Now that my soap/cream AD is starting to subside, I'm thinking about brushes. Anyone have experience with the Vie-long horse hair brushes? Good, bad...indifferent? Shavetools has three different ones at the $18 price point.
I don't have one, but they have been written about and have received rave reviews. I've been thinking about picking one up, myself.
I have a number of the pure horse and they are good......however look at the horse/boar combos. They are absolutely fantastic!!!
I've never used one, but they seem to get good reviews. So... what the, um... hay. Right? I mean, unless you don't like a little horsing around.
I have been using a Vie-long BG2012 from BullGooseshaving.net that I have been using for he past few months and love it. I just received two more Vie-longs on Monday.
May I ask how they differ from boar brushes? I'm a noob and only have experience with my Omega boar brush.
A pure horse brush has the backbone of boar...but holds water like a badger. The horse is ' in between' boar and badger and is the best of both worlds IMO.
Sounds good. Tried to find European online retailer for Vie-Long to check prices but no luck. Anyone knows one with good prices?
Shavetools (whom I believe is a TSD member) sells Vie-longs here: http://shavetools.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=10&sort=20a&filter_id=22&alpha_filter_id=0
I'll have to be the odd ball here. I didn't like my Vie-Long horsehair at all. I had the 13061 in the 50/50 ratio. Let me tell you that I really wanted to love this brush. The handle is gorgeous & feels great in the hand. The tips of the knot are pretty soft & the knot has great backbone. Where this brush failed for me was with my lathering style. I like to use a bit of pressure when face lathering, not just barely using the tips. Whenever I'd do this though I'd feel a very sharp prick. This prickly sensation caused me my worst cases of brush burn ever, in fact I don't think any other brush has done this to me. I highly prefer Semogue boars to the experience I had with this Vie-long horsehair. As always, YMMV, mine certainly did!
I Sorry to hear you had problems. I use a little pressure when lathering too and neither the BG2012 or 13052m have caused me any problems.
Actually my love for the Brown LE is kind of wearing off, I have been using it more and more actually, but when I reach for a badger of any sort I'm rewarded with a better overall experience. I still hold true to my statements though, its a great budget brush and would make some think twice about spending more for a brush, but in my opinion the hair hierarchy goes: badger, horse, boar.
I really like Vie Longs Brushes. I find the dyed versions to be really soft out of the box. The 2 band is the softest . Where as the natural Brown has some scritch and takes a while to break in. I favor the Natural brown. I also like the dyed horse with boar combo in the tall loft barber brush. Vie Long makes great budget brushes IMHO.
