Zenith horse brushes anyone?

Sir_eider

Sir_eider

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Location
Madrid, Spain
Hi, mates!

So after enjoying the excellent quality & cheapness of Zenith boar brushes (in fact I'll increase my small collection soon adding some 24mm. knot ones), I have noted that they are also available horse hair bruhses of this brand in tvbshaving shop, but a bit pricey... I'm interested anyway in try one, but after my poor experience with Vielong horse brushes (scritchy and with entangling problems...) I'm not sure if they will worth the money...

Anyone has tried them? I have seen that they have two sizes: 24x58 and 24x51, so not sure which one order either...

Regards.
 
Greetings

My experience of Vie Long Horse hair is identical in both respects to Sir Eider's, I have never used a Zenith Brush (of any type) but they do have a really good reputation. I believe the problem is with the horse hair itself, it is IMHO only a suitable brush hair if you paint or very very gently move the brush around in circles with very little pressure on the tips, any mashing or scrubbing, even lightly, results in tangled hairs, and of course the end of the coarser hairs feeling like little pins/needles.

I hope I am wrong but I cannot see any brush manufacturer being able to change those characteristics.

Regards
Dick.
 
I would say the same as @Sir_eider and @Norfolkdick about Zenith boar brushes and Horse hair brushes but I have to add, Recently I found a small ceramic or porcelain handled horse hair brush it was unused and quite old, and it gets tangled quite bad even worse than two of my vie-long horse hair. I have a small fan shaped horse vie-long which doesn't tangle at all but it is very similar to a boar hair brush.
In my opinion the tangling problem is not unique to vie-long it must be a common problem with horse hair brushes in general with a long knot. By looking at the pictures I guess Zenith horse hair brushes may have the tangling problem as well because the knot looks quite big and long.
 
Let's backup for just one moment as regards the Zenith boar brushes. No less than our own SeanC has stated that they are better than Omega & Semogue if I recall and I am in the market for a basic "work horse" boar brush as I sold my only Omega just the other day.

Another small (and obscure) Italian brush co. is Koh-I-Noor of which I have read little, but what little there is was great:

https://koh-i-noorbeauty.com/collections/shaving-brushes/
 
Norfolkdick said:
Greetings

My experience of Vie Long Horse hair is identical in both respects to Sir Eider's, I have never used a Zenith Brush (of any type) but they do have a really good reputation. I believe the problem is with the horse hair itself, it is IMHO only a suitable brush hair if you paint or very very gently move the brush around in circles with very little pressure on the tips, any mashing or scrubbing, even lightly, results in tangled hairs, and of course the end of the coarser hairs feeling like little pins/needles.

I hope I am wrong but I cannot see any brush manufacturer being able to change those characteristics.

Regards
Dick.
Click to expand...
Very true on horsehairs. When they became readily available from Vie-Long (horsehair brushes were shunned and unavailable in the UK for many years because of disease fears), I bought several. Many have become tangled and I've had to tease them out to become usable again. I've found that the best-performing Vie-Longs are the butterscotch handle, white horsehair fans, where the fan is flat across the top, and the least good are those with brown horsehair; both bulb and fan. The very worst, oddly, is a badger/horsehair mix, model 14833, which broke the teeth on a substantial metal comb when I tried to disentangle it.
My brief but ardent flirtation with horsehairs is now over.
 
epsilon_horse_shaving_brush.jpg
Hold your Horses! Only way to use this brush, bowl lathering, carefully applying lather with a soft painting motion, to avoid sharp hairs taking stabs at face, but NAH! now used for dusting my mitre saw in the workshop!
 
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Hi mates!

Finally after some research & stubborn attitude (haha) I got the help&attention of the Spanish shop Yourshaving, whose owner have some relationship with Zenith brand (he is from Italy as well).

He managed from them a couple of prototypes to test with different kind of treated horse hair, which I'm now using to check how they perform:

brochas1 (2).jpg

The left one has a 50/50 mix of mane/tail horse brush with softened tips, the right one has an extra softness treatment and it is almost as soft as a good silvertip badger hair, both with a 27mm. knot.

In their firsts uses they look promising, much better for facelathering that Vielong ones, withouth entangling issues (at least for now). Left one is a bit pricky, but no more that a good two bands badger hair, the right one is more on the floppy side (but not too much) and is softer and denser.

I'll continue testing them and later I'll send to some spanish friends to test them as well, and will see if we could make a special edition with the chosed knot with a personalized handle.

Regards
 
Well, I just don't know! I come back on here just this very day after a bit of an absence and already I'm pulling the trigger on a new brush. Buggers, the lot of you....:p

A Zenith synth from Yourshaving, naturally. ;)

T'will be interesting to see how it compares to my Chubby 2 synthetic which, as most will know, is significantly more expensive.
 
Gairdner said:
Well, I just don't know! I come back on here just this very day after a bit of an absence and already I'm pulling the trigger on a new brush. Buggers, the lot of you....:p

A Zenith synth from Yourshaving, naturally. ;)

T'will be interesting to see how it compares to my Chubby 2 synthetic which, as most will know, is significantly more expensive.
Click to expand...
Those Zenith synths are first-rate. I like the 27mm ones with the long handles, and now have one white and one red. The service from Yourshaving is, as always, very good, and I always get a prompt answer to any enquiry.
 
Gairdner said:
Well, I just don't know! I come back on here just this very day after a bit of an absence and already I'm pulling the trigger on a new brush. Buggers, the lot of you....:p

A Zenith synth from Yourshaving, naturally. ;)

T'will be interesting to see how it compares to my Chubby 2 synthetic which, as most will know, is significantly more expensive.
Click to expand...
Those Zenith synths are first-rate. I like the 27mm ones with the long handles, and now have one white and one red. The service from Yourshaving is, as always, very good, and I always get a prompt answer to any enquiry.
 
Tis' this fellow:

zenith-synthetic-fibers-shaving-brush-resin-handle-275mm-504ak-ts.jpg


Handle shape is not too dissimilar to a Simpsons Colonel and almost exactly like a vintage Culmak 55.
 
I am afraid that I have given up on horse hair. I don't like the tangles and am gradually replacing the horse knots with synthetic. I will add that these are Vie-long brushes....but I dont want to take a risk on other makes.
 
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