.

"So what's this mystery midget brush you've been using lately?" demanded the Fisher King, my men's toiletry dominatrix.

I call him this because he delights in torturing me with a never ending supply of product recommendations, some so expensive I writhe in pain ($47 French shaving soap!) (okay so I gave in and bought a couple of bars of the maker's olive oil soap for 12 bucks apiece, heinous for a bar of soap, I know, but he says they're the best).

On the other hand, the Fisher King has turned me onto some titanic finds like Nancy Boy, for which I'll be eternally grateful -- not only has their shaving cream has become my main shavelube, but their ultra-pure lavender laundry soap (insanely great, and maybe their best product) is the only thing we'll feed our washer now.

But now it was my turn to crack the whip.

"How bad do you want to know the identity of my mystery midget brush?" I asked him as haughtily as one can while wearing a rubber Donald Duck suit and hanging by his heels from a swinging meat hook.

The Fisher King's eyes flashed. "Worm! Is it the Vulfix travel brush?"

"Nope."

"Kent BK2?"

"Hah! Not even close."

He got out a leather strop and began slapping it loudly against a chair.

"Tell me."

Well, since he put it that way..

It's the Simpson Wee Scot.

The smallest Simpson shaving brush of them all. The smallest anybody's shaving brush of them all.

Look at the photo at the top of the page -- that's the Wee Scot in the middle, barely coming up the top of the handle of the Vulfix #377 on the left. And that other Vulfix on the right? That's their little travel brush, the smallest brush Vulfix makes, and yet it looks like Big Daddy Lipscomb next to the Wee Scot.

I started thinking about the Wee Scot when it became clear to me that smaller shaving brushes are the way to go. After starting out with the big Vulfix #377 and then trying other big brushes like Vulfix's #40 and #41, I finally settled on the smaller numbers like the #2234 I mostly use. And truth be told, I love that little Vulfix travel brush-inna-tube -- it's all the brush I'd ever need, and I can get gobs of lather from this thing without even half trying.

Most shavegeeks go for the biggest brush they can hoist, and that should tell you all you need to know. While the herd chases after XXL Shavemacs, the smart boys know that smaller brushes actually work better. It's easier to get the water/cream ratio right, you can lather up without making a mess everywhere, and you don't wind up rinsing more cream down the drain than you used for the shave. It's also said that there's an inverse ratio between the size of a man's shaving brush and the size of his man-root, but far be it for me to brag about having the tiniest shaving brush in the world.

Simpson makes the Wee Scot as almost a novelty brush, for collectors. It's a genuine hand-made Simpson with high-end Best badger bristle, but it's so ridiculously small that nobody really takes it seriously, and none of Simpson's dealers keeps it in stock. You have to special order it, like I did from Lee at Lee's Razors.

And then there's the price -- $60. For those sheckels, you could have that larger Vulfix travel brush complete with nifty travel tube, or the much larger Vulfix #2234 in Super badger. Great brushes, both. But they don't tickle me like the Wee Scot does.

I mean, how else do you describe a shaving brush so tiny you can hold it between your thumb and index finger like a martini olive? You think it looks puny in the photo? You should hold this thing in your hand. It makes me smile every time I pick it up in the morning. It's barely there. When they shave in Who-ville, this is the brush they lather with.

And yet when I soak the Wee Scot in hot water and dip it into a tub of Nancy Boy shaving cream, damned if I don't get so much thick, rich lather that I can go three, four, even five passes and still have lather left over to flush down the sink. The Wee Scot may look like a dollhouse prop, but it holds enough water and has the kind of bristle grade and hand-tied contruction that shames many brushes that positively dwarf it.

Even if it's another Simpson.

The thing is, I've got a Chubby #1 in Best badger I paid $155 for a couple of years ago (got it from Lee's, in fact). Shavegeeks go nuts over this brush. Guys babble about how the Chubbies are hands-down the best brushes on the planet. The most knowledgable guy I know when it comes to shaving brushes even told me that the CH1 is the best brush he's ever used when it comes to hard soaps.

So how come I like the Wee Scot so much better?

Really, it's no contest. The Wee Scot lather circles around the Chubby, whether I use Nancy Boy or Taylor's shaving cream, or Classic Shaving's Lilac shaving soap. I wish I'd gotten the Wee Scot in the first place instead of the Chubby -- it just flat works better for me. Despite the Wee Scot's diminutive size, its bristles splay out to a surprisingly wide spread when you mash this brush against your puss, and the exquisite lather just keeps coming and coming.

But the Wee Scot also has incredible control, as well -- you can target the lather with this thing to a degree impossible with larger brushes, and place the lather exactly where you want it, and nowhere else. With the big brushes, I always wind up with lather all over my chest, and the sink, and the bathroom floor. By comparison, lathering with the Wee Scot is so precise it's almost surgical.

What started off as a lark -- a lunge in the exact opposite direction of the shavegeek herd, just to see how low can you go -- has become (dare I say it?) my favorite shaving brush of any I've tried. I love the Wee Scot so much I just bought another one for my travel rig. This tiny brush is a big smile.

Give me micro. That's the way toward the light. Give me a skinny-ass Gillette Super Speed DE razor from the 40's, a small travel tub of Nancy Boy shaving cream, and a Simpson's Wee Scot, and I'm going to get a better shave per square inch than anything else going.