It all started when I woke up one Friday morning and decided that the BK4 was it. The BK4 (arrived a week back, still unused) was to be the one and only one. A single multi-tasker, if you will. Like 007 and his one suit that he can go to parties, chase skirt, have a marathon, sky-dive out of an airplane, THE ONE. I placed an order within the hour. But something doesn't feel quite right. Am i doing this right? Would I be able to FULLY• appreciate the wonders of a silvertip without even trying a Pure Badger? This ain't right.... •Of course one could argue the following order: Nylon (Porky gets another day, Badgers get to scuttle away) ... Boar (i love boars, especially over an open fire) ... Grey ... Pure ... Fine/Best ... Super/Silvertip ... OCD case(Some say that the rarest, ultra-finest, most luxurious hair can be found in the badger's ears!) .... plus later that night i read that the BK4 can be floppy! Floppy? That can't be good. ============ So the next morning while using my Mach III, just before the 3rd blade of the 3-blade catridge hits the skin, an idea pop-ed into the brain. Perhaps i need a separate "SOAP" brush. Read that soap can be a trickier medium than cream! Something un-floppy(still, doesn't sound like any good will come out of anything floppy). So i spent the afternoon surfing around searching for THE ONE (rather, THE SECOND ONE). What's the best PURE badger brush, i asked. Everyones' a Simpsons Chubby-chaser (wonder if Homer shaves DE, and if he does, which brush would he get?) or Rooney-royalist... Noone talks about the Best PURE Badger brush? Surely amongst the entry hairy level, there is a winner, a best of the best, a champion of the tails and backs•??? I flipped more threads only to find that all roads led to the Finest Silvertip. • I cajoled my cat, Cat, into letting me feel her hair under her watchful supervision. It IS true: the hair IS finest around the neck, far superior than her back and even more so than her tail. She became suspicious and suddenly remembered she had to be somewhere else when she caught me looking at the BK4 on the counter and back to her. TWICE. By nightfall, my #2 aka SOAP-specific brush = VintageBlades' Pure Badger Rooney, the one with the old school barber-like typeface, not the dull ARIAL BLACK one. Love the handle shape, striped ivory color, "pure badger = unfloppy!", noone talked about this therefore i'm going to get this brush just to give it a chance, etc... (due to arrive this week, pics later) All is good; i have a CREAM brush and i have a separate SOAP brush. These will be my 2 go-to brushes for the next millenium. Nothing can stop me now. With my impenetrable force-field of immunity, I headed over to the Classifieds. Someone's offering to sell his C&E BBB. Holy ****. ========== The C&E BBB. The one that everyone, who's anyone- even those who isn't anyone, has been talking about. The one that every review has been pegged against. This is one yardstick i'll like to have in my backyard. Without this standard of measurement, all reviews would cease to have any meaningful consequence; how do we tell Pepe the hunter who has never seen a badger to start hunting for badgers if we ourselves can't distinguish a badger from a skunk or a black cat with a stripe of white paint on its back? It took me the whole of 2 full seconds to decide i have to have this one. Even without starting on my #1, this has become my #3. It was also coincidently at this moment that I feel a sickness coming over me, dizziness possibly brought upon by a shift of weight from my pockets and a reduction of mass between my ears. An existential conundrum: could one go out seeking for the one end up wth three? So if you'll excuse me, i think i better go have a lie down. The warm tropical climate this part of the equator is getting to me. And there are many questions i'd like to ponder, my mind already halfway up on High Mountain White... Meanwhile, i leave you, my tonsorial brethren, with my BeeKayFour. *Don't you love how the BK4 fits the stand so perfectly. Have a good week ahead!
I'd recommend just getting one brush, use it for a couple months and then decide what you do and don't like about it. If you think you can find a better brush (or at least better for some tasks), post about what you're after and how it should be different from the current brush. You'll get a least 3 options from advice on the forum and you can try that next brush. Personally, I like to recommend a quality boar brush. I personally find my Vulfix boar slightly better than my C&E Best Badger. Omega is the most popular boar brush name and make a quality product. Semogue is the trendy boar right now and while I haven't tried one, several people who's opinion I respect claim they are as good or maybe slightly better than Omega.
If nothing else, your sickness makes for an entertaining read! Good luck with all your new brushes, let us know what you think. (has to be more fun reading)
Agree with Frost... Thanks for the laughter the account of your conundrum provided! I guess I can relate. Also, tell your cat, Cat, not to worry; cat-hair may be good for adhering to my dark-colored garments, but would be too 'floppy' for a shave brush (on the other hand, natural gut guitar strings are supposed to have a wonderful resonant tone...).
I'll save my comments for the weekend.... in the meantime if anyone's looking for a Truefitt & Hill Turnback TRAVEL brush, there's a great deal here.
