Yup. I am currently trying to decide on the best course for an old boar brush. The knot is in great shape but the outer painted coating on the handle is splitting. I'm hoping some Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure will stabilize the handle enough to continue using it. I have some old boar and badger cased boar brushes that are still doing just fine.
I manged a really nice over stuffed Silvertip Badger for $56 (it was on sale) from RazoRock and really enjoy it. In fact, it is the only badger I use, at this moment.
Hoping I'm not hijacking the thread but I did have a question in regards to synthetics. I have a 24mm WD black/white synthetic. It's an approximately 56mm loft. My question is, is there a synthetic with a little less backbone that this? Perhaps a higher loft? Whenever I splay the knot it gets a little too scratchy. I do have two boar brushes that are great with the scrub but not scratchy. I'd like another view point of the synthetic line.
I beg to differ Sir....Synthetic low price can't be beat? My Vie-long Horse Hair was a gift from Fuzzy and cost me NOTHING! And this Horse Hair can get lather from a rock! And it doesn't shed! And it's got plenty of backbone and oh so soft on my face...and cost nothing! Top that value with a name synthetic! All kidding aside...if I had bought this V-L Horse on-line it would have been between $19 and $24 depending on where I ordered it..And the brush does what my badgers do well, as good as the badgers and what my boars did well as good as my boars...I believe a good horse brush can be as good as it gets...IMHO.....course YMMV.....Except, I'm RIGHT !!! of course YMMV...lol!
Yup, once i figured out how to properly use the synthetics, i haven't used any natural hair brush. I don't like badger brushes at all and was a boar user for about 9 years but now, exclusively synthetics. I have 6 of them and am very happy as i have a variety of knots.
Just curious, what don't you like about badger brushes? They're my preference; 9 badger, 6 boar, 2 synthetic, 1 nylon, 1 badger/boar mix - all get used in rotation.
I've tried sooooooo hard to love synthetics and have tried many generations and iterations thereof...at the end of the day, it always comes down to one fatal flaw for me: They simply don't hold onto water as well as badger. I use a RR 400 aluminum/Plissoft as a travel brush however for this reason. But I don't love it for it's purpose, I like it for the low maintenance on the road. Love me some boar and horsey too tho...
I have 5 badger, 1 horse hair, 1 synthetic, and 4 boar brushes. One of the boar, a Semogue 1250, is new and will gets its first workout with today's shave. I started with badgers and over this first year of DE shaving I have moved to where I do not use the badgers anymore or very very seldom. The horse hair maybe once or twice a month. The Omega synthetic, which I like better than any of the badgers, has become my travel brush as it drys quickly. The boars are used for almost all my shaves. To each his own.
i have 2 semogue boar,2 plissoft,and 2 badger,no real favorite at this point,all work well.mood and soap type pick the brush for me.
Dear friends, I've been a wet shaver for 45 year now, albeit not all of them DE or SE as I succumbed to the Gillette advertising (brain washing) into cart shaving in my younger more foolish days. Not any longer. Anyway, in all these years I mostly used cheap boar brushes that were getting the job done. About 8 yeard ago a friend gave me a brand new Kent best Badger which I used to oblivion as I listened to my barber who insisted I keep the brush always wet at all costs. In my later years, I tried silvertip badger, boar, horse and synthetics. I came to the conclusion that synths are the best bet as they are the best compromise one could have. I bought a few Plisson synths, Muhle, among others, even to the point of having a couple of Rubberset 400 replica handles mounted with synthetic knots. Life was trotting along nicely and I in my brush nirvana, I was thinking, never again anything unless it's synthetic. Little did I know when my friend Steve Hardy ( of RMS & u-tube fame) sent me a 2band finest badger brush made by HoneyFarmDesign in the U.S. Never and I mean never, had my face been touched by anything as soft feeling and as efficient, with backbone to handle anything thrown at it and a wooden handle to die for. IMHO&YMMV, any badger will not necessarily be a good one. As badger hair mostly comes from China nowadays, one has to be careful were to buy from. Now I'm all for good quality badger, getting it from sourses that know how to choose. I ordered a second brush from HoneyFarmDesigns today and I asked the proprietor if it would be advisable to knot the handle with silvertip. His answer was that he uses the 2band finest himself. This below is what is in the mail for me.
