Brooks Brothers Non-Iron Shirts Free You from the Dry Cleaners

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Maxwell Perkins

Let me be clear: I like to wear freshly-pressed clothes, I like to iron a little and I love my iron: the German-made Rowenta DW 8080 from my previous post. However, what I don’t like having to do every week is iron the 4 or 5 dress shirts I need for my day job as a crime-fighting lawyer in a government office. It just takes more time than that particular chore should. The slightly easier alternative is to take them to the local dry cleaners, drop them off, pay $1.75 each and then go back and pick them up, wrapped in plastic to recycle or send to a landfill. That’s a little better, but it’s still time and expense that I’d rather do without.

Although “wash and wear” cotton dress shirts have been around since the Mad Men days in the 1960s, it seems that most of the emphasis was on polyester blends (much too much polyester in the 1970s), and I am most definitely a natural fiber kind of guy. So, starting in the early 1990s, cotton non-iron shirts were finally perfected.

Lots of stores have them now, but I’ve become partial to the ones Brooks Brothers has. They come in an astronomical number of varieties of color, pattern, collar style, cuff size and fit. I can narrow it down pretty easily for me (or Daisy, who enjoys shopping much more): 16 1/2 by 33, button-down collar, slim fit, white or blue. Take them home, wear them to work, stick them in the washer, run them through the dryer, take them out right away and hang them up. Repeat as needed and you’re good to go.

There are some reports out there that they don’t hold up as well as the untreated ones. That may be; as with most things, your mileage may vary. Mine have seemed at least as durable as any other dress shirts I’ve owned. In fact, my experience is usually that it is the dry cleaner who beats the crap out of all my dress shirts, with all the chemicals and stretching and wrapping in plastic that entails. A nice leisurely trip through the washing machine at home is much better. And it’s low stress: if you leave it in too long, just take it out, spray it a little and throw it back in for a few minutes.

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Older Luxury Cars for the Not So Rich

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Maxwell Perkins

I’m going to try to stay away from the word “used.” After all, most of us live in homes or apartments that have been occupied before, and sometimes the age of the house is what gives it much of its charm. So bear with me, and try to keep an open mind about used cars (oops!). OK, let’s start over. I think we can all agree that luxury cars are designed and marketed for rich people – that is, people who can afford to buy brand-new luxury cars (also known as the 1%). Once cars are no longer brand-new, rich people don’t want to pay a lot of money for them.* For that reason, luxury cars depreciate extremely fast, even as a percentage. That gives you and me a chance to own one.

Mercedes SL

This could be yours.

After five or six years, with the price dropping about twelve thousand dollars a year, a luxurious, high-performance car with an interior full of wood and leather, power everything and a great sound system, becomes as cheap as a slightly newer economy car. Another thing about rich people, they almost always have garages and keep their cars parked inside, clean and dry. Also, they can afford to have regular maintenance done. Finally, they usually have more than one car, so they don’t put on a lot of miles.

Since the original buyer absorbed nearly all the depreciation before you bought it, you get another advantage – you can sell it for about what you paid for it, or maybe more. The total cost of ownership will be much less than if you bought a new car.

It’s fun to shop for one of the best cars of the last ten years, rather than just the best car of this model year. As an example, I’ve been fascinated by the Volkswagen Phaeton, the company’s ill-fated attempt to compete with the their own Audi A8. Question: would anyone pay $100,000 dollars for a 12 cylinder VW? Answer: no, hardly anyone did. Conspiracy theorists suspect that Chairman Ferdinand Piech was trying to do some high-end development for the Bentley Continental and charge it to the VW side of the ledger. In any event, they were only sold in the U.S. for three years in the mid-2000s. You can still buy what is essentially the lovely, illegitimate child of an Audi A8 and a Bentley Continental for about the price of a new Honda Fit.

*Except when they do. Neither you nor Ferris Buehler is going to outbid Jay Leno on a fifty year old Ferrari 250 GT California.

 

 

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Comply Tx Foam Earbud Tips – Ear Luxury!

