Figured out vintage shaving mug/scuttle? yay Arko!

KW Driver said:

I use mine to soak my brush that day. It has room for a sample sized soap, which is what I have in mine. It doesn't have holes, but it does have notches. And no Victorian frillery about it. Mom loves it. Reminds her of some of the swag my grandfather used to have.

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These are the ones made by the "kilnmenow" vendor on eBay. She did say that she can put holes in the green clay before firing if you want them.

She also offered to use my own jpegs if I email them, but I didn't ask how much that would cost above the stock appliqué she uses for the risqué pictures. The stock pics already exist, but using "my" pictures would require some work, so I expect some up charge.

I can probably get nudes of the dogs. But I suspect my wife will draw the line about nudes of her.

EDIT: The website is kilnmenow.com, but the mugs only seem to be on eBay,

Well, my cheap Chinese horsehair brush lost 8 more bristles this morning.

Not sure what the upper "safe" temperature is, but it seems the boiling water wasn't good. Of course, it isn't like this a high quality brush to begin with either. But it is loosing bristles notably faster since the boiling water experiment.

I have some time today, since it's Saturday. So I experimented a little more.

First, I know that I'm changing way too many variables for any kind of valid testing, but that's OK. It's really just fun and games.

Second, after my discovery of how awesome VdH is in very hot water, I noted last night that all the VdH at my local WalMart was clearance priced at $1/puck. I don't know if they're getting out of the soap business the way they did the blade business, or if there's some other reason. I'll leave that up to someone else to run to ground.

Now, about today's adventure I made several changes. I'm using a different mug, although the same idea: soap cake on top, 3 drain holes, and reservoir on bottom, with a spout for access by the brush. Functionally it's the same. Cosmetically it's shaped a little more like a modern coffee mug, not the boot kind.

I only heated the water to 150F this morning, using a kitchen meat thermometer for measurement.

I used a cheap boar brush instead of the cheap horsehair brush.

And I used lard based soap made with potassium lye, not sodium lye. It's a little artisan soap with only lard, water, and lye as ingredients.

Again, I started with my face dry and unprepared, much as I suspect Great Grandpa did. And I also used my standard slim with an Israeli Persona blade.

The first thing I noticed is that starting at 150F makes for a much, much cooler shave than my luxury shave a few days ago. Tomorrow I might try bumping the water to 165F.

I've posted before that I found this lard based soap to be thin and not great for shaving. But I decided to give it a whirl at a higher temperature than my tap water. While it does lather "better" at warmer temperatures, I still found today's lather thin and disappointing.

To make it acceptable I found I needed to lather directly on the puck (the cut off hunk of soap), much like is recommended for Sterling soaps. And even once you get a reasonable head of lather whipped up it breaks down by itself more quickly than I could get back to it for the next pass.

I don't know if the poor lather is because lard simply isn't good, or if it comes from the potassium rather than sodium caustic. I suspect some of both. (I have some artisan plain sodium caustic/beef tallow on order to try.)

And tomorrow I will find out if jacking the temperature up a little, maybe 165F, will help the lard based soap lather better.

I'm a little disappointed with the lard's lack of performance because this is the soap I remember making as a child at the farm. I sort of wanted the connection with my roots to be wonderful and glorious. But reality and memory aren't always the same. My memory is truly Kodachrome, and reality is really Black and White. (Yeah, I have impossible to get processed Kodachrome in the freezer, and I'm *NOT* doing it as B&W. It can stay in my film freezer.)

Now, in the lard soap's defense, the skin conditioning from the lard is astonishingly good. Frankly the post face feel beats MWF, but not the fragrance. It's got a tiny bit of musky odor like a new brush.

Even with the wonderful conditioning there's a bit of underlying irritation from the thin lather.

After several shaves now I am beginning to see how a user might have done this, at least with the models that have drain holes back into the reservoir. I insert the dry brush into the spout, then pour the hot water directly onto the soap, which drains into the reservoir. I have learned that it's not good to overfill the reservoir, since you cannot move the dish without spilling. So I leave a bit of room, like filling a coffee cup, full but not too full.

