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scuttle does not work?

i got a nice fancy scuttle. i put the hottest the faucet goes in it. i would not even call the lather "warm". do i need to boil water or something?

thanks
 
i always wondered about those old scuttles. how do they keep lather warm when the water is underneath it? now the other style i understand. hot water kind of surrounds it....
 

Kentos

B&B's Dr. Doolittle.
Staff member
You need to "prime" the thing first. So fill it up with the hottest water you can, let it sit for a bit. Then dump out the now tepid water and refill with hot water again. Now you will have warm water.
 

musicman1951

three-tu-tu, three-tu-tu
I have a Robert Becker scuttle and have no need to preheat. It does have a stopper to cover the fill hole, so that might be the difference.
 
You need to "prime" the thing first. So fill it up with the hottest water you can, let it sit for a bit. Then dump out the now tepid water and refill with hot water again. Now you will have warm water.
+1 ... fill both the inner chamber and the lather/brush chamberl, so the ceramic wall is heated from both sides.

Some people heat theirs in the microwave to speed things up, but check with the manufacturer first.

BTW, you can use your scuttle to make ice-cold lather for the dog-days of summer as well. It still needs priming, though.
 
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i got a nice fancy scuttle. i put the hottest the faucet goes in it. i would not even call the lather "warm". do i need to boil water or something?

thanks

What type of scuttle are you using? The reason I ask is because I used to use a particular type of scuttle and found I needed to prime the scuttle to have warm lather. I recently took receipt of a different scuttle and found even water from my tap is too hot as my lather starts to break down. Not all scuttles are created equally.
 
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rassage what kind of scuttle is it, is this one of the older style soap puck ones with the bowl on top the big opening for the brush underneith, or is it a mordern one like a becker or dirty bird ?, the older style ones are mostly a fancy looking holder for a soap puck, that can hold a brush in warm water, the newer ones are where there is a lot more function, if its a newer one priming works or put your water in before a shower to give the waters tempurature time to heat the clay through to the inner bowl
 
ok i am sorry to do this but i have to call this out. it is a sara bonnyman moss scuttle. i am not impressed for the $100 i spent. it does not get really warm. if i use boiling water i can't get any lather. i have read a couple of ideas to make a very good scuttle for less than $20. one is to drill holes in a double wall stainless mixing bowl. the other is to take the famous walmart berry bowl and sit in a flower pot. i think the moss scuttle is just too thick ceramic. which is part of the reason it is probably $100. it is very nice looking but i cannot really get good results from it. perhaps i expected the wrong thing. i read all over if you get it actually hot it will destroy the lather. i would like that conaire machine but i am not exactly keen on barbisol. i like better soap. it could also be that i am using vegan soap. maybe you need tallow for this task. i did not put the soap in the scuttle because this one does not have holes in it. i just lathered in it. i think the problem is i misunderstood what a scuttle is for. i expected it to be like say 130 degrees f. it will do that but then there is just bubbles and no lather. honestly i dunk my brush in super hot water and then swirl it on my soap anyways. that actually worked better as it has for decades. i don't want to sell it though. it looks too nice. i hope i can get it to work.
 
ok i am sorry to do this but i have to call this out. it is a sara bonnyman moss scuttle. i am not impressed for the $100 i spent. it does not get really warm. if i use boiling water i can't get any lather. i have read a couple of ideas to make a very good scuttle for less than $20. one is to drill holes in a double wall stainless mixing bowl. the other is to take the famous walmart berry bowl and sit in a flower pot. i think the moss scuttle is just too thick ceramic. which is part of the reason it is probably $100. it is very nice looking but i cannot really get good results from it. perhaps i expected the wrong thing. i read all over if you get it actually hot it will destroy the lather. i would like that conaire machine but i am not exactly keen on barbisol. i like better soap. it could also be that i am using vegan soap. maybe you need tallow for this task. i did not put the soap in the scuttle because this one does not have holes in it. i just lathered in it. i think the problem is i misunderstood what a scuttle is for. i expected it to be like say 130 degrees f. it will do that but then there is just bubbles and no lather. honestly i dunk my brush in super hot water and then swirl it on my soap anyways. that actually worked better as it has for decades. i don't want to sell it though. it looks too nice. i hope i can get it to work.

Keep trying with it man!

SWMBO picked me up a vintage soap scuttle today and am SUPER excited to give it a full on try for my sunday shave!

Good luck! :thumbup:
 
I have one of the Moss Scuttles, and picked up a custom that's a lot larger, from a member here that works much better than the Moss. To use either I fill with very hot tap water and run hot water over the outside to get all of the pottery hot. If I just fill the reseivor it does not get really warm lather.
 
my post caused me to start thinking. i just found a better use for my three bowl setup i normally use. it was free too. i filled the french onion soup bowl a quarter with boiling water. i put the berry bowl in the french onion bowl. i dipped my brush in hot water in my mug. i swirled it on the soap. that was much warmer and i got great lather since it was right on the soap. the french onion bowl being thick to retain heat and the berry bowl being thin glass to absorb heat worked great. it actually felt like the barbers heated foam. man, why didn't i just think of that first. duh. i will still try with the scuttle but i hope this idea helps anyone else maybe that is on a budget. except for the soup bowl, that was $50. i suppose there are less expensive ones though. btw, i did not have to shave now i just lathered my face to test my theory. the only thing is this soap if you lather directly on it, it takes like 20 swirls and it is not cheap stuff. maybe i need to go back to the vdh soap which is very nice for 50 cents. well, less bowls should please my wife. ahh i don't think she really cares since we have separate bathrooms. this is off topic for my post but i was wondering why i have to swirl vegan soaps so much and the tallow ones lather right up?
 
oh, i just read what my problem is in some old posts here. the moss scuttle is not really one you would use with soap and transfer the lather. is there some other brand of scuttle i could use for that? i mean like one of the old ones with the holes perhaps. although you guys just said those did not work too good. i really like a one piece deal for that task, what i devised worked darn good but it is two pieces. it also interests me that i saw here the moss was $35 when it came out. you guys drove up the price lol.
 

Kentos

B&B's Dr. Doolittle.
Staff member
How exactly are you using the scuttle? Do you have the soap puck in the scuttle too? Sounds like you need a brush scuttle-one that keeps the brush warm, vs just the lather.

I use a scuttle just to keep the lather from getting cold, vs trying to get "hot" lather. If you make a whippd cream airy foamy lather it will degrade quite quickly. If you make a less airy lather is tends to hold up a little better. YMMV tho.
 
i had the soap in another bowl. i put the soap on the brush and swirled it in the scuttle. i was thinking of the truefitt and hill "mug". i don't know if that would be beter for me. i thought keeping the brush sitting in water was bad for it?
 

Kentos

B&B's Dr. Doolittle.
Staff member
Ah, ok you were using it correctly. A brush scuttle is just like what you have now, but smaller, and it was made for face latherers.

Check out dirtybird's site :smile:.

Scuttles take a while to master, so I wouldn't give up on it yet.
 
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