TurnNShave M1 Knot Review

One particular acquaintance with an especially well developed eye for art and design recently acquired a first generation M1 knotted brush that he swears is amongst the best he has ever encountered in every metric.  Being primarily focused on, if not obsessed with: colour, depth, saturation and light spectrum radiance, he waxes eloquently about how it is amongst the best pours he has ever encountered, let alone owned; paraphrasing, it is as though there is a light source residing within the resin.  It would be unfair to suggest other facets of the handle design have been deemphasized, as his attention to the minor details of dimensionality and proportionality are quite sophisticated as well.  He is quick to proactively declare his initial concern with the shape being derivative of the classic M7, L7, Jefferson handles but that in practice it is unique in being a chunky iteration with some scribed lines.  Those scribed lines were initially worrying but once acquired, he actually favours them.  To be clear, chunky does not entail awkward; in this case, it simply means the handle is thicker, taller and more substantial than any of the derivatives encountered from other artisans.  Finally, having owned and sampled a huge variety of quality artisan knots over the years, he highly praises the knot’s density, backbone and tips, suggesting it is amongst the best encountered.  In summary, the only real complaint is that Milton is located in the same metro and he had really missed an opportunity to develop a relationship over the ensuing years. 

As with many on the shaving fora, have been following the rising popularity of TurnNShave M series of knots with interest and curiosity.  A wide range of acquaintances have posted and related in direct conversations their enthusiasm for Milton’s hassle free ease of contracting, fast response, delivery of custom products on a quick turnaround and quality of execution in handle and knot.  Having become somewhat jaded with artisans’ (dis)regard for customers, have listened but thus far taken a patient observational role.  It is not that there are doubts regarding the veracity of the people extolling the virtues of TurnNShave but simply a more conservative outlook having witnessed devolution of service levels amongst some of the most renowned artisans domestically and abroad. 


One particular acquaintance with an especially well developed eye for art and design recently acquired a first generation M1 knotted brush that he feels is amongst the best he has ever encountered in every metric.  Being primarily focused on, if not obsessed with: colour, depth, saturation and light spectrum radiance, he waxes eloquently about how it is one of the best pours he has ever encountered, let alone owned; paraphrasing, it is as though there is a light source residing within the resin.  It would be unfair to suggest other facets of the handle design have been deemphasized, as his attention to the minor details of dimensionality and proportionality are quite sophisticated as well.  He is quick to proactively declare his concern with the shape being derivative of the classic M7, L7, Jefferson handles but that in practice it is unique in being a chunky iteration with two circumferentially scribed lines.  Those scribed lines were initially worrying but once acquired, he has actually come to favour them.  To be clear, chunky does not entail awkward; in this case, it simply means the handle is thicker, taller and more substantial than any of the derivatives encountered from other artisans.  Finally, having owned and sampled a huge variety of quality artisan knots over the years, he also highly praises the knot’s density, backbone and tips, suggesting it is amongst the best encountered.  In summary, the only real complaint is that Milton is located in the same metro and he had really missed an opportunity to develop a relationship over the ensuing years. 

Well now, what is one to do when a person well regarded, not subject to excess praise literally raves about one brush amongst a wide ranging high quality collection?  Finances have been rather tight recently with Coco’s cancer relapse, so ordering was out of the question.  Penury made the course readily apparent: chose to lend a willing ear, monitor his experience and live vicariously through his good fortune.  And so it went until he acquired another artisan’s brush needed for a review comparing knots across the releases.  When asked if the other artisan’s brush could be borrowed for a review, he offered a couple brushes, including this particular TurnNShave M1.  Milton was contacted for comment and relayed that he has thus far undertaken four handtied knots:

M1 - a gel tipped knot with the design brief to the densest ever produced (more on that later)

M2 - a soft and fine haired nongelling knot maintaining the M1’s density

M3 - a thicker untreated hair that gels ever so subtly and naturally during break-in maintaining the density of the M1

L3 - a thicker untreated hair that gels ever so subtly and naturally during break-in but much less dense than the M3


