Yep. I would say PAA Synthetic Brushes are the best value brushes in wet shaving right now. I've done a couple of videos on them on my YouTube channel. You can find good synthetics for less money, but you'll sacrifice aesthetics.
Well, it's twenty three bucks. A Semogue 1305 is less than twenty and an Omega 10083 (a very respected brush used professionally) is eleven bucks. Now, the average Yaqi synthetic (which seems to be all the rage here) is about $18-22 so I guess they are more affordable than I thought.
They have always been, so you could say they are traditional in that way. The Omega brushes that you could buy here in the supermarket, in the 1970s and 1980s, had the same handles as today's Omegas.
Before COVID I was in a job for over five years that required me to travel almost weekly. Nothing beats synthetics for me, when it comes to convenience. At home, I switch between badgers and synthetics. The past two years, my favourite synthetic has been a Simpson CH2 chubby. Not a good travel brush though, since it takes fairly long to dry.
On my regular rotations is Mulhe silver tip synthetic, Omega evo , Simpson Trafalgar T3 and I find them good in all respect then my Super badger brush
I started with an inexpensive boar, played around with badger, horse and combination of horse and boar until I found the Plisson type synthetic. I only use a plisson synthetic now and have a Plissoft RR brush that is backup. It just seems to me that the new synthetics do a fantastic job of making my lather on my face. No muss, no fuss. I get the fibers a bit wet and make my lather on my face and then I shave. It's all good. My current brush is soft but a bit scrubby and it is just right.
Returning to your original question, I agree with gwsmallwood but I would qualify it by specifying the l'Occitane Plisson synthetic, at least in my experience. It got quite a lot of attention on forums and it probably helped that it was also locally available. Muhle had come out with their synthetics and you have the combination of forum posts with positive reviews and people with acquisition disorders. Looking back at dates of forum posts, it looks like the l'Occitane Plisson was available sometime in 2013 and the Muhle brushes were available at least a year earlier.
Great point. I did mean the L'Occitane version. I sort of ignored the others because of the price tags...
There are many Italian barber shops in the U. S. Any barbershop owned and run by Italians is "an Italian barbershop" regardless of its location. One time, I went to an Italian barbershop in Mexico!
Here are my 3 brushes. The Vie Long horse brush was my first “nice” brush that I spent much on. I still use it occasionally if I want to kill a hard soap. The Plissoft from RazoRock was my first synthetic and I love it. I think I got it from a pass around box several years back and I used in exclusively for at least two years. The shorter synthetic came from this year's traveling box and is a Maseto synthetic knot courtesy of @Enrico. I thought it would become my travel brush but it is now my everyday brush. I’ve had badger and boar brushes and liked them just fine, but enjoy the lack of “ritual” needed to soak them and then worry about drying, etc. Synthetic for this guy. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk