walden

I came, I shaved, I conquered!

• Brush: Farvour Turncraft w/ 28mm Maggard 2-band
• Razor: Polished Brassbird SB
• Blade: Nacet
• Lather: MdC Vetyver Brain Bowl (Day 204)
• Post: CB V - finished today as well
• Frag: Biblio

Finally finished!!! After 204 consecutive days, I am finally free! Since April 28th, 2023, I have shaved daily and only used this Brain Bowl; my other poor neglected soaps quietly crying for attention from my den. It's been a hell of a ride and one that I never want to repeat, but it is done.

The question of "why the hell would you do this?" has come up often. To recap, here is the story from my first Brain Bowl post on April 28th:

Last week, I learned a valuable lesson: never underestimate the generosity (or motives) of people in this sub/hobby. During a discussion the subject of brain bowls, the question of how long it takes to finish one came up. Several estimates were thrown out and then I, jokingly, said "If anyone wants to buy me a Vetyver Brain Bowl, I will test this theory" proof and moved on. Well, meer minutes later, a reply requesting clarification of my statement popped up. I validated my position and all hell broke loose. Within an hour, over half the money was crowd sourced from folks in the chat and the rest was pooled pretty much overnight.

I logged back in after work the next day to this and multiple opportunities to renege my position. Well, I am a person of my word and I said "yes" when asked the first time, so here we are. Day 1 of God knows how many consecutive MdC Vetyver shaves. All of this for the sake of Science.

With all of the unknowns swirling around this experiment, I asked for guesses for how long the Brain Bowl would take to use up in my first Brain Bowl SOTD. The estimates were all over the board, given that there has never been someone who documented the process of using up a brain bowl before. Here are the recorded guesses from the first SOTD:

• Wyze0ne - 420
• Zimora - 225
• InfernalInternal - 369
• JoboozeRum - 333
• Walden - 274
• UnitedStatesGhost - 192
• Putneyjc - 207
• JWoods - 450 uses
• Scorp - 36 months/1,095 uses
• HangHeel - 18 months
• Verdadkc - 723 uses
• Enndeegee - 478 uses

Well, apparently by using his Future Sight Superpower, u/putneycj almost exactly nailed the needed number of uses to kill the Bowl.

Now with everything all said and done, we have some solid proof of the life expectancy and usage of a Brain Bowl. Weekly weigh-ins have shown a fairly consistent average usage of 7.6g. Of course, I had weeks where the usage was double that and some, especially towards the beginning, where the overall weight loss was 0g. For those who are curious, here is the weekly breakdown of total weight and usage of the Brain Bowl, with the SOTD pictures to match:

• 4/28/23 - 304g - unboxing weight
• 5/5/23 - 304g (-0g)
• 5/11/23 - 297g (-7g)
• 5/18/23 - 292g (-5g)
• 5/25/23 - 287g (-5g)
• 6/1/23 - 279g (-8g)
• 6/8/23 - 274g (-5g)
• 6/15/23 - traveling and used scrapings in a travel tub
• 6/22/23 - 259g (-15g over 2 weeks)
• 6/29/23 - 254g (-5g)
• 7/6/23 - 247g (-7g)
• 7/13/23 - 242g (-5g)
• 7/20/23 - 237g (-5g)
• 7/27/23 - 231g (-6g)
• 8/3/23 - 224g (-7g)
• 8/10/23 - 216g (-8g)
• 8/17/23 - 210g (-6g)
• 8/24/23 - 202g (-8g)
• 8/31/23 - 193g (-9g)
• 9/7/23 - 186g (-7g)
• 9/14/23 - 180g (-6g)
• 9/21/23 - 172g (-8g)
• 9/28/23 - 164g (-8g)
• 10/6/23 - 152g (-12g)
• 10/13/23 - 144g (-8g)
• 10/20/23 - 132g (-12g)
• 10/27/23 - 116g (-16g) *10/31/23 - transferred travel tub contents back to bowl (+1g)
• 11/3/23 - 103g (-14g)
• 11/10/23 - 92g (-11g)
• 11/15/23 - 84g (-8g)

I can now say without doubt, and with evidence to back it up, how long it takes to finish a Brain Bowl.

Was it worth it? Yes. Was it enjoyable? Mostly. Being able to switch up post shaves whenever I wanted kept the burn out away. Even now, after 204 days of it, I still like the Vetyver scent and would happily use it again, just not for a while.

Now the other golden question: is it worth the cost? That depends on a few factors. I ran some comparison numbers based off feedback from fellow wetshavers and figured out the following:

DG Milksteak: 113g (4oz) • $22 • $.19 per g ~ 37 uses to kill • 3g per use = $.57 per shave

Stirling: 127.5g (4.5oz) •$11.25 • $.08 per g ~ 34 uses to kill • 3.75g per use = $.30 per shave

MdC Brain Bowl - 220g (7.7oz) - $75.99 • $.34 per g ~ 204 uses to kill - average of 1.07g per use = $.36 per shave

MdC jar (based off brain bowl stats) • 200g (7oz) • $69.50 • $.34 per g ~ estimated 222 uses to kill • .9g per use = $.30 per shave

Overall, that puts MdC at slightly more expensive per shave than Stirling, but much cheaper than Declaration Grooming. I guess if you like the scent, don't mind having the soap a very long time, and like the wooden bowl, then a Brain Bowl is totally worth the cost.

So, with all that being said, here is the data, all nice and neat:

• Martin de Candre Vetyver Brain Bowl - 304g unboxed weight
• empty bowl weight: 84g
• acutal weight of soap in my bowl: 220g (sold as 200g of soap)
• 204 consecutive days of use to finish
• 7.6g average weekly usage
• chance of me doing this again: 0%

This is a thread to share those new purchases you’re excited to show off, the shave-related projects you’ve been working on, or just some neat thing from your shave den.

It'd be nice to spruce up some of our lesser-visited communities with some banner photos.

If you have a good picture of a DE razor, a Straight Razor, maybe some sort of picture that goes along with a computer server -- I'd love to see them.

Thanks!

• walden