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Maxwell Perkins

If you’ve listened to great recorded audio, you won’t have forgotten it. Hearing all the instruments, the vocals, the fingers sliding on the strings, the drum and bass lines the way they were meant to sound – I can’t describe it any better and I don’t need to, once you’ve heard it. If you have a lot of money to spend, you can have this experience whenever (but not wherever) you want. Just spend the money to buy large, well-engineered speakers and the also very large, expensive receivers that are needed to power them.

A more affordable way to get to the same place is to get a pair of high quality headphones. I’ve posted before about how much I like my Shure in-ear monitors (“IEMs”). The only drawback was that to get maximum bass, you have to stick them further into your ears than may be comfortable. Everyone’s ears are different, and your left one might even be different from your right one.

In 1990, Dr. Robert Oliveira, founder of Comply, came up with the answer: super-soft memory foam. You replace the tips on the headphones with the Comply ones, squish them with your fingers and push them in as far as you need. Within a few moments, your body heat expands them back to the ideal shape. You get the ideal combination: good sound and perfect comfort for the inside of your ear canals.

Lots of pros, but a con or two. What you gain in lightness, comfort and softness, you lose in durability. They will tear or break and need to be replaced eventually. They will not last forever, but the good news is that they come in packs of 3 pairs.  You’ll have replacements, and they don’t seem quite so pricey divided by 3.

Spend the extra $5, and get the Tx. The Wax-Guard feature seems to be worth it. The music gets through just fine, the wax does not. Don’t bother agonizing about the fit, either: the medium fits almost everybody. If your ears are extra small or extra large, you probably know that already.

Available from Amazon or from the Comply Web site for about $20.

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Clarisonic Face Scrubber Is the Electric Toothbrush for Your Skin

Posted on October 8, 2012 by admin

After a lifetime of youthful looks and clear skin, you look in the mirror and realize something isn’t quite right.  You’re not as young as you were.  Those days spent in the sun at the ocean’s edge have taken their toll, despite your religious use of sunblock.  Is that . . . a . . . line?  And what are those round things?  How did they get there?

Gasp!

You couldn’t be old enough to look . . . old, could you?  Darn that sun!  Your mother always told you sunscreen didn’t really work. Perhaps if you swear to wear #50 every day for the rest of your life . . . never mind.  The years are gone, and you can’t get them back.  As any dermatologist or make-up artist will tell you, preventive action is the most effective, and now that you’ve noticed the signs that it could actually matter, a good first step is to make sure your cleansing ritual removes as much dirt, debris, and excess oil as possible from the surface of your skin, while exfoliating gently to remove dead skin cells.  For a long time I simply used a washcloth (how novel!).  Then, I combined oatmeal and cornmeal for a homemade scrub.  Now, though, more serious measures are in order.

Clarisonic Face Scrubber

Off to the store I rushed, convinced that I was aging years with each passing moment.  I had to have it NOW:  that Clarisonic Face Scrubber I’d been ignoring as frivolous.  From my chat with the saleswoman I learned that the Clarisonic comes in several models:  the original Classic model and several new, smaller versions.  The Classic is the original, larger model, with two speeds and a base. The newer Mia and Mia 2 are smaller, with one and two speeds, respectively. Models from the Mia 2 and higher have a 1-minute timer that buzzes after the appropriate cleaning segment for each quadrant of your face (forehead, chin, each cheek).  You can purchase them with cleansers, but if you have sensitive skin like I do, you can use the Clarisonic with your own soap for the same result. The Clarisonic Plus comes with brushes for other body parts, and you can buy additional brushes separately.

I have used face brushes before, but I was intrigued by the concept of the Clarisonic.  I’ve had a sonic toothbrush forever, and I’ve been very pleased with its results. The principle is simple: a sonic brush uses a sonic frequency to create hundreds of brush movements per second, and those brush movements provide extra cleaning power to the surface they clean.

