Anyone used Bestshave No. 6 horsehair brush from Turkey?

Gairdner said:
Has anyone tried to get the knot out of one of these? Regardless of what hair it is, I'm tempted to buy a couple, remove the knots and pop them in hand-carved handles from native woods.
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Greetings
Why not Graeme? If it fails and the knot falls to pieces you will have only lost £1.81 and you will still have the exquisite handle left into which you can fit a TGN Silvertip Badger knot!

Isn't that a great idea?

Regards
Dick
 
I had one of these and there were a few problems. The adhesive seemed to be in the wrong place, there was too much in the middle and also a solid lump half way around the knot (about 1cm up from the handle). The knot fell out after a couple of uses. There were also some unvarnished areas of wood and there was a finishing mark on the base, which meant that it didn't stand up. I sanded the whole thing down, revarnished it and used epoxy to re-affix the knot and it looked an awful lot better. However, I couldn't do anything about the adhesive on one side of the knot and this meant that, although it produced great lather, when applied to the face it was impossible to apply the lather evenly.
 
I think given all the doubt as to whether it's real horse hair or not, as well as the varying quality, I'm going to look elsewhere. Are there any other manufacturers of horse hair brushes other than Vie Long, as I have no way to contact them?
 
Is an all-boar hair brush out of the question, Nanny? if not Vulfix do really nice all boar brushes. The 18 looks really good as do the 2234, 375 and the London Series. Connaught have them if you wanted to look.
 
As regards to quality, mine is a bit of a disappointment. When lathering , the bristles splay out leaving a cavity in the centre. There is a guy on shavenook who has a similar issue and took a photos HERE. It actually lathers OK but doesn't seem to transfer to the face very well. But some people rave about theirs and don't have this problem, hardly worth worrying about for the money though :rolleyes:
 
Thanks both; boar is not totally out of the equation Gairdner, but I liked the idea of horse hair, due to it not involving any ..... death, not to mention factory farming.
I hear what you say about the price Pcychomech; but no matter even at that price, it's a fiver at least with P & P, and I guess a person doesn't expect lumps of glue in strange places in any brush. And certainly whatever I sell, I would want it to be consistent. So, fine if I could say 'Here is a brush with a blob of glue in a strange place, do expect it to splay out leaving a hole in the center, and some may have to take it apart and glue it into another handle'; but it seems that this brush is varying in quality, and there are significant doubts as to whether it is horse hair or not. Apart from all the QC issues, I can't sell something that I'm not confident is what it purports to be, i.e. horse hair.
The hunt continues.....
 
I have two no 6's and have no problems with either and the ends have not split I don't think it's boar. However the hair seems thicker than any of my other boar or horse brushes and do seem like they are clipped but aren't scritchy. Either way a good brush, I'm planning to transplant on of them to a better handle.
 
Nanny, what about the Frank Shaving synthetics? I've read a number of good reviews around t'interweb. Available on ebay and at least with a synthetic, its pretty easy to tell that it is what it is, if you know what I mean. No animal death and they are pretty cheap although from China. I've emailed the chap to see if I can get just the knots to fit into my own hand carved handles as you're making me feel very uncomfortable about badger hair if not boar. I do love my bacon!
 
soapalchemist said:
I hear what you say about the price Pcychomech; but no matter even at that price, it's a fiver at least with P & P, and I guess a person doesn't expect lumps of glue in strange places in any brush. And certainly whatever I sell, I would want it to be consistent. So, fine if I could say 'Here is a brush with a blob of glue in a strange place, do expect it to splay out leaving a hole in the center, and some may have to take it apart and glue it into another handle'; but it seems that this brush is varying in quality, and there are significant doubts as to whether it is horse hair or not. Apart from all the QC issues, I can't sell something that I'm not confident is what it purports to be, i.e. horse hair.
The hunt continues.....
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I completely agree, I was willing to think C'est la vie on the purchase as it was an incidental when buying some blades, so the postage was accounted for anyway, but would have been disappointed if I'd ordered this brush specially. Whatever it's made of, there are some duffers among them, and it's not a product I would want to stand by.
 
Yes, I'm definitely not going with these brushes. It's not majorly urgent, as I have a fair few 'Bodgers' and I only occasionally sell one. But I'll continue looking for horse hair brushes. I'm not keen on the idea of synthetics, with their heat losing and plasticness.....but not ruling that out either.
Thanks for all the useful imput; but ferroburak; why does the site not specify what their other brushes are made of, just this one? Any ideas?
 
Muhle have their HJM range with Black Fibre Bristles Connaught sell them for just under £17 and they work really well. I find them to be better than the FS (my opinion)
 
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