The loaner brushes arrived unsurprisingly professionally boxed with multiple layers of failsafe containers and packing.  After carefully removing and cataloguing the contents, contacted the lender to confirm safe delivery.  Without getting off topic, every single brush is collectable by any standard but specifically, the M1 was every bit deserving of the hyperbole.  Photos, and his photos are highly regarded for their quality in daily shave posts, do not do the handle justice.  The colouration is wonderfully complex without ever encroaching on superfluously busy.  Fully confessing a complete lack of artistic talent and training amongst a broad swath of educational insufficiency, even I could appreciate every detail he so praised for so long.  Different lighting brings out unique elements of the pour and it was wonderful to view the visual shifts under various conditions.  But for those whose stock in trade is more physical than intellectual, the tactile impression is what most impressed.  While have always had a strong preference for the L7, M7, Jefferson style handle shape, had originally leaned to smaller more surgical instrument sized renditions; in fact, for many years steering away from Declaration Grooming for fear of the handle (and knot) being excessively large.  Odd thing time, these days find that the larger the handle size, the more inclined am to favour it, albeit still a 26mm knot fan if pressed.  This particular handle is just absolutely perfect in shape and size; it fits my hand so well, like a HK P7.  Have included photos of a Declaration Grooming Jefferson Fae B9B side by side with the TurnNShave M1 for reference.  This is not intended as a comparison review so shall refrain from metrics but generally, even in a somewhat similar colouration, nobody would mistake the two brushes as originating from the same artisan: The M1 is a significantly bigger handle in every dimension including length and the knot is set much much lower giving dramatically different user experiences without judging which better.  To state the obvious, was positively smitten without having even lathered the brush.  The knot, the knot is really out there: it is claimed to be a 28mm but good God it presents as a 30mm minimum.  Having owned and/or used a wide variety of the most regarded knots, this knot is easily the most densely packed, thickest, most blooming experienced to date.  Even dry, the tips are so obviously gelled that a novice would be able to discern it.  However, one could not miss that there was a foreboding sense that this outsized unique knot might exhibit challenging qualities – is this a Simpson Chubby regarding lathering?

Used the knots across a sampling of soaps sent by Dominic of Sir Henry’s/Black Tie Razor, in all cases the samples bowl lathered quickly, thoroughly and – most shocking – efficiently.  Even possessing huge knots almost exclusively, the sole knot that is a SOB to bowl lather is the Simpson Chubby SilverTip; not that it presents difficulty building the lather but rather that am compelled to use about twice the soap of any other knot or else meet with failure.  Good thing followed a conservative test protocol rather than intuition or would have had enough lather to shave the neighbourhood as the TurnNShave M1 easily produced copious peaks of perfect lather!  With the bowl lathering having proceeded so swimmingly, was sanguine that my trepidations would remain unfounded but applying facial lathering exposed a minor shortcoming.  Upon lathering one immediately notices the incredibly soft tips, emphasis on tips of the tips.  The hair sans the tips is between a Simpson Chubby Super and SilverTip leaning more to the SilverTip, which is to state classically elegant and luxurious without being overly soft.  The density and backbone of this knot is unlike anything ever encountered and mean that in as positive an interpretation possible.  The tips however, have opportunity for improvement.  It is not to characterize them as anywhere near the mildly overtreated Declaration Grooming B9A+, or especially the much overtreated B10 or B12 knots; they are almost exactly between the B9A+ and B9B to my reckoning.  Why use the Declaration Grooming knots, switching from the Simpson mid review – because no artisan known has such an obviously wide variety of knots exhibiting such wildly varying characteristics adequate to relate such hair qualities.  However, to the face, the feel mimics the Chubby SilverTip most closely to my perspective.  In fact, ran comparison shaves side by side using Declaration Grooming B9B, B11 and Simpson Chubby SilverTip.  The Declaration Grooming knots were nowhere close to a match regarding overall feel unless the separate properties of particular knots were intermixed into a theoretical chimera knot.  However, the Simpson Chubby was almost spot on...almost….  Despite the reputation of the Simpson Chubby as a lather hog, other than requiring copious soap to bowl lather, have found it to release to the face nearly as well as any other large brush despite its density and backbone, even in Manchurian hair.  Side by side, one would swear in court the 2 knots came from the same vendor, their feel is so damn close: pillow soft, lovely dense knots with zero scrub but the tips on the TurnNShave M1 were ever so slightly overtreated that combined with the extreme density made the brush not release the lather as well as it might otherwise.  Whether it the first lathering on multiple days beard growth or the third pass, the feel and hesitancy to readily release lather was apparent.  Oddly, even during cleaning, one feels compelled to repeatedly rinse the brush trying to remove lather where none is present – it is all in the very tip of the tips and extreme density unlike any gelled knot ever encountered.

So what to make of this?  The handle is incredible and right there with Declaration Grooming regarding pour, maybe surpassing it in shape if one prefers a larger rendition of the classic as do I.  The knot is really something for a first effort; every damn element of it screams instant classic, then there are the tips of the tips; it isn’t bad - at all – it just that so damned near perfect that the subtlety of ever so slightly over gelled tips of tips impacts the experience out of all proportion to the reality.  Think of it as a Pagani, Koenigsegg or Bugatti that visually is so damn close to being right in the sense of the classic Ferraris but just slightly off and as a result gauche or a classic Lotus that is absolute perfection save having way too little power leaving one frustrated (have owned and love Loti).  Sometimes minor flaws can skew an impression out of all proportion to reality and fairness.  Perhaps a thorough cleaning and treatment might resolve or at least mitigate things but this not my brush and did not so endeavour.  In the final analysis, would rate the TurnNShave M1 a brush likely to become a classic collectable because of its overall merit and being a quite good brush in use.

Apologies for the edits but the post is continuously autotruncating