good, but subtly different from anything I have used before. It was not stiff like a boar or horse, nor dense like a high-end badger. The impression was more of springiness, like its water-flinging behavior described above. As a result the tactile feedback while lathering was also different, and may take some getting used to.

Anyway I look forward to taking the brush for a face-lathering spin. Right now I am thinking... MWF.

 

[cxg231]

Deliveries to my humble abode have been fast lately. While the brush arrived too late for my shave, here are some first impressions.

WOW! Go USPS, I shipped that sucker Saturday AM!

Here is a top-view of the Simpson Colonel in best, Mühle 33 K 256, and Rooney 3/1 super. I am not quite satisfied with the quality, and the Rooney is a bit bloomy and clumpy because it is still damp from this morning. But the image matches my subjective impression that the Mühle is less dense than the Colonel, which is a shade less dense than the 3/1 super. For myself I prefer medium-dense brushes, so that may be fine.

Great shot of the density on those various brushes. I also noticed the Muehle wasn't as dense as my Simpson, but still fairly dense. (Medium-thick-dense?)

There is also something slightly shiny about the real hair, so the fibres look a bit duller in comparison.

Interesting observation. The Muehle fibers looked to me like they had a sheen to them, while the Best badgers hairs on my Simpson were matte.

A quick palm lather yielded good results. You may note some foaminess, but I did not work very hard on that aspect. It felt slick and cushiony, and had an attractive sheen.

FWIW, I quite enjoyed my shave with the Muehle cream.

Great opening review, I look forward to your thoughts after you have taken it for a "real" spin!

 

[mblakele]

The Muehle fibers looked to me like they had a sheen to them, while the Best badgers hairs on my Simpson were matte.

Interesting example of YMMV. Maybe the difference is lighting? In the right light, the Mühle fibres seem to have an inner glow. I think the badger shininess is that diffractive phenomenon that some animal hair exhibits.

Anyway I had a great shave this morning with the Mühle 33 K 256 and MWF. I placed the brush head-first into a few inches of water for a couple minutes. I doubt that is necessary, but it is a habit of mine. In the photo at the bottom, the green tube is my stick-ified MWF puck: it still grows and shrinks with humidity, but does not seem to crack. I started my timer, wet my face thoroughly, and loaded MWF onto my stubble. Then I gave the brush a gentle squeeze and face-lathered.

At first all I felt was the pointy end of the loft. This was not comfortable and did not seem to be creating much lather, so I applied a bit more force than I normally do. The brush splayed out, and I was able to use a few circular motions before switching to paintbrush strokes. The springiness reminded me of a lab glove or a kush ball. There was no scrubbing action, and I think it is safe to say that this brush will not appeal to hard-core face-latherers on the density train.

Nevertheless the brush made excellent lather with a sometimes-challenging soap. The lather was in good shape after about two minutes, but I continued to work at it for my usual four minutes of prep. The brush released lather easily, and I had thicker lather than I usually have - or need - for the second and third passes. I do not mind milking the lather out of a dense brush, but this brush could be a good choice for anyone who does.

This photo is from the end of the shave, just after I had applied the third coat of lather and about 12 minutes after I started the shave. The brush still held enough for a fourth pass. Sorry about the graininess, but due to weather the light in my bathroom was particularly dim this morning.



For the next few shaves I plan to try some Franco-German veggie soaps, also stick-ified. I have Calani ready, and after that will be some sequence of Institut Karité, Provence Santé Green Tea, Dr Dittmar Rivivage, and Savon du Midi Vetyver. I do not expect any lathering trouble with any of these, but I hope they will be of interest to the group.

 

[RPTheLefty]

Awesome reviews. You guys convinced me to order one. Placing an order on Connaught right now

 

[HornHiYo]

Damn, I just got a TGN finest in 24 mm short loft and LOVE it. Not sure I can afford a Muhle 33K right now, but am tempted. Wish I had jumped on this opp.

Hows the dirty bird bowl, cxg231?

How's the Spencer and Devon cream? The lather looked insane from that.

EDIT: Connaught has this for a great deal...really tempted. Damnit.

 

[Songwind]

How's the Spencer and Devon cream? The lather looked insane from that.

I won some S&D cream in a contest at another forum. I love it. It gives great lather, has a nice smell (Spice) and my skin feels really nice afterward.

 

[cxg231]

Interesting example of YMMV. Maybe the difference is lighting? In the right light, the Mühle fibres seem to have an inner glow. I think the badger shininess is that diffractive phenomenon that some animal hair exhibits.

Very interesting! I quite enjoyed your review on the brush, it is interesting to see where our impressions converge and diverge from one another.

Hows the dirty bird bowl, cxg231?

Love it. Love it. Love it. It is a rather large bowl, so my smaller brushes get swallowed up a bit in there, but the smaller brushes still whip up a nice lather. The bowl fits great in my medium-to-smalller sized hands and the thumb loop really locks the bowl in tight for vigorous lathering. There is also a very subtle curve on the top lip that redirects lather back down into the bowl, which is brilliant! I think it looks great to boot.

 

[Rushman2112]

You b*stards. I was trying to resist buying anything as I am 'between jobs' but I delved into this thread... Then I went to Muhle website, and they have an on sale area, so I just ordered a brush and stand set. I hope you are happy.

 

[wimbouman]

You b*stards. I was trying to resist buying anything as I am 'between jobs' but I delved into this thread... Then I went to Muhle website, and they have an on sale area, so I just ordered a brush and stand set. I hope you are happy.

Oh yes ....

 

[mblakele]

Chris, I think I can see the shine on the fibres now. For me it shows up when the hairs are lit from below and from the side. It is easiest to see on the black band. Does that sound right?

Anyway today's shave went well, with Calani. I should use this soap more often: I enjoy the scent, but I think I have only used it a dozen times since I bought it from RoyalShave. Lathering went much the same as yesterday, except that I am learning more about the brush. Getting into the right zone for face-lathering was easier this time. That springy sensation takes some getting used to: I had a few moments when I felt like I was lathering with a dodge ball.

Again I noticed how easily this brush releases lather. The lather may have turned out just a shade dry, but it was still in the sweet spot for Calani. I was able to play fast and loose with the second shave on a stainless Schick blade. These sometimes gives me trouble after the first shave, but I came away without a nick and with a DFS. The scent - "Iberische Sonne" aka Spanish Sun - married well with Clubman Special Reserve.

I shaved with my usual three passes, but there was enough lather for four. This time I took a picture after lathering for the first pass, so there is enough for three more passes still on the brush.

 

[HornHiYo]

So am I wrong that this brush might not be best well suited for face lathers due to the high loft? I forget what my 24mm short loft TGN is at, but it's an awesome face latherer. I just wish it was a tad softer but with the same backbone.