So the question is, does it work?  It actually does.  In just under two weeks of twice-daily usage, I’ve noticed that my skin feels cleaner and less oily.  My pores look smaller, and what few blemishes I may have had have disappeared.  All that exfoliation does seem to have reduced the faint lines I had begun to see, and I’m optimistic that persistent use will enhance that result.  Spending that $140 has inspired me to upgrade my skincare routine to include regenerating serum and daily sunscreen, even beyond summer.

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Fenix Bike Mount – More Fun With Your Flashlight

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Maxwell Perkins

Ever since I got my new flashlight, I’ve been looking for chances to use it. I haven’t gotten lucky enough to have a power blackout, have my car break down or lose anything important in the dark, so I thought I could try putting it on bicycle handlebars. I already have an LED headlight with a generator mounted on my old Raleigh, so I appreciate having a dedicated bike light, but there’s something to be said for the temporary setup on a bike you don’t ride regularly at night. The Fenix people are hoping you think it’s a good idea, so you get one of their dedicated bike mounts.

Fenix Bicycle Flashlight Mount

Obviously, it’s the right size for my new Fenix and fits lots of other flashlights with the same basic form factor. It is made of high-quality, UV-resistant plastic and can be installed with just your fingers.   The “just your fingers'” part is important, because you can lock the bike up and take the flashlight along with you anywhere. When riding with the light on the mount, you have total control in the x and y direction. The bottom part, clamped to the handlebars, can be be rotated up and down. You get it pretty close when you first mount it, then use the leverage from the long light to tilt it up or down when you take a test ride. Once you have it where you want it (depending on how fast you want to ride and how bright the street lights are), you can make it as tight as you want. Side to side, that’s much easier. The mount is designed to let you move it laterally with a click or two, no matter how tight the flashlight is. You can adjust that while you’re riding.

All in all, it’s a great way to use a 21st century flashlight.

 

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Soehnle Scale Brings Precision to the Kitchen

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Daisy B

What’s more frustrating that not being able to find the right measuring spoon right away? You give up, and either eyeball half of the one twice as big, or use one too small and have to dump it in and refill in multiple times. You won’t have that problem with a digital scale.  We’ve purchased the attractive and useful Soehnle Digital Scale; it has the sleek, minimalist European design that will make you want to leave it out on the counter …

Soehnle Digital Scale

… and unlike measuring cups and spoons, it never needs to be washed clean of whatever you put in it.

More importantly, digital is just easier and more accurate than mid-twentieth century analog. Put the bowl on the scale, press the tare button to zero it out, and spoon 220.00 grams of brown sugar out of the box. Just like that, you now have a cup of “tightly packed” brown sugar – no worries about how “tight” or “packed” you got it to be. Now here’s the best part. Next is three cups of sugar. Zero button again, and pour 384.00 grams into the bowl from the bag. You have exactly four cups of your batter, and you haven’t used the measuring cup once. No removing of any grains of brown sugar required in between. The measuring cup, and spoons aren’t needed at all anymore.

Once you have one, you can get all OCD about everything in the kitchen. Making cookies or pancakes with that exact amount of batter you mixed? Make each cookie and each pancake exactly the same size (by removing the same amount of batter from the bowl, by weight, each time). Get your family to guess which one’s the biggest (good luck with that when they are all identical).  In fact, using the scale is, in itself, a fairly OCD way to cook, since measurement by weight is much more precise than by volume — and, indeed, the way the rest of the world measures ingredients is by weight.  This precision is especially important to baking, where every milligram of each ingredient can alter the chemical interaction among ingredients and, thereby, change the cooking time and texture of your baked goods.

Key to success with any cooking scale is the conversion of your favorite recipes for easy reference.  The first time you try a recipe using the scale, note the volume-to-weight equivalents on the recipe; then, the next time you make the same recipe, you can add the ingredients by weight automatically without using a single measuring implement.  Another hint (and Max deserves the credit for this one):  if your digital scale, like the Soehnle, has both metric and U.S. customary units, converting your volume measure to the metric equivalent is much easier, and requires much less math, than will U.S. customary units that require another equation when the ounces you’ve added to your recipe convert to pounds (so you can finally thank your elementary school math teacher for forcing you to learn the metric system).

