Review of Turkish copper bowl

One thing I can hardly do without when I wetshave is a good bowl to build the lather in… some people face lather (which I do as well when using the Arko stick), some swear at scuttles – I prefer a decent bowl that fits my hand.

I started out with a simple plastic snack bowl “borrowed” from the kitchen cabinet, then switched to a larger cereal bowl from Ikea (which I still use at times) before one of the old-timers at my favorite shaving forum showed off something he had dubbed “the fairy tale bowl”.

It is funny how fast ones Acquisition Disorders can go from dormant to “shut up and take my money” mode…

Short story even shorter; once I learned that the bowl had come from bestshave.net and was pretty damn cheap, I placed an order for it as well as a few other odds and ends – funny how you tend to spot something you suddenly need. Shipping was prompt – as usual – and as soon as I unpacked the bowl I knew I was going to like it:

The bowl is beaten out of pretty thin copper sheet, which makes it lightweight and easy to hold in my paws – the downside is that my lather gets cold pretty fast. The dimpled inner surface helps in building the lather, much like the spiral grove you often see in the bottom of scuttles. The reasonable small size of the bowl – 11.7 cm (~4.5″) wide and 4.9 cm (~2″) deep – means it’s best suited for smallish brushes; since most of my brushes have a loft around 5.0 cm (~2″) it suits me fine. My Omega 48, with it’s significantly higher loft, do not like my copper bowl much…

Overall I can recommend the Turkish copper bowl if you like bowl lathering, like short lofted brushes and are in the marked for a shiny, lightweight bowl.

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