I just pulled the trigger on a Franks Silvertip Brush with a butterscotch handle today. While researching and hunting for a new brush I stumbled across some very flattering reviews of these brushes by some experienced shavers. After hearing about the workmanship and seeing the price I figured... why not? Once I receive it and get a week or so in I'll report my findings. Cheers!
I look forward to your review. I've been on the fence about buying a Frank's brush for a while. Seems like an amazing price and I have read nothing but positive reviews so far.
I'm another satisfied owner of a Frank's Finest. They make a quality brush and provide a great value. There are certainly better & worse brushes out there. At the price point though they are hard to beat IMO.
I have two Frank's Finest, that's all the brushes I need, rotate between them every other day, very nice brushes. I was thinking of a Frank's Silvertip butterscotch also. Let us know how they perform when you get it, please.
I have two in finest.....both great brushes. I also have 2 silvertips. The newer one of these is also great as the newer models also appear in shorter lofts. The older models have higher lofts only....and are regarded by some (myself included) as being a little floppy.
His Silvertip is not bad,i think the only drawback is that the knot is not very wide like other marks.
The Frank's Silvertip has arrived! It just came today and I haven't yet had a chance to try it. Tomorrow AM will be the maiden voyage. However, my first impressions are that the knot seems very full, dense even (considerably more so than my Tweezerman) and the Silvertip Badger hair is very soft as I hoped. Another thing I love already is that the handle is thicker in diameter than my current tool and has more heft. Quite nice. I will post a daily update on this thread for the next week as I try it out and start breaking it in for anyone interested in exploring these brushes. Happy shaving!
Here's a thumbnail of the brush. It is the Frank's silvertip with a butterscotch handle. Day 1: Nice weight, and good thick density. I found right off the bat that this brush soaks up water quickly (may be because it is new) so I found it desirable to just soak the tips lightly before lathering. I used Cella soap and approached the tub with a gentle hand as this brush is far softer than my last. My feeling is that the knot size is just right, fits perfectly into my Cella red container. Any larger and this would be an issue. After several light swirls on the cream to load it I lathered on my face and this is where I was sold. Very soft, subtle feel. I did have to spend a bit more time on the face to get a lather I am accustomed to, but that is not a deficiency. With a brush this soft I didn't want to take it away from my face! There was some initial shedding but not excessive, maybe 5 bristles total in the sink which is to be expected. All around, very happy with the performance and feel of this tool. I read before buying that many prefer Frank's Best Badger as the Silvertip can be a bit lacking in backbone. On first use I didn't find that to be the case as I use Cella which is very soft. However, I would whole heartedly agree that if you plan to use a hard, English style soap like a Truefitt or Crabtree, I imagine this brush would not have the backbone for it. I do have a few hard soaps which I use infrequently and I dont' think I would even attempt them with this brush out of fear of damaging it. I will likely keep my Tweezerman for those soaps and that brush is very scrubby. So far so good. More tomorrow.
Simple and elegant design, I like it! I wouldn't worry about hard soaps damaging the brush though - people use badgers on them all the time, Silvertip, Two band, etc. I just throw some water on the puck first and let it soak for about 5 minutes or so, softens it up a little bit but that's just so I can load the brush easier with the soft badger hair.
Excellent tip. I saw on a video once someone filling their shaving mug up a little with water, letting it set a few minutes, than dumping it out to soften really hard soaps. They must have been using a poured soap because I tried that with my mug and it caused the puck to release from the bottom of the mug so that it would just spin in circles when I tried to load my brush. I'll try a little water on top next time I use my hard soap.
The puck spinning is something that happens all the time when I use my TSD sample sizes in my old spice mug. Takes a bit of extra work but I still get a good amount of soap loaded on the brush. Its been a trick I've used with anything that isn't an italian soft soap, or the harder poured soaps - works every time for me. Hope it does for you!