Oh, and the Soehnle scale goes up to 9.5 pounds, so you can also weigh packages for shipping (and very young babies) …

Available from Amazon for under $23.

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Moroccan Oil, Argan Oil … Whatever

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Daisy B

I have been fortunate for most of my life to have super-shiny hair without much effort.  I use few chemicals; most of them are gentle.  I condition regularly.  As a teenager I went through a phase of real eggs, from chickens; now I try to use sulfate- and alcohol-free hair products that won’t strip the natural oils from my hair.  Notwithstanding my record of success, as I approached — gasp! — middle age, I’ve noticed that if I want persistent shine, I have to apply a little more effort.  In frustration, I asked my hairdresser what to do.  He said (bless him), “I don’t know.  It looks pretty shiny to me [well, yeah . . . you just finished with it!].  ‘Moroccan oil’?”  I rushed to the Internets; what exactly was this “Moroccan oil” and where could I get some?  And, more importantly, would it work?

Moroccan Oil Hair Treatment

First, the facts:  what people call “Moroccan oil” actually refers to a particular brand, Moroccanoil — more on that in a bit — whose key ingredient is argan oil. Argan oil is a plant oil from the kernels of the argan tree, which is endemic to Morocco (you see where I’m going with that).  Argan oil is renowned for its cosmetic properties, among other things, and is specifically believed to add brilliance to hair.

Argan Hair Oil

So what you’re actually looking for is argan oil, not necessarily Moroccanoil, and if you want to try it, you can really start with simple argan oil, which you can buy online for about $15.00 per two ounces. If you search for it, you’ll quickly find several product brands whose key ingredient is argan oil; Moroccanoil is just one of them — and the most expensive one, with the prettiest packaging.  Most of these brands carry an argan oil shampoo, conditioner, and hair treatment.

Does it work?  Why yes, yes it does.  After using argan oil in shampoo and conditioner, or even just in conditioner, I received the best compliments I’ve ever received about my hair, and all of them were focused on its incredible shine.  I noticed it, too, and I also found my hair to be noticeably silkier and more manageable than EVER before; “lustrous” is the best description.

I read some reviewers’ complaints that argan oil products had had the opposite effect on their hair — made it sticky or “gunky” instead of silky — but I was not the only person in my universe who experienced hair success; I recommended it to a colleague with an entirely different hair type who swims frequently and has experienced increasingly dry hair as a result.  She loved it, too.

Moroccanoil is available from Amazon (and lots of other places)

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Fenix E21, the Best 21st Century LED Flashlight

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Maxwell Perkins

What do you need flashlights for? Camping, looking in small spaces, seeing in the car at night, going out in the dark, living through power blackouts – when you need them, you really need them. Or do you? Is the handy flashlight app on your phone good enough?

I say no. Power blackouts are a good example. The electricity goes off and you don’t know when it will be back on. The charge on your phone is precious; you need it to communicate and you can’t charge it anymore. The last thing you want to do is run it down using it as an emergency flashlight. Even the old-fashioned plastic flashlight with two D cells is better for that purpose. I decided I wanted something better, and flashlight technology has improved dramatically over the last few years.

I looked around and chose the Fenix (“phoenix”) E21 as the flashlight at the sweet spot of price and performance. It takes two AA batteries, and is just slightly bigger than the mini-Maglight it resembles. It is easy to use with just three settings for the Cree XP-E LED bulb: off, on, blindingly bright (150 lumens) and on, one-third as blindingly bright (48 lumens). Just a small turn of the front near the lens adjusts the brightness. Very simple.

Fenix LED Flashlight

The light throws a strong miniature sun in the middle, ranging from an inch or so close up to several feet at the limit, and a very wide spill that lights up the surrounding area well enough to see everything else just fine. So you can light up what you want to see and still notice anything in the periphery. It’s made of aircraft grade machined aluminum, so you can officially feel free to drop it from a meter and a half onto a concrete sidewalk or submerge it two meters underwater.

