used my tiny Vie-Long horsehair brush today, and I couldn’t resist returning to my HTGAM soap: it makes a totally wonderful lather and the large-surfaced puck makes loading the brush easy and enjoyable—and the lather’s great.

You’ll note that I have a different handle on my iKon slant again. This one is from a Mühle Sophist—a ceramic handle, and you can see the little Mühle windmill toward the base. The blade today felt quite prickly this morning, as though it wanted to nick (though it never did). Some blades act this way at end-of-life—the Feather’s like that. It never did nick, but at the end of the shave I replaced it with a