Day 2: An important finding this morning. When I grabbed the brush from my holder I noticed the tips had quite a bit of soap residue on them which was an indicator to me that I was probably loading too much soap on the brush. This morning when I took the brush to the soap tub I swirled briefly to load (about 1/2 the time I am accustomed to) and sure enough. It was loaded with enough soap to create a thick, thick lather for 2 passes without needing to reload in-between. I'm confident there would have been enough left for even a third. This is a huge change from my old brush. Since I've only used 2 other brushes I haven't a lot of comparison but I can see now how poorly my old brush loaded. I used to have to really swirl to get it to load well and repeat in between passes, but this Frank's brush is thirsty for both water and cream. Quick, easy loading, holds water like mad and again today wonderfully subtle on the skin. Works up a great lather on the face with no irritation to the skin. This brush likes a gentle touch, doesn't demand much elbow grease at all. I must say I am feeling impressed. I also realized that on my first post in this thread I failed to offer the basic spec's for the brush so here it is: Specs: Overall Height: 4 1/4" Badger hair height: 2 1/4" Knot size: 23mm
Day 3: This is the last daily post I will make to this thread unless a vital piece of information comes to light or I notice a major deficiency as I continue with the Franks Silvertip Brush. Today just like yesterday the brush feels great, enough backbone to work up a lather, and feels great on the face. What more can I say, I know it has only been 3 days but I'm going to go ahead and give this brush two thumbs up and give it my hearty endorsement. I wanted to leave this thread with a bit of information I have been able to learn about the Frank's Brush in case their are others out there looking into them. When I first found these brushes I almost didn't order one because at $35 a brush at first I assumed these must be cheapo brushes and not worth my time. This trial run with one has helped me confirm what others are saying... these brushes are beautiful! So what gives right? Why the cheap price tag? Well based on what I was able to find online (including an old post here at TSD) most all badger hair for brushes comes from China. Li Ming a.k.a. "Frank" who makes these brushes lives in China so the hair is sourced right where the brushes are made which drives down price considerably. In fact, I read that supposedly Frank has also made many of the knots for other high end brush makers. I can't verify those facts but that is what I read. So it goes something like this, a brush "made in England" probably will acquire their knot from China, turn the handle and assemble it in England so that they can advertise it as "made in England." Of course all this transport and use of middle-men drives the prices up well over $100 per brush at times. So, some others that have reviewed these online have suggested that the Frank's brushes hold up against others that are 3x the price because, well... the knot it probably almost identical. Perhaps the handle is fancier though on the more spendy brushes. But I think the bottom line is, for $35 a brush, why not try one out? I don't think you'll be sorry. Over and out.
Additional Findings! Today just for fun I decided to put the Franks Silvertip to the test with a hard soap, my Truefitt & Hill Luxury Soap. This is the hardest soap puck I own. I read other reviews of this brush that indicted that the Silvertip would be too soft for a hard soap but after reading Neolithium's post I decided to give it a go. All I can say is the folks that stated that this brush wouldn't have the backbone for a hard soap must have been speculating rather than testing this theory. I too thought this sounded reasonable but I followed Neolithium's advice, a tiny bit of water on the top of the puck for a minute and went to work and bam! I had a mug full of lather in no time! No problem here at all. The crazy thing is my other brush is super scrubby brush with tons of backbone but that one really struggles on the Truefitt but this Franks Silvertip far out performs on the hard soap even though it is very soft. I'm guessing this is because the Franks knot is so much more densely packed. More bristles to work the soap. The soft quality of the hair was certainly no deficit, I used a very light touch on the soap and no pressure was required really to get a thick lather. I see now that the assumption that a hard soap will require a stiff brush is not really true. The only bad thing is that now I'm going to have to dig out my old review I did of the Truefitt soap and update it because I see now the Truefitt is a beautiful soap... I just needed the right brush to bring it to life! Thanks Neolithium for the tip.
Glad to see it all worked out for you! I've never believed that any particular brush is incapable of lathering soaps and creams equally, and your post is proof why I don't believe it
I'll have to disagree with you slightly here. I don't think you used too much soap, I just think you didn't rinse it well enough after your last use of the brush. Soap is what we want, so use plenty of it to get a nice creamy lather.
Outstanding review. I love to see true user reviews on products that many people feel could be inferior just do to country of orgin. Cannot wait to read the next chapter of your review. Very nice job Brian.
