The pokiness of the brush I felt yesterday seems to have subsided again and I'm not sure if the amount of time soaking has anything to do with it. I haven't really been keeping track of how long I've been soaking the brush for but it's probably around 3-5 minutes each day. I'm not noticing much boar funk during my shaves but if I put the wet brush up to my nose then it seems to be a faint combination of Alive and boar stank. The lathering is getting pretty easy, partially due to the fantastic Tusk base, with no fear of running out of lather but as the month progresses I want to become more consistent with how much I'm loading. I still wouldn't describe the face feel as soft, but more of a gentle scrub. Another difference I'm noticing with the boar is that it releases lather exceptionally well, and that may be partially due to the lack of density in this brush so we'll see if the Zenith behaves differently. The lather this thing produces is phenomenal. You know the lather is good when the some of the lather on the brush has slid down to the countertop and formed a puddle by the end of your first pass.
Today's shave was probably the closest shave this month at the cost of a bit of irritation along the jawlines. Yesterday u/StraightShaverSix kindly offered some tips after I mentioned some of my problem areas and I tried applying some of that feedback today which worked out pretty well. Those strokes/grips/angles are a bit unfamiliar to me so it's going to take a while to build the muscle memory before I'm confident doing those areas. good times and bad times, good friend go through shit together, newborn baby, unhealthy obsession
!BEGIN DISSERTATION
!Boars offer exceptional value, and the biggest hurdle has to be the break-in period. I'm a big fan of synthetics and the right ones really have no weaknesses (MOIMO) for my personal use, but I don't care about water retention or keeping my lathers warm while I shave since I'm a cold water shaver. However, after spending some time getting reacquainted with boars, I'm beginning to understand that what synthetics lack is soul. Synthetics are great from the start and don't go through any changes from use, but they have no character.
!Boars, however, are bad to horrible in the beginning. What's unexpected is the relationship you build with your boar baby during the break-in process. Your baby may be cheap looking and full of unsorted black hairs, but it's your baby and you love it nonetheless. After its first bath, you can't help but be disgusted by its smell, but you soldier on knowing that with time, love, and lots of soap, it will smell a bit less like ass with each passing day. The first time you mash it into your face, you wonder what the hell you got yourself into, but with each subsequent swirl your face becomes more numb to the pain, knowing that it will all be worth it in the end. When you set the brush out on the counter to dry, you can't help but check on it every few hours to see if it's doing okay or if any hairs have begun to split, wondering what it will look like after it fully dries and shows its first bloom. At the end of a long day, you think to yourself, "Wow, that was only the first day. How am I going to do this every day going forward?"
!The trials and tribulations that you experience together forms a bond tighter than epoxy between you two and no one else. There comes a day when you realize, "Wow, this brush is phenomenal. When did you become like this?"
!Little did you know that day by day, your baby was growing up. After a few days, its appetite for tallow dwindles and you no longer need to bring back the tub of soap to refeed it in the middle of a shave. After a week, its tips have split generously, creating wonderfully luxurious lather in no time at all, giving your wrist a much needed rest. After a month, its fibers become more pliant, caressing your face during a face lather like your mother's bosom did when you were still spitting up breast milk.
!Each morning, you scan your bathroom shelf at your army of badgers and synthetics, but your hand unconsciously reaches for your boar. Why? Because it's the only one that's not merely a tool, but an everchanging experience, and that experience becomes a part of you. You'll never let that brush go. Not after all you've been through. Months, or even years, from now, you'll look back and wonder how you did it.
!But you did it. You made it. Together.