Thread: What is the "canonic" way to use a two-piece shaving mug?

I have tried the search function, but I was unable to find an answer to this question--so I would appreciate the help.

I have a mug that looks like this:



Essentially, it's a 4" diameter mug with a detachable shallow bowl that fits in the top, the latter also featuring two prongs designed to hold a brush. Surely, this item hails from the days when hot water from a tap was not the common thing it is today, so I gather that holding hot water would be one of the primary functions of this mug.

In this spirit, I have used this mug in four different ways--all more or less satisfactory:

1 - Fill the mug with piping hot water, then make lather from shaving cream in the little bowl on top. Benefits: warm lather; drawbacks: the top bowl is a bit narrow and shallow to make lather very comfortably.

2 - Fill the mug with piping hot water, then make lather from a soap puck in the little bowl on top. Benefits: same as making lather from any soap puck; drawbacks: the warmth of the water in the mug underneath does not transfer to the puck and consequently to the lather.

3 - Make lather in the mug, and use the shallow bowl, detached, as a brush-holder during shaving. A bit anticlimactic, although the lather was nice.

4 - Fill the mug with piping hot water, use it to soak the brush; make lather either in the shallow bowl, detached, or in a separate bowl. This too felt anticlimactic, since I have a sense that I'm not really using this thing the way it was intended.

I know that probably none of these methods is the one for which this mug was designed, so I'll be grateful to anyone who can tell me the historically-correct way to do this.

Thanks

Tom