A Few More Yaqi Badger Brushes For Me To Enjoy :)

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Intro:

A few more Yaqi badger brushes arrived in my den from a recent order via aliexpress. The order arrived in 15 days, fully tracked.

I've had these brushes for several weeks but haven't had the chance to write a review as I've been very busy with my baby daughter.

This review is for the badger brushes, silvertip and two band finest. For the synthetics, please check out my other review posted around the same time as this one.

Pics:

Let's begin with some pics of the brushes…

THE GANG:

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THE SILVERTIPS:

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THE TWO BANDS:

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Shedding and Smell:

None of the brushes had or have any shedding issues. Not just these three brushes but none of the brushes I've ordered from Yaqi.

The silvertip had no smell that I could pick up. The two bands had a very faint smell which dissipated after about 4 lathers.

I suspect there will always be “batch variances” where some brushes have a slightly stronger smell than others, but it tends to dissipate after a few uses in any case.

Pre-bloom softness:

As expected, the silvertip was fairly soft even before touching any water. The two bands do have a noticeable scritch when brand new.

Break-in:

The silvertips were hand lathered just once and was ready for use!! They all bloomed out beautifully.

The two bands do require several uses before they open up and break-in. All two bands have a scritch for the first several uses. I hand lathered both the two bands about 3 times before using them to face lather.

Again, batch variance meant that there were differences in tip softness and break-in time.

Contrary to one school of thought out there, badger brushes definitely to have a break-in period. It's not as long as boar brushes, but there definitely is a break-in period.

The mysterious space fan and bulb silvertips were basically ready to go after the initial soaking! They were ultra soft and plush. The red/black swirl two band on the other hand took a while to break-in (nearly a dozen shaves). The end result of softness etc is about the same, it's just some take longer than others.

That's why I always advise not to make any decisions about any natural hair brush until about a dozen uses because it just may be that the batch you get is the one that requires a longer break-in!

Softness:

The silvertips are very plush, very soft on the face. Very luxurious indeed! I absolutely love the feeling of a soft silvertip, especially in the winter times when I use warm water to soak my brushes.

The two bands lose their scritch after at least 6 uses. Then they become soft but not a silvertip soft. They retain a scrub that is not at all scratchy. It's very comfortable, no skin irritation but the scrub is what makes two bands great!

Splay:

I love the splay on all my Yaqi badger brushes, not just these ones in particular.

Their silvertips have an excellent splay without any flop! I am able to push down on the brush while face lathering and the brush doesn't “flop” at all.

The two bands have an excellent splay but since the hair is a bit more resilient than the silvertip, it takes a bit more pushing to splay it out more, but I generally don't find I need to splay it out that much in any case.

Backbone/Density:

I am so impressed with the brush density. The knots are so well packed that there's never any feeling of floppiness, even when pushed down to splay the knot. The backbone is what I classify as goldilocks since it's dense enough not to be at all floppy but not so dense that it hogs my lather (which I find very irritating).

The silvertip and the two bands have the perfect amount of backbone and density. The two bands of course do have some more backbone than the silvertip but not necessarily more density, it's just due to the thicker hair.

Handle:

The handles on Yaqi brushes are just awesome! I have really enjoyed each and every one that I've ordered from them!

You can see the design and quality in the photos. The quality and heft can definitely be felt in the hand. I regard Yaqi as having by far the best handles of all the non-custom brush makers!

The best part is that what I see on their web-store is not as good as the real thing! So it's always great when I receive an order from Yaqi and see that all the handles look even nicer than shows on the web-store.
 
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