You don't really need to shake out the brush too much. Excess runs back into the reservoir when loading. And when coming back for another pass there's convenient water at the spout. And I'm beginning to understand the evolution toward the boot shape (with drain holes) with the cradle notches for the brush.

The only real downside that I note, and maybe this isn't really a downside, is that if you were using one of these pots as your sole source of water for a shave is that one cannot rinse the brush thoroughly at the end. But maybe just "pretty clean" is actually good enough. I'm not going to experiment on that avenue yet. I see way to many antique brushes that have clearly been left standing on their bristles in soap.

MB

Edit: Here are a couple of pics of the scuttle I used for the lard based soap test. Note that I have already removed the lard puck.

Keep up the good work. I love what you're doing.

So I remembered to use VdH tonight but I forgot to use ultra-hot water on it. I left the puck in the plastic container it comes molded in, let some warm water sit on it while I showered, and then tried to load my brush from it to lather in a separate bowl. It made a decent lather instantly, before I even got the chance to get to the bowl. Probably not the barbershop lather you got, and honestly I haven't tried loading like that before so I don't know what to expect anyway.

captaincaveman said:

Keep up the good work. I love what you're doing.

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Hey, I'm finding it fascinating.

I believe experiential research is a very valuable tool.

Decades ago I read Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl, and I was struck by one passage where he wrote about discovering how the natives had used the raft centerboard as a steering mechanism.

There was some antique record that it was done, but no one could fathom how it actually worked. To the "modern" boat builder it sounded like a pretty myth.

Within days of being at sea on their journey they had rediscovered how to do it, and used the technique throughout the whole trip.

What I am constantly aware of in looking at old things is the principle luvmysuper mentioned above about how our own reference frame colors our interpretation, to wit the father who misunderstood the toilet bowel.

Whatever we see from old days should be colored with the thought that those guys were not "primitive savages" by any stretch of the imagination. They had every bit as much intelligence as we do. So it's completely reasonable to believe that solutions they had to their problems are at least as reasonable as any solution we might conjure up today.

But to properly understand the mechanism we must understand the circumstance. And just jumping in and trying it out is as good a way to get that knowledge as any - assuming it isn't something dangerous.

I attached some pictures to previous posts of the equipment. You can scroll back if you're interested.

Well, I think this is the last day with lard based soap, at least this potassium/lard soap. It's just not working well.

As I said, I bumped up the temperature to 165 for my source water, and today I also measured the reservoir temperature after pouring the water in. The reservoir came to 158F, give or take the accuracy of my kitchen meat thermometer. I suspect it's "pretty close" anyway. I know the 212F point is correct within the +/- 2F resolution the dial can show. I'll bet the rest is close enough.

So on with today's story. I bumped up the temperature, and I really did not notice any improvement in the performance of the lard soap. "Drat!" I said to myself. I had really hoped that the soap would be an adequate performer, but it's just not there. I suppose if it is the only thing you have it's better than dry shaving. But as a shaving soap VdH and Arko beat the pants off this stuff, and they're not even the top shelf soaps.

Granted the emollient properties of the lard are fantastic. But the cushion and lubrication are pathetic, and it smells. Smells bad, that is. Not like Mike's or The Shave Den's unscented at all.

I went back to the already heated horsehair brush today, because I was increasing the temperature and didn't want to risk damage. As I said, I don't know what the safe upper temperature is, but the boiling water caused a lot of unexpected shedding.

What I noted about 165F is that it clearly is warmer than yesterday's 150F water, but it is still a long ways from the luxurious hot lather I got from the boiling water. I've got pucks of VdH coming out my ears because Wally World is dumping them for a buck each. I may try to see where the demarcation is that makes what I call luxurious lather.

In the mean time I've got one of the boot style scuttles and one of the Fuller scuttles that looks like a gravy boat to try out. I do have several more of the 1860 Union design, but they're not particularly different than the one already posted except for minor differences in the sizes.

MB

I'm not advocating giving up, but keep in mind that they may simple have accepted lower standards in the past. It's romantic to think that the past was this rosy perfect time before everything was ruined by modern life but they may have gotten uncomfortable, stinky, non-BBS shaves, especially for DIY shaves vs. barber shaves.

