Thread: Scuttle/Bowl Ridges

Originally Posted by bharner

No scuttle here yet; but I have two very different lather bowls; one is the el cheapo VDH bowl from my local pharmacy, and the other is a bowl I found for sale from a potter at the local farmers & dirty hippies market; its intended use is unknown to me but the shape is great although a bit large; it has that lovely circular pattern on the bottom and up the sides; it is more pronounced on the bottom which is nice for harder creams like one of Al's bombs; other than the bomb I haven't noticed any major advantage of the rings; a larger size is nice as are the indentations that I use to rest my brush handle in; attached is a photo for your consideration because we ll know it is not nice to tell without showing.

Don't let my wife see that; she would steal it.
It looks like a small mixing bowl with pour spouts.

I use an old pewter soap dish with three ridges in the bottom. I'm away from home right now so I can't include a picture.

I have a Georgetown Pottery webbed scuttle that I absolutely love. Even though I've stopped filling the scuttle with hot water, because I've been cold shaving for about 3 months, I still use it every time. My argument for the webs providing a better lather is as follows: Think of the old timey washboards and how they were corrugated metal. If you were to take two shirts, dip them in some soap water and take one to a flat piece of metal and the other to a washboard, which one would suds up faster? Obviously the shirt on the washboard. I understand that the brush does a lot of what sudsing when making lather, but all else being equal the webbed will make it a little quicker. Oh, and for what it's worth I don't usually spend more than a minute on making lather, whether it be with SRD, Mitchel's Wool Fat, Col. Conk, or cheap Walgreens brand; I know some spend upwards of 5 minutes making lather, but that's just not me.