WetShaving
This is a community of enthusiasts, hobbyists and artisans who enjoy a traditional wet shave: brush, soap, and safety or straight razor. We are a part of the WetShaving community found on Reddit, Discord, and IRC.
New subscribers welcome!
Please visit our wiki, which is always and forever a work in progress.
While this server is funded by personal contributions, we'd like to thank Zulip for giving us a Community subscription to their chat software (available at https://chat.wetshav.ing/).
🪒 Check out these alternative front-ends for this server:
https://gem.wetshaving.social/ - a nice modern interface
Our sister Mastodon instance is https://wetshaving.social/.
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🪒 Community Rules
Rule 1 - Behaviour and Etiquette
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Be Respectful. Do not bully, flame, or harass others.
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Malicious comments are not allowed but heated discussion and salty banter is okay.
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Low effort replies and complaints about content will be removed.
Rule 2 - Content Guidelines
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Mail Calls, Simple Questions, and SOTD posts belong in the recurring weekly threads.
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Posts must have sufficient content to generate a meaningful discussion.
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Images, links, or videos must include additional text that summarizes the topic.
Rule 3 - Reviews and Disclosure
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Use [First Impressions] in the title if your experience with the product is limited.
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Use the [Review] in the title if you can provide comprehensive details with enough familiarity to answer follow-up questions.
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Disclose how the product being reviewed was acquired (e.g., PIF, loan, or purchase). If the product was provided to you directly by the maker or vendor free of charge or at a discount, you must disclose this fact even if the item will later be returned to the maker or vendor.
Rule 4 - Advertising
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Vendors are to keep marketing within the biweekly Deals/New Products threads.
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Non-vendors may post topics about products if it will foster a compelling discussion.
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Do not solicit donations or share fundraisers without mod approval.
Rule 5 - Inappropriate Content
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All NSFW/L content must request mod approval and be flaired appropriately.
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Non-shaving related NSFW/L content is not allowed.
Rule 10 - Moderator Discretion
- The rules may not apply perfectly to every situation. The mods have final discretion.
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I have an AP Shave Co Silksmoke synthetic brush that I’d be happy to give you if you’re CONUS. It’s nice, I just don’t really use it much.
Lmk if you’re interested.
I appreciate your offer very much and have been giving it some thought. I think I want to move away from synthetic materials generally since I am trying to minimize sources of microplastics in my life... But I am very interested to hear your perspective on synthetic vs. natural brushes. Maybe I should try to set my growing fear of plastics aside?
I wouldn’t recommend you set it aside just for the sake of shave brushes.
Synthetics are very easy to lather, they dry quickly, and nice ones can feel great on the face. They also tend to use slightly less soap, but that’s not really a big deal in my experience. Soap is cheap.
I tend to use synthetics when I’m traveling or in a hurry. There’s nothing wrong with using a badger or boar brush instead though! They just take a little more work.
That said, my favorite brushes are boar brushes. Once they break in, they’re a pleasure to use.
Thanks for your perspective. I think I will keep trying to make it work with the boar brush that I already have. I really want to try a badger brush - do you have a recommendation for a quality choice? (Budget of $100 maximum? Is that reasonable? I know badger gets expensive...)
$100 is certainly a reasonable budget.
I would take a look at https://apshaveco.com/ or the Maggard "Build a Brush" option.
The Maggard SHD knots are well regarded, as are the AP Shave Co. Gelousy SHD knots. In either case you're ordering a handle and knot separately, but they're easy to set with some silicone glue or epoxy. I'd recommend using silicone as it's easier to pull the knot if you need to in the future.
You could also look at a badger brush from Yaqi or DSCosmetics on aliexpress. In my experience their badger hair doesn't tend to be as nice, though that's probably the cheapest option.