I think I have the same faux-chrome Omega that the OP was talking about. When I first got the brush, I was pretty hard on it; but I have since started treating it better. I have hard water, and not cleaning it out properly, and not letting it pre-soak properly before shaves was resulting in some pretty stiff bristles. I have since made it a project to rehabilitate this brush and so far so good. When it feels like a soap or cream has left a film (I'm looking at you Proraso) I take an extra step and use liquid soap to clean out the brush. I go to fairly extreme measures to make sure all the soap is out of the brush post-shave before I leave it to dry. The bristles are feeling much softer and I haven't shed a hair in quite some time. I will say that the brush is a year or two old, and it's taken this long and it's still softening up. I don't use it every day, and as I said, I've been harder on it than any other brush I own.
Well, I'm usually very nice to my brushes. But this one is a special case. The one I'm talking about isn't the Faux Chrome handled one. Post two shows a picture of what it looks like. The brush I have hasn't had time to accumulate excess soap scrum, and I have tried excessive presoaking the brush. This brush is just a tough, all backbone, stiff little sucker. I plan on wearing it down to a softer level.
I have been using this as my travel brush for about three years now. Probably used it about 75 times in total. Since the loft on this one is so short, and the knot so small, it hasn't softened up like my 10066. Still a great travel brush, but I have to reload it between passes.