Are VdH and Arko "not even the top shelf soaps", from the point of view of lather and cushion/protection/slickness/etc? When someone has trouble with expensive soaps/creams, Arko is probably the most often recommended alternative. VdH gets less attention overall but lathers well. I'm not saying this for the sake of argument, but to put the comparison in perspective.

(Side note: I just got back from Walmart, they only had 2 VdH's left. Tomorrow on the way home from work I'll stop at the 2 WalMarts on my commute...)

captaincaveman said:

I'm not advocating giving up, but keep in mind that they may simple have accepted lower standards in the past. It's romantic to think that the past was this rosy perfect time before everything was ruined by modern life but they may have gotten uncomfortable, stinky, non-BBS shaves, especially for DIY shaves vs. barber shaves.

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Somehow I doubt there was a need to accept lower standards. Certainly tallow soap was available, and I've got some sodium/tallow bars on order to try them, too.

And who knows how long Williams has really been available. They claim 1840. My paternal grandparents, and great-grandparents, and I believe great-great-grandparents ran a general store that had a little bit of everything to make life better. My maternal side lived a little closer to town. That's the picture of the house my uncle still lives in I posted in #30. That house still has the carbide gas pipes for the lamps in the walls. And an Aladdin kerosene lamp throws off a great light, too. Heck, my paternal side, the storekeepers with the kerosene tanks at wholesale even had an absorbtion refrigerator at one point. Living pre-grid, as opposed to the current off-grid mania, really wasn't bad. It was different to be sure. But I wouldn't say it was lower standards.

So while lard based soap was prevalent for many things - hand washing, clothes washing, etc - I have no trouble accepting that the probable Saturday night shave was done with a "special" store bought soap. You shaved on Saturday night to be ready for church Sunday morning. (And the poorer farmers had two sets of overalls, an everyday set and a Sunday set. The Sunday set was worn once a week with a starched white shirt until the everyday set was toast. Then you bought a new set and pushed down.)

captaincaveman said:

Are VdH and Arko "not even the top shelf soaps", from the point of view of lather and cushion/protection/slickness/etc? When someone has trouble with expensive soaps/creams, Arko is probably the most often recommended alternative. VdH gets less attention overall but lathers well. I'm not saying this for the sake of argument, but to put the comparison in perspective.

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Arko and VdH hold their own in performance, and they excel in the bang-for-the-buck vector, but for a luxury soap I'm usually partial to the lanolin soaps. MWF is my go-to soap while at home, but Mike's and The Shave Den are ordinarily my travelers.

I'm almost apoplectic when I look at soap that costs $30/puck.

I use this perspective of "practical luxury" to evaluate how a man from 1880 to say 1940, about the periods these kinds of equipment were probably widespread, would evaluate things. Hence my guesstimate that the lard based soap, although ubiquitous in old times, was probably not used as a shaving soap too much. Yes it works, but a once a week splurge "for the sake of the Lord" isn't that big a stretch for something as personal as shaving.

captaincaveman said:

(Side note: I just got back from Walmart, they only had 2 VdH's left. Tomorrow on the way home from work I'll stop at the 2 WalMarts on my commute...)

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Well, I have still have a couple more to hit up. But if you get there after me, then it'll be Poor Mother Hubbard's cupboard. I'm taking them all.

I was using my vintage scuttle most of last year when the hot water tap in my bathroom sink wasn't working. I didn't bother calling a plumber for awhile since I would just happily get hot water from the kitchen in my scuttle. You do have to use a slim shaving brush.
I used one like the Semogue 1250 from leesrazors.com and it fits great in all my scuttles. The stiff boar bristles won't bend back so there is no "Jamming" the brush or twisting it into the scuttle. The stiffer bristles also makes lathering easier. With vintage scuttles, it's all in the brush. Big bushy badger brushes just slow you down. I hope this link to the brush works, http://www.leesrazors.com/products/Semogue-1250-Pure-Bristle-Shaving-Brush.html .

Big_E said:

I was using my vintage scuttle most of last year when the hot water tap in my bathroom sink wasn't working.

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Did you use hot water from the kitchen sink tap, probably about 120 or so in most houses? Or a kettle?

What soap did you use, one particular? Or multiple?

