Do I need a badger?

Here's an interesting discussion about horse hair brushes:

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I confess I'm not tempted. Yet.
 
Pig Cat said:
PM Urban Hermit for info on horse hair brushes as he's done quite a bit of research in to them and has tried a few.
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Hmmm,,,some say that Urban Hermit has no eyebrow, nasal or anal hair,,, :eek:
and that he's read all the Enid Blyton Famous Five novels,,, many times over :shock:


,,,,,,,,,so tread carefully my new forum friend,,, :D
regards, beejay
 
Dandy Highwayman said:
Yellow Jim said:
Dandy Highwayman said:
A bit of research found them described as having '85% of the good attributes of badger hair and 85% of the good attributes of boar hair'.
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A bit more research and you'll discover that the person that said that is a plonker.
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Interesting. Care to enlighten me? PM if you prefer. :p
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Bloody Hell!! I seem to have opened a real can of worms with this one.
Thanks for all the PMs on the subject explaining the situation.
I apologise if I have caused anyone any offence or brought back unpleasant memories. My quote was done in total innocence - remember I am new around here.
I hope you can all sweep it back under the carpet where it belongs/
Thanks to you all for the advice I have received so far- and I'm still receiving + the very generous offers of loan brushes.
I never expected this sort of a response to what, I suspect many of you will see as a pretty fundamental question.
 
I have a LiJun & 1980 badger and it produces a much better lather than my Semogue 1305 and Vulvix 404 Bodger. Saying that i have only had the 2 latters for a few weeks so that might change once i break them in fully.
 
beejay said:
Pig Cat said:
PM Urban Hermit for info on horse hair brushes as he's done quite a bit of research in to them and has tried a few.
Click to expand...

Hmmm,,,some say that Urban Hermit has no eyebrow, nasal or anal hair,,, :eek:
Click to expand...

I used to have hair in all those places until I got my Le Tuft Urban Hermit's Black & Blues bespoke shave set (pat pending).


beejay said:
and that he's read all the Enid Blyton Famous Five novels,,, many times over :shock:

,,,,,,,,,so tread carefully my new forum friend,,, :D
regards, beejay
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  • ... also a few rare manuscripts of her pornographic Noddy books and woodblock illustrations.
            • "... oh, Big Ears!! What are you planning to do to Noddy's back passage with that semolina pudding, a mashie niblick and a butt plug?"[/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u][/list:u]
 
I'd like to add the final word on this.
After receiving lots of help and advice - of particular mention Urban Hermit, Man of Leisure and hunnymonster who kindly loaned and sold me brushes to try- I have reached a conclusion.
Yes I do need a badger.

I felt the fairest way to try out the brush was to simply use it in exactly the same way I would use one of my brushes in my usual shaving routine which is pretty much all face lathering with a cream.

I tried it 1st with a couple of cheaper, but dependable creams - Godrej & BS Macca Root - and I found a massive difference. Firstly the badger is a lot softer on the face so you don't get a mild scrubbing sensation, but the huge difference is the amount of lather it quickly generates.
I also found that the texture of the lather is very different. It's much creamier and smoother which in turn gives much better glide.
One thing I found is that a lot of lather collects at the base of the hairs, but a wee gentle squeeze moves this to the top so that you can use it for a second pass.
I moved on to my more expensive creams and even tried the much reviled Erasmic stick which worked up a decent lather- not as good as the creams, but I wasn't expecting it to.
To my mind the acid test came when I tried it with a couple of Connaught creams as I have had no success from them at all.
For the first time I had a good creamy lather.

In conclusion I think the badger does make a significant difference to the whole shaving experience, which is not good news for Chinese badgers.

HOWEVER, and this is something I found astonishing, a good horse hair brush runs a very close second in terms of the results I have detailed above and I would guess it would be better than a poor quality badger.
Apparently the horse hairs are collected from grooming the mane and tail and the horses aren't harmed in any way and certainly not killed - or they'd just be flogging a dead horse :lol: - sorry for that one.
So if your moral convictions won't allow you to go down the badger route, and there are some horrific stories on the net, I would certainly advice you to try a horse hair brush.

Thanks again to all who contributed and helped.
 
It sounds as though your experience was very similar to mine from a few months ago! Though I'm not a vegetarian, I had (and still have, to an extent) misgivings about the way badgers are killed to produce brushes. However, man of leisure sent me a Kent badger brush and I had much the same epiphany as you. :shock: :shave
I'll have to consider trying a Vie Long horsehair brush - might be just the thing the supplement my current set-up, which consists of the Kent and a Taylors synthetic brush.
 
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