It’s a lot of flashlight for $35.

Luxury: 8              Affordability: 8

Available from Amazon

Want more luxury? You can pay about twice as much for a two AA battery flashlight with a much brighter Cree LED and many more settings. Take a look at the Fenix LD-22 or the ThurNite Neutron 2A to get an idea of just how much power you can hold in your hand …

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The Beautiful Crane Suzu Bicycle Bell

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Maxwell Perkins

While riding a tandem bicycle on a multi-use path, the ability to announce your presence is absolutely essential. Tandems are big, relatively heavy, hard to maneuver and fast, so a polite “On your left!” as you’re about to pass someone will not reliably prevent a collision. And tandems do a lot of overtaking; they pass almost everybody else under human power. My search for a sound that’s loud enough, but not too rude or abrupt led me to the Japanese-made Crane Suzu bell:

Japanese Crane Bike Bell

One loud ring from about thirty yards back will generally do it. Do they look back, or move over to the right to acknowledge that they heard? Usually, unless they have headphones in their ears with the volume cranked up, or even worse, are actually talking on cell phones, in which case another ring is necessary. Never more than that. The rings are easy to hear, which is why you don’t wait until you’re closer – the loud ring close by combined with an onrushing tandem might be enough by itself to startle the unsuspecting into doing something foolish instead of smoothly moving over. We cheerily thank them for their courtesy as we hurtle by. It’s not like we’re demanding they get out of our way. Oh, and of course it works just as well with a single or “half bike,” as the tandem people like to say.

The Crane Suzu is an attractive object with a great design and the bell tone will remind you of your childhood. Sometimes we ring it in tunnels just to hear the reverberation. It’s durable and will fit almost any handlebars in your choice of orientation. The brass gives it a vintage, almost industrial look that is even improved as the metal gets a little dark and tarnished. Or you can keep it polished, if that’s what you prefer.

Available from Amazon for under fifteen bucks.

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Feather Popular DE Razor … Try Wet Shaving for Under $20

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Maxwell Perkins

The Feather Popular razor is made in Japan by the surgical steel company that makes Feather blades – the sharpest in the world. “Razor sharp” obviously only begins to describe them. I’ve been using them in my German Merkur DE (double-edged) razor, the Mercedes-Benz of razors, but I wanted to try them with the Popular, the Honda of razors. It doesn’t cost much, so I gave it a try.

Feather Popular Razor

It’s surprisingly light, and comes in a nice plastic case, so it would make a great travel razor (although sadly not on a plane in a carry-on bag). When I first picked it up, I was disappointed by how light it was – none of the usual heft of a razor like the Fatboy. But after I twisted it open, cautiously chambered a Feather blade and lathered up, my opinion changed dramatically. Its lightness and mild* design made it easy and forgiving to shave and as quick as a modern razor or disposable – no need to worry about cutting yourself. Perfect for the weekday morning rush. But despite all that, the Feather blades still give you an extremely close shave. Remember, even the best DE blades cost at most fifty cents each, not the 2 or 3 bucks the modern multi-blade landfill specials cost.

The long handle and overall user-friendliness made me think it might make a good ladies’ razor.

Feather Popular and Blue Star Lady Gillette Razors

Daisy has a vintage 1971 Blue Star Lady Gillette from an antique store, so we could compare it side-by-side with the twentieth century state of the art. It compared very well. The textured plastic handle gives an added margin of safety in the shower.

Available from Amazon

*”Mild” is what the wet shaving aficionados call a lightweight razor where the blade doesn’t stick out too far between the cover and the guard. Compare this with the “aggressive” 1941 GEM Micromatic Clog Pruf, that uses the same single-edged blades you get at the hardware store for paint scrapers:

GEM MIcromatic Clog Pruf Razor

It’s a beautiful vintage shaving tool, but it’ll cut your nose right off if you’re not careful.

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