I am so excited. After a year of searching, I located and purchased a professional Horsehair Shaving Brush from a company in Spain today. I had tried several months ago, but they didn't take Paypal until just recently. After it arrives, I'll use it and give it a review. It's the one with the dark knot and the metal on the handle. I love it! The other two are also horsehair, with different handles, and the hair colored to resemble badger. The company also sells badger and bristle brushes. If anyone wants to check it out on the internet, it's Tres Claveles, and you will be able to find the shaving brushes in the same sub-category of the scissors. Don't ask me why, but that's where they are. The company sells everything else from suits of armor (really!) to daggers (Cool!).
I honestly have no clue. Last year I read where the horsehair brush was the only choice before the early years of the 20th century, until some kind of disease broke out, and it was traced to some sick horses, so somebody put the word out and everybody stopped making and using them. Then they had to find other materials for shaving brushes, finally settling on boar and badger. I was seeing a few real old brushes that had horse hair. I set out to find out if anybody still made them, and was happy to learn that they are made and obviously someone somewhere is using them to shave with. Those folks aren't around the shaving forums, as far as I can tell. Then I found this very beautiful dark brown and metal professional Spanish made brush, and I knew I had to have one. I promise that I'll be posting regularly about it when it arrives from Spain in a week or two or more. I am wondering about how horse hair manages lather and water. I'm wondering how it feels on the face, and how it performs over time. Maybe together we can learn something new in the process.
I have seen some of the old brushes with horse hair as well and wondered what they were like, so I will be very interested in how it works! I could swear that I have seen brushes on a website recently that were a combination of boar/horse. I'll see if I can locate the link. Tracy
I think I saw it also. Maybe a link from Fendrihan's site? There were definitely some combo brushes from Vie-Long on the website I saw.
I hope you will like this but I doubt you will unfortunately. Horse hair brushes are very floppy & odd, they do mix lather ok but I have yet to rid mine of it's awful horsey smell. I got some but decided not to sell them, just not very good especially considering the good value of boar. The model you picture is of better quality than the ones I have but horse hair is really used for religious reasons. Badger is expensive & some can't use pig / boar hair so horse is the next best thing.
Paul and Rudy, thanks for the information. Obviously there is much to learn about these brushes. I can foresee some very interesting posting to follow. EzMan, here is the link: http://www.aceros-de-hispania.com/ Remember to look under the scissors. I just received a confirmation from the company that they are shipping my order, and that I should anticipate receiving it within about 10 days.
Shipping is more than the cost of the brush. I didn't care, I just wanted the brush. The total cost is still reasonable.
Shipping from Spain only took 8 days. I have palm-lathered several soaps with the brush, to wash it out and take away the new brush factory fragrances. I tried it on MWF, Trumpers Rose non-tallow, Wood of Windsor non-tallow, and Safari soap from Ralph Lauren. (Safari is a discontinued product, tallow first ingredient, hard triple milled, with a mild and distinctive Ralph Lauren fragrance.) I used the brush in my hand with distilled water. I'm very happy to say that all 4 of these soaps lathered very well. I wanted to see how well they did because some guys report problems with MWF and some of the reformulated soaps like WoW and Trumpers. WoW of course, is discontinued now. I've shaved one time with the new Horsehair brush, and it's far too early to write any kind of review. I can tell you it's a substantial and very beautiful piece of Spanish shaving equipment. I love it, and I'm already wishing I'd bought another just like it as a backup, and one of the other brushes that aren't quite as majestic in appearance, but are also a buck or two cheaper, just to see how they shave also. (Looks like I've got another order shaping up already.) I will say that it is different in several ways from the badger and boar brushes. There's no horse hair brush body of knowledge, as far as I know, and that's what I'm going to gain from this project. It would be silly for me to rush into a review this early. I'm going to shave with it exclusively for the next few days or weeks until it gets completely broken in, and by then I'll be able to post thorough reviews here and elsewhere.
Thanks for the update! I'm very interested in picking one of these up myself, so I will be following this thread closely.
The manufacturer would be the expert on such questions. It's kinda like asking what part of the boar do they get the boar brushes from. Maybe it's something that someone could google. being long soft hair, my guess would be obviously from the 2 areas of the horse where long hair grows, specifically the mane and the tail. I've used my horsehair brush every day for a week now, and am learning more about it all the time, just through experience. It works quite well, and I've had excellent lather from every soap and cream I've tried so far. My recent switch to distilled water for shaving has probably contributed to the nice lather I've been experiencing. It's still far too early to give a review. I can't remember having any luxurious avalanches of lather from any boar brush I've ever used, however, and I am certainly experiencing that from the horse. It's as soft as any badger, as you swipe it across your face. I'll keep on using it until I feel I've got a good base of experience that a lot of guys can identify with before I start reviewing it in detail.
