.

When I visited my parents in Dallas this summer, I noticed that the Simpson Chubby #1 brush I brought with me in my dopp kit wouldn't lather worth a damn. Even if I soaked the bejesus out of it in hot water and used double the usual dollup of Taylor's Rose shaving cream, by the time I came up for my 2nd pass, the brush had no usable lather left.

And to make matters worse, the shave itself was off. Not bad, but definitely a little off. I brought my trusty travel tube of Taylor's Rose cream and my vintage Injector loaded with a cut-down Feather Pro Super disposable straight razor blade -- a rig that usually shaves like a dream -- but no matter what I did, the blade skipped and stuttered on my skin, making it impossible to get the smooth, unbroken stroke that makes for a perfect shave.

I've never really liked this Simpson as much as my Vulfixes, so I chalked my lather problems up to the Chubby. And sure enough, as soon as I got back to the East Coast and my beloved Vulfix #2234 in Super badger, I was rewarded with the kind of easy, no-brainer, overflowing cornucopia of lather I always get from this excellent and affordable lather king.

So when I packed my dopp kit for Thanksgiving this year, I chose my brush carefully. I've been really enjoying the Dovo travel brush lately when I shave at the gym -- it's like the James Bond version of the little Vulfix travel brush I usually use on the road, except it appears to have a higher grade of badger hair and is a bit more stiff as well.

These German Dovo/Merkur brushes kind of get lost in the shuffle with all the hoo-hah over the English brushes, but the two I've got -- this stainless steel travel brush in a tube and the "Vision" brush -- rank right up there with the best brushes I've tried. I like the heavy metal handles and the somewhat stiffer bristles compared to the Vulfix brushes. Both of these German brushes can build way more lather than I ever need from just a swipe of the tips through my favorite shaving creams (lately, Nancy Boy). And I'll take either one of them over the much more expensive Simpson in a heartbeat.

So there I am at my parent's house last week, in the bathroom in my sister's old room where we've set up camp with the kids, and the first morning I catch a shave I find that somehow the Dovo brush can't lather worth a damn either. And I brought one of the very best lathering shaving creams extant -- Taylor's Avocado. You can get good lather from this stuff if you use a chicken bone, but for some reason I could not get a decent head of lather to save my life. I had to add more cream to the brush for the 2nd and 3rd passes! I never have to do that when I shave at home.

The thing is, the water's different where my parents live. And now I finally get it. I finally get why all these seemingly moronic shavegeeks who bitch and moan and whine about how they can't get their shaving brushes to lather are having such problems.

I always figured these guys were just pinheads. Probably some of them are -- you can't just toss that possibility out. It wouldn't be right. But now I understand that some of these guys who have problems making decent lather with a top-shelf shaving cream and a top-shelf brush aren't dullards after all -- they just live where the water sucks.

Where I live, the water that comes out of the faucet is so lather-friendly that all I have to do is soak any decent brush (even a $10 Omega boar's hair) in hot water for a few seconds, barely swipe its tips over the surface of a tub of any decent shaving cream, and swirl it around in my other hand for five, maybe six revs. I do that and I've got so much goddamn lather I can barely keep it in my cupped hand -- enough for seven or eight shaves easy, and I'm not exaggerating.

I have to admit that this discrepancy between my own dead-easy lathering and the endless whining and soul-searching on the shavegeek forums about how these guys just can't seem to get it together, which leads them to drop some seriously demented coin on gigantic, super-high-end brushes and all kinds of extended rigmarole like using electric hot pots to boil the water they shave with, and big ceramic bowls to stir the lather in, has been one of the main reasons why I've held the geeks in such low regard. Now I know that some of them -- not all of them, but certainly some of them -- can pin their lathering difficulties on simply being geographically challenged.

It also slams home a truth which has taken me this long to learn: how well a brush, or a shaving cream, or a razor, or even a blade works is as much a product of where you use it as how you use it. I see that very clearly now. This trip I brought with me a tube of Taylor's Avocado shaving cream and my trusty Gillette Super Speed DE razor loaded with a fresh Swedish Gillette blade. This combo shaves me as well as anything else I've ever tried, and far better than most. It's as perfect a shaving rig as I could ever hope for -- as long as I use it in my own bathroom at home, or a few miles away at the gym.

But take these same products and try to shave with them at my parents' house in Dallas? It's a disaster. I can't get nearly the same close, comfortable shave. The blade hops and skips along my face, and I can't get an otherwise excellent brush and an otherwise excellent cream to build enough lather for two stinking passes.

I guess what I'm saying it, all this stuff is totally subjective. There are no objective truths when it comes to anything, but this goes triple cherries for shaving. My killer brush is your suck-ass brush if you happen to live in an area with water that's too hard or soft. Your incredible shaving cream is my I'll-stay-away-from-this-stuff-forever crap if my water isn't as good as yours. And you're sure as hell not going to get the kind of awe-inspiring shaves from a Featherjector or a Super Speed if your water is anything like what's coming out of the faucets at my folks' house in Texas. Tastes fine, showers fine, but boy does it make a monkey out of my favorite shaving rigs.

So all shaving product reviews are suspect, including mine. Nobody can predict how well a brush or a cream or a razor will work with your local water supply. All anyone can do is try these products, live with them for awhile, and post their opinion. If you try the same product and it performs similarly, chances are we've got the same kind of water in our pipes at home. And if you find that my recs fall flat when you try these products, maybe your water is quite a bit softer/harder than mine.

All I know is, from now on, I'm only shaving in the blue states.