Agreed. The Stirling Synthetic brush changed my attitude about man made brushes. You can lather anything with it. And if God wanted us to use turkeys for bacon, He would have given them snouts and curly tails.
I was like that for a long time, and would not even look at a synth brush. But I kept hearing about them from people whose opinion I trust. I tried my first one about three weeks ago. Bought it from a gentleman named Anthony MacKenzie, Jr. Fantastic brush. Then I bought a Plisson on another forum's B/S/T. It is also quite nice. Like lathering with a fat, fluffy cloud. Will they replace my badgers? Nope. But my badgers won't replace my boars, and my boars won't replace my horse. I like them all, and that's how I voted. They are all different, with different characteristics, but all wonderful in their own way. MHO.
You know, as much as I like badger, I thought I hated badger brushes for years because the first two I owned were what some people would call "luxurious" and I, personally, would call floppy. Now that I've used a variety of badger brushes, two types really stand out to me. Two-band Finest has fairly soft tips and lots of backbone. This is the type of badger you want to get if boar brushes are your preferred type. The other type of hair is the English grade called 'Finest.' When I talk about Finest here, it is in reference to the densely packed knots of Simpson's Wee Scot's, Dukes, and Chubby's, and the vintage Rooney's and Kent's of years' past. No other badger hair I've seen is quite like it.
I have an older generation 1 synthetic I like alot. It's stiff and scratchy and works up poor soaps like Williams effortlessly. That said I'm very fond of my boar hair brush as well. It struggles with the Williams but it is amazing on every other soap and cream I've tried. I like the scritch of it and the stiffness. It's the facial equivalent of getting someone to scratch that one spot on your back that you can never reach and always itches.
No polls visible in Tapatalk. However, I have sold or PIFed all my animal hair brushes, and I am a 100% synthetic brush user since last spring.
1. Synthetic (the grooming company, fine, asylum) 2. Horse (vie-long) Don't care for badger, boar is ok. Great topic...
I voted for both horse and boar. I did this because I use a bestshave #6 horse(?) hair brush and there is controversy over whether or not it's horse or boar. I don't care what it's made of I just think whatever it's made of the #6 works for me. If I could find a synthetic that mimics my #6 I would go synthetic as long as it was affordable.
Depends on the soap. As a domestic user boar hair is too coarse and takes too long to break in. For hard soap, like Arran aromatics lime basil or taylor's or eucris then a best badger. For soft soaps like executive shaving deluxe then super badger. For creams like proraso tub or tube, trumpers tube or taylor's tubs and for travelling then a muhle synthetic silver tip travel brush.
I just find I can get better performance from a synthetic than a 2-band silvertip badger. I guess I'm just use to them now. I had a nice Thayer badger and I didn't like it. I ended up selling it.
Boar and Horse. The only badger I have is a cheap Tweezerman but I never liked the feel. Now, having said that, I have to figure out what to put in my Wolf Whiskers later this month. I may go Silvertip in that although I could go synthetic too which I haven't tried.
If I had to choose only one it would be the Omega 10066. In second place the Vie-Long 12601 The Omega is absolutely awesome for hard soaps like MWF but also gets along well with Proraso and the other softer soaps as well. I'm still working with the Vie-Long to figure it out with some of the harder soaps. So for now, the Omega would be the top of the class.
I feel as though this poll done 10 years ago would have come out very differently. There was a time when silvertip badger was looked at as the only legitimate champ. It's nice to see, right now, the poll results have synthetic and boar even at 20 votes with badger just slightly ahead at 22. Synthetic brushes have come a long way and might even continue to get better - I doubt our boar or badger brushes will evolve much moving forward. I think I still use badger more than anything else, but even those are usually 2-band. There are definitely months when I use synthetic more than anything else. All I don't seem to reach for as often nowadays is boar - though I still enjoy using them.
synthetics seem to be my favorite. They are very soft and I have no problem loading them. My first synthetic was the Omega S Synthetic and for $8 it is a steal. There are other options out there as well, but for the money synthetics are where its at. I just cant see spending $300 on a badger brush that works no better than a $10 brush. I can see why some people would want a nice fancy brush, but I would rather spend the extra money on new soaps/aftershaves!
Synthetics seem to make lather more easily than the other types. I know when using a shave stick synthetics work much better for me.
I have 2 boars, no badgers, and one synthetic. I know for me, the synthetic beats the boars hands down, and it's no where near close. My HIS 1865 is a lathering machine and feels great on my face. At some point I'd like to get another synthetic, or maybe a couple more.
