JPDyson wrote:Right, so it's a "brush scuttle" more or less? Just holds the brush and the lather you made elsewhere.
Here we go again. The entire point of the invention of this cream scuttle was to make something that would allow hot lather from cream. To do that it must not be so big that the heated walls fail to contact the brush and it's lather, nor so small that the brush bangs against the walls and makes a nasty noise that might wake you, or your partner, before it is strictly necessary. I measured the loft and the canopy spread of all my brushes (about 80 (brushes, not millimeters) at the time) and came up with a size for the inner cylinder that is smaller than that used in the many imitations. The intention was that it should be used by filling the space between the double walls with water as hot as you can easily provide. After your other preparations, you may choose to pour out this water and replace it with more hot water to keep the temperature up. Then I soaked my brush, applied a dab (or a squirt from a tube) of cream to the brush, and started the lather in the warm inner container of the scuttle. After a few swirls the brush is warm and ready to transfer to the face for the real work of building the shaving lather, which should
always be done on the face. After doing so, the brush and the remaining lather it contains are placed back in the scuttle to keep warm until you are ready for the next pass. This stage will not work at all if the scuttle diameter is too large, and I find the
small size appropriate for even 30mm knot brushes. Sally's large size doesn't work as well for me (I assume that Oscar's bizarre and enormous abominations also fail in this respect more spectacularly than those of the many other copycats that have arisen since). Sally has experimented with deeper scuttles, which didn't work as she expected as the handle of the brush will clatter noisily against the pottery, and might also cause some chipping of the ceramic - BUT, and this is only something that a user could discover, if a puck of soap is placed in the deeper scuttle the brush handle will not contact the sides of the scuttle and you have a soap scuttle that will allow multiple passes of hot lather. You just have to be prepared to dedicate one soap to the scuttle to do this. If you are a user of just one favourite soap I strongly recommend you try this - I have used a deep scuttle this way for extended periods with Tabac and rather enjoyed it. I suppose you might be extravagant enough to buy a scuttle for each soap you like, but that is territory I haven't explored (not referencing
Hamlet here, but if no traveller returned, I would assume the effort was worthwhile!)
Once again, I will re-iterate that I am not connected in any financial relationship with Sally, and make not one penny from the sales of the scuttle. I just want others to enjoy the pleasures I designed for myself.
Chris
Unpatented, Open Source Shaver
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