To all who are interested I am looking for opinions about choosing my a mid-price brush, $25 - $45 dollar range. The price range listed is my best guess at the price range for a mid-priced brush. I got a series of excellent questions from GD Carrington. I have copied those questions into this new thread and have provided added my answer to each question. I am looking for any advice about what to choose. Thanks in advance to all who read and reply to this thread! I have attached pictures of the 2 brushes I currently own. I have no clue what type of hair is in either brush. Thanks to all in advance! 1. What are you using now and what do you think of it? I have 2 brushes, see the attached pics. The blond one came from my father-in-law. The hair is too floppy and soft. I got the black Ever-Ready at an antique store. It is to scritchy and really stiff. 2. Do you prefer soft plushy, slight scritch, medium scritch, or hard against your skin? I want soft tips but medium scritch. 3. How much stiffness or floppiness are you looking for? I want soft tips but medium scritch. 4. Knot Sizing: Do you want a Small 19-21mm, Medium 22-25mm, Large 26mm and greater? The blond brush handle feels too large and too long in my hand, its height is about 60mm & the widest diameter is 40mm. The diameter of the knot is somewhere between 25 to 26mm. I like the size of the black brush better. The handle is about 45mm tall and the widest diameter is 35mm. The diameter of the knot is somewhere between 20mm. I am also including a list of some of the brushes I have on my list currently for consideration. This is only a list & I am not wedded to any of these brushes. Edwin Jagger 1ej946sds Best Badger Omega 63171 Stripey Pure Badger Semogue 620 Superior Boar Semogue 830 Vulfix 1000A Pure Badger Vulfix 2233 Super Badger Based on this I want a brush with small knot (nothing over 22mm), medium scritch, & a little softness at the tip. I am committed to wet shaving so as a result I am not afraid of getting a brush that would required breaking-in. Hope this helps and looking forward with great anticipation to any and all responses.
Have you considered a Horse Hair brush. This is an excellent brush that lathers very well and has good backbone and has a slight level of scritch but the tips to me are soft. Vie Long Zurito - Horse Overall Height: 105 mm Loft Size: 57 mm Knot Size: 23 mm Price at Bullgoose.com $32.00 http://www.bullgooseshaving.net/vi13hohabr.html
I got lost in your description of your quest for your next brush, so this may be entirely of the mark. However, in my ultimate brush quest, I seriously got hooked on the Vulfix 404 Badger/Boar.
I post in the first thread before seeing this one. If you pick a brush on the list, I'd definitely recommend the Edwin Jagger Best from among that group. I also post a link to Penworks in the other thread, which I think is a good option.
Given you price range, skip the EJ best, also totally forget Pure badger unless you like shaving with a brillo pad. Try a Penworks Silvertip Or the grail of Omega boars, its on sale for $9.99 actually...... Or you could always save up another $13.80 and buy one of these and not worry about another brush for quite some time...
Well I wanted to update this thread with my brush choices. After reading many posts on this forum and others, I decided to order 2 brushes. I placed an order for the two brushes with 2 different vendors. I ordered a 22mm Silvertip Badger brush in a resin handle from Whipped Dog Straights. Larry charged me $20 including shipping and the brush arrived 2 days later. I ordered the second brush, a Semogue 830, from Vintage Scents for about $24 including shipping and it arrived today. It took a little over 2 weeks to arrive, which is pretty good since Vintage Scent is in Portugal. I guess I decided to go for extremes in my shaving brush choice. My plan now is to order 2 badger hair knots and restore my 2 old brushes. Now I have to decide what type of knot I want to use in the restores, decisions - decisions. This will give me a 4-brush rotation, which I think is pretty good for a newbie. Pics are included, ain’t they pretty…
I received one of these from JoAnna as part of the March PIF giveaways. It's a very good brush, and I'm starting to like it a lot. It's a little shorter than my EJ Best Badger, so that took a little getting used to.
I love the 830, I've had mine for a while now and love it, it took a while to break in but now that it is, it is as soft as a silvertip. whips up a great lather with either soaps or creams!!!