Will you describe your method? Similar to what I have been describing? Or different?

I'd be delighted to hear from someone who has used one regularly instead of as an incidental experiment like I'm doing.

mrb7 said:

Did you use hot water from the kitchen sink tap, probably about 120 or so in most houses? Or a kettle?

What soap did you use, one particular? Or multiple?

Will you describe your method? Similar to what I have been describing? Or different?

I'd be delighted to hear from someone who has used one regularly instead of as an incidental experiment like I'm doing.

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I diidn't ever try shaving without first preparing my face. Always after a shower.
I used a soap that I purchased off ebay, the seller's name slips me at the moment but her main ingediant is olive oil. Her soaps are just the right size for the scuttle. I'll add her name to this post when I get home.
I heated water in a kettle at very low heat while I showered and it was plenty hot when I got out.
I used the same methood as you, keeping the brush in the hot water tank as I shaved. Basically face lathered since there isn't really much room to build up lather in the scuttle bowl.
I did keep the scuttle in a small ice cream bowl or on a tea cup saucer worked good also to catch any dripping soapy water and not make too much of a mess. If I can find an ice cream bowl to match my scuttle, that will be great.

PS: Now I'm gonna have to break out my scuttle when I get home. I was using a straight blade last year but for some strange reason I'm going through a cartridge razor phase this year.

Big_E said:

I diidn't ever try shaving without first preparing my face. Always after a shower.

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I suspect that I would get better shaves by preping first. During the week, when I'm not experimenting, I also shave directly after a shower. And this morning's MWF was awesome compared to the weekend's thin lard soap. But the weekend's shaves have been an attempt to recreate historically correct behavior. I know my grandparents and great-grandparents didn't have a shower.

On a lark, knowing that MWF lathers worse as it get hotter, tonight I tried whipping up a lather on the lard with cold water. Frankly it was a far superior lather than the weekend's, but it was cold - very cold. I didn't shave. I do recall that the lard soap laying on the back porch sink when I was a kid would do an adequate job of hand washing even in the winter.

Big_E said:

I did keep the scuttle in a small ice cream bowl or on a tea cup saucer worked good also to catch any dripping soapy water and not make too much of a mess.

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This is a great idea. I might be wandering around Wally World looking for one myself, if we ever thaw that is.

The seller of the soap is Chelsea's Soap Garden on ebay. It seems that she is now just selling soap molds and soap making supplies at this time. Here is my set up for tomorrow morning.

The seller for the soda caustic/beef tallow blocks is dixiebendsoaps. It hasn't arrived yet, but I expect it before the weekend.

It will be an interesting juxtaposition to the lard soap.

Both of these are simple saponification recipes, and this would have been quite handy to make on a farm.

No guarantee that this simple tallow will perform any better than the simple lard did, however.

I wonder what a Williams bar from 1890 was like. I do have one puck of Colgate that looks to be from about the '60s I plan to try once I get methodology experiments out of the way.


There is an eBay vendor who sells "shaving soap like Classic Williams" that was mentioned in a thread some time back. I never tried that, but it's out there. But I wonder "which" Classic Williams. 1960? Or 1840?

Mikey

mrb7,
It's interesting to read on your progress. While I'm not really trying to recreate shaves of earlier times, I did buy my soaps from Chelsea's Soap Garden just because she claimed to make them the "old fashioned" way. They do lather up easy with warm and cool water in the summer time. I must have bought about a year's supply.

I am on the look out for an antique porcelein basin, like what was used to wash up in the bedroom dressers. More than likely for decoration purposes and might not actually use it.

Big_E said:

mrb7,
It's interesting to read on your progress. While I'm not really trying to recreate shaves of earlier times, I did buy my soaps from Chelsea's Soap Garden just because she claimed to make them the "old fashioned" way. They do lather up easy with warm and cool water in the summer time. I must have bought about a year's supply.

I am on the look out for an antique porcelein basin, like what was used to wash up in the bedroom dressers. More than likely for decoration purposes and might not actually use it.

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Well, I wouldn't shave like "olden times" on a daily basis. I'm no fool about indoor plumbing's advantages regarding hot and cold running water and modern toilet facilities.

