Good afternoon gents, I was also given the privilege of testing the Vie Long synthetic shaving brush. I currently only have a Plisson synthetic and admit to preferring badger over synthetic brushes. Here are my observations:
Handle
Totally agree with Eric that the entire brush would look better reversed. As it stands the handle doesn't look bad, the base is a little uncomfortable to hold because of the edges on the very flat bottom. Otherwise very smart with the white lettering against the solid black handle. The handle has a good weight to it which I prefer, somehow makes it feel more robust.
Bristles
Compared to the Plisson the bristles seem thicker and thus providing much greater backbone. They also have a good degree of spring and softness, which gives a very pleasant face feel. I don't think it exhibits softness identical to that of a good silvertip but its not far off the softness the Plisson exhibits with its cloud like nature. This could purely be down to heat and water retention being a synthetic. Saying that, I think and could be wrong but this brush retains more water than my Plisson, when wet you do get 'clumping' and a hexagonal structure to the drying fibres.
So positives are a great backbone, aesthetically pleasing, lovely soft tips and IMO decent water retention.
Improvements are obviously very personal but I would prefer less thick bristles yet somehow very little change to backbone (perhaps with density), the handle reversed and finally some control over the flow through as it does fly around a bit. Perhaps less thick bristles but more of them, not being an expert this is a pure assumption. Still a very nice brush and produces brilliant lather in minutes. Below is Proraso green loaded for one minute.
Thank you again Paul for this opportunity!