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Edwin Jagger is not Mick's nephew who's a CPA living in Coral Gables. Edwin Jagger is one of the UK's leading manufacturers of high-end razors, brushes, and traditional shaving accessories -- chances are you've seen its brushes at your local Crabtree and Evelyn (if you look at the label, you'll see "Made by Edwin Jagger").

Unlike many of the old-line English brands which have been around for centuries, Edwin Jagger is a relatively recent addition to the English wetshaving industry, having been established in Sheffield in 1988. This may explain why it's still very much a family run business, with more Jaggers running around the premises than rabbits in the Wallace and Gromit movie.

EJ is probably best known on these shores for its aftermarket Mach3 handles, which are much heavier and vastly more elegant than the stock plastic Gillette handle. And like it does for Crabtree and Evelyn, Jagger makes razors and brushes for quite a few other brands as well. Recently, Edwin Jagger sent me several of its products to try -- a faux-marble handled Mach3 razor, a Chatsworth DE safety razor, and a Chatsworth Super badger brush.

I've long since given up on the Mach3 -- it was the sustained beating my face took from this triple-blade razor that drove me to the traditional safety razor in the first place -- so I can't report on the Edwin Jagger aftermarket handle except to say that if you like the way the Mach3 shaves and you want something that approaches the timeless elegance of a classic safety razor, this EJ handle is a great solution.

I did shave at length with the Chatsworth safety razor and brush.
And what I found, to my surprise, was that far from simply being cosmetically different from the usual Merkur razor and Vulfix brush combo, these Edwin Jaggers actually have their own uniquely different "feel" when it comes to wetshaving.

The razor marries a stock Merkur DE head -- the same interchangeable head found on Merkur's Classic, Travel, Long-Handle, and 1904 safety razors -- to a heavy brass handle replete with hand-friendly curves and plated with blue-white chrome (gold, copper, and nickel finishes are also available). The brass handle is the biggest difference between this Chatsworth razor and the all-steel Merkur DEs. Brass is quite dense and heavy, but it's also a much softer metal than steel, which may explain the very different experience I had with this DE compared to the Merkurs. More on this in a minute.

The Jagger brush is a medium-sized, hand-knotted, Super badger brush roughly equivalent in size to a Vulfix #2234. EJ posts no specs, but I'd estimate the bristle knot to be 22mm, same as the Vulfix. It's a gorgeous looking brush, and a fine match for the Chatsworth razor -- this is gear you want to hang on a stand on your bathroom sink, not hide in a medicine cabinet.

I caught several shaves with the Edwin Jagger combo and came away intrigued by how different their character is versus the safety razors and brushes I usually use. The brush, in particular, has far and away the softest, most flexible badger bristles I've ever lathered up with. You think a Vulfix is a "soft" brush? Brother, it's practically made of cactus needles compared to this Jagger.

I'm not a fan of the stiffer-bristled brushes at all -- I own a Simpson Chubby #1 in Best Badger, and while it's the most expensive brush I own, it's my least favorite, mainly because I find its bristles too stiff. It takes more heave-ho to build up lather with it, and it doesn't feel nearly as nice on my puss as my Vulfix brushes.

The Edwin Jagger goes even further in this direction -- it feels positively pamperiffic on the face, but I don't think it would be the best choice for someone needing a firmer brush to whip up lather with a hard shaving soap, for example. Also, if you dig that scrubbing, "exfoliating" thing that a firmer brush does, you won't get that from the Jagger. This is a shaving brush for someone who likes to be softly pampered, not loofah'd.

But the most interesting experience I had with the Jagger rig was shaving with the Chatsworth DE. This is a really large, heavy razor -- much heavier, in fact, than even the biggest Merkur. It's the biggest, heaviest DE I've ever shaved with. A Merkur Vision feels like a Bic disposable after you hoist the Chatsworth.

I found that shaving with the Jagger was very, very different from shaving with any other DE razor I've come across. Whether it was due to the increased mass of the handle, or the inherently self-damping properties of its brass construction, shaving with the Chatsworth was like driving my wife's Lexus --- it muted most of the audible and vibrational feedback I usually get during a safety razor shave.

Instead of "feeling the road" -- hearing that cutting sound whenever the blade cut its swatch through my whiskers, and feeling the tiny vibrations through the handle and on to my hand -- the Chatsworth buffered me from all of this feedback, and simply went about shaving my skin steadily, silently, and expertly. The shave was great, and I didn't really feel a thing till it was all over.

Which begs the question: Is that a good thing? I guess it depends on how you like to drive, or shave. I like feedback when I shave -- I like hearing whiskers when they're being cut, and silence when that patch is clean and it's time to move on to the next row. I like feeling the little scritch-scritch vibrations that travel up the razor's handle and into my hand -- with the all-steel Merkur and Gillette DEs, it's easy to feel whether I need to go over an area again or not, because the razor doesn't buffer me from the vibrations the blade makes as it cuts hair. You don't really get much of this with the EJ razor. You just move it over your face, and you get a great shave.

I used to think that all of the aftermarket DE handles that borrowed the stock Merkur shave head were just cosmetically different than a standard Merkur razor, but the Jagger is a whole other animal. Despite sharing the same head, it feels and sounds nothing like any Merkur I've shaved with, and I've shaved with them all. No, this Jagger is a very different kind of DE, and I was really surprised at how different it was from the Merkur an Gillette DEs and Schick Injectors I usually shave with.

The Lexus analogy is the best way to describe the Edwin Jagger vibe. The Chatsworth brush is the softest against the skin I've lathered with yet, and the DE razor buffers you from much ofthe sound and physical sensation of actually cutting hair, bringing an almost Lexus-like feel to safety razor shaving for the first time in my experience.

The Edwin Jagger brush and razor would be perfect for someone who's fed up with the harshness of a modern multi-blade catridge razor and wants to get as far away from that paradigm as possible. The Edwin Jagger Chatsworths offer a softer, gentler, more luxurious alternative to the usual shavegeek brushes and razors, and are recommended for anyone wanting to shave above it all, in high style.