Wee 3
I thought I was done scoring razors on eBay. I thought I’d seen it all. Gillette 50s fatboys, Eversharp bakelites, Schick magazine repeaters, and then finally 40s Super Speeds, my main razor these days. I yoinked ‘em in nickel and in gold, and always in multiples of at least three, for reasons I’m ashamed to go into. I’ve got problems. Big problems. But no matter. I did like Noah-and-a-half and got my mitts on three of each of these razors, and then I felt like I was, finally, over it all.
Then the Fisher King pounced.
“I just picked up a _______ and it’s the best razor yet,” he told me.
Sure it is, old boy. Every new thing you shavegeeks try is the “best yet”. That’s the whole trip in a nutshell, isn’t it? Well, I’m through, you follow? Through. I’m done. Finito. End of the line. Last stop. Stick a fork —
Er, what did that razor look like, anyway? (I said as I opened eBay in a new tab and searched “_______” as beads of sweat took little swan dives off my forehead and landed with a nice, tidy splish on the keyboard.
So now I have two of them. Fisher King Specials. Maybe I’ll spill, and maybe I won’t. Depends on whether I want to score a few more before letting loose the dogs of whore on them. Just let me get my beak wet and then I’ll let you dogs at the rest of the carcass. Maybe.
I will show you one of my other recent scores, though. The only shorty Super Speed I’ve even seen, in gold no less. That’s it at the top of the blog, alongside a Simpson Wee Scot brush and a tiny travel jar of Nancy Boy shaving cream.
As far as I can tell, it’s the only one-piece TTO (twist to open) travel razor Gillette ever made. The company’s 3-piece take-apart travel razors are much more common, and you can find these mediocre shavers on eBay for a song all day long. I get ‘em for peanuts and give ‘em to my kids to play with.
Not with a real blade in them! God, what kind of parent do you think I am?! I would never give my kids razors with sharp blades in them!!
I loaded them with Derbys.
So how small is this 1940’s Gillette? Look at the photo again — the razor’s shorter than the Wee Scot, for god’s sake! Don’t bother surfing over to Appleby’s site — you may as well eat at the man’s restaurants for all the info you’re going to get on this rare specimen. And in gold, in mint condition? Forget it. I’m not even sure it actually exists, and I shaved with it.
Speaking of which, the lather was courtesy of Taylor’s new Lavender shaving cream, which I like quite a bit. Like the venerable UK firm’s Avocado shaving cream, the Lavender has been modified slightly to meet new EU regulations going into effect in April. Taylor’s Barry Klein tells me the only changes made to the Lavender cream were a different colorant and the use of real lavender essential oil intead of the old version’s synthetic lavender fragrance.
The new Taylor Lavender looks a little lighter purple in color, but the real difference is the scent. The new cream’s aroma is pure lavender essential oil, nothing more, nothing less. I’ve got a vial of lavender EO from Body Time and the new Taylor cream smells exactly like it, as well as other EO-based Lavender shaving creams like The Art Of Shaving’s and Truefitt & Hill’s new Ultimate Comfort unscented.
Is this a good thing? Shavewise, yes, very much so. Lavender EO is very skin-friendly and a natural antiseptic. It also smells nice. I got a fantastic shave with the new Lavender cream, and its smoother, creamier consistency made building huge, thick, meaty lather almost comically easy, even with a tiny brush like my Wee Scot. If anything, I’d say the new Taylor is even better than the old version, and that’s saying something — Taylor’s Lavender has been a shavegeek fave for a long, long time.
Still, I have to admit to having a soft spot for the old version’s scent, fake though it may have been. I’ve still got some tubs and tubes of the stuff and I’m surprised to find that I’m more attached to its scent, which is sweeter and more its own thing than a straight-up lavender EO trip, than I’d thought I was. Like Taylor’s old Avocado scent, it’s entirely fake and entirely yummy, and while the new version’s all-natural essential oil scent is more pure and shave-beneficial, I’m sort of sad to see the old scent go. The new Taylor’s Lavender shaves better, but I’m going to hold onto my old tubs for when I want to catch a sniff of that old purple magic.