But there was a YouTube video about the scuttles where the guy warmed the scuttle in a sink of water, and I thought to myself, "there's no way in heck that I would use this scuttle if I had piped in hot water."

So I started my quest to rediscover the methodology.

I do remember a couple of the basins on dressers at grandma's house. You had to be careful that the bowl was dry in cold weather, or the pitcher could become frozen to the bowl overnight. Not that the water in the pitcher wouldn't be a block of ice and totally unusable until you got the room warm in the morning. But if they separated at least you could set the pitcher near the fireplace, or in more modern times on top of the room's oil heater.

Now I'm trying to figure out who got the pitchers and basins? I don't know what happened to them.

Big_E said:

mrb7,
... I did buy my soaps from Chelsea's Soap Garden just because she claimed to make them the "old fashioned" way. They do lather up easy with warm and cool water in the summer time. I must have bought about a year's supply.

I am on the look out for an antique porcelein basin, like what was used to wash up in the bedroom dressers. More than likely for decoration purposes and might not actually use it.

Click to expand...

mrb7 said:

The seller for the soda caustic/beef tallow blocks is dixiebendsoaps. It hasn't arrived yet, but I expect it before the weekend.
...
Both of these are simple saponification recipes, and this would have been quite handy to make on a farm.
...
I wonder what a Williams bar from 1890 was like. I do have one puck of Colgate that looks to be from about the '60s I plan to try once I get methodology experiments out of the way.
...
There is an eBay vendor who sells "shaving soap like Classic Williams" that was mentioned in a thread some time back. I never tried that, but it's out there. But I wonder "which" Classic Williams. 1960? Or 1840?

Mikey

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....mmuuuusssstttt.....not.....give in.... SabbaticalSabbaticalSabbaticalSabbaticalSabbatical......

Great thread, gents!

Vlad said:

Great thread, gents!

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So, jump in. The water's fine. The kettle's on the boil.

Grab an old scuttle and experiment! And tell us your results.

One thing that I've done to make getting hot water a little easier, that's technically not "old school" because it's electric, is order up a "hot pot" from the Bay.

New ones are pretty pricy and too big. Most new ones hold several liters or a gallon, and they are intended for day use at a home that probably drinks a lot of tea.

But I found an old GE one for $17 shipped that holds about a quart yet will work with as small as a cup, and it has an adjustable knob on the side for temperature control. I'm hoping it goes down to about 165F, but it's just marked with smaller-larger dots. If you search for "hot pot" bunches of the things show up, and they're all about $5-$20. I took the one that was ending about the time I started searching. So far I am the only one who has bid on one in weeks as far as I can tell.

There's several "models" that are all clearly the same basic pot with a knob but different brand names and different shaped handles. I suspect GE developed it in the late '60s early '70s, then sold the production line to an Asian outfit when the market changed.

My hope is to get an "easy" source of water hotter than I'm comfortable turning up my hot water heater, but not boiling. My secret scheme is to get that wonderful barbershop lather I talked about in an earlier post every morning if I can. If this works, and given that MWF doesn't lather well when too hot, I may be changing my standard soap.

But first I've got to try out the tallow soap I've got ordered, and the two remaining shaped scuttles.

And granted, I'm not going to start shaving in the bedroom on the dresser just to be "correct" about all this. But I do have a much, much better feel for just how rational some of the pre-grid stuff was when you look at it in the right context.

And if my prepper friends are right I'll have shaving gear to trade for food!!

Well, my soda caustic/beef tallow soap came today. I'll be giving it a try this weekend and report on that.

I really don't think it's going to out perform a well formulated soap like Mikes, or QCS. But I do think it's a reasonable approximation of what could be made very low tech and in non-urban areas. And, as noted, Williams has been on the market since 1840, so even if none of the "farm made" style soaps work worth a hoot it isn't outrageous to think a man would have reasonable access to an adequate shave soap at the dry good store.

Edit: And because I couldn't contain myself I had to try lathering the stuff. It is a better lather than the lard soap by far. It is not a match for Arko or MWF or Tabac. And it does not have the "funk" that the lard soap has. I'll give it a good test in another style scuttle Saturday morning.