I'm not angry, you have the right to hold your opinion but I have to say that I love my SOC boar's and I also love my 2000 and my 1305. I also love my omega's and my Zenith boar, I think it is a little harsh to say that Smogs are only good for looking at but as I said at the beginning you do have the right to hold your opinion.I know this may get some people angry and may create some debate but in my opinion the only good thing about Semogue brushes is the looks and the handle that's it. I agree it may sound bit harsh, unfair but I'm saying this through my experience ( I got a SOC, 2000, 1250, 820, 610,1438, 1460 and the famous 1305) 1305 being the only one that I would choose among my collection if I had to use one brush for every shave. While Omegas perform way better than Semogues in my opinion, Omegas consume or would create and keep more lather per shave than Semogues.
If we were living in the heyday of wet shaving and no canned foams/jells were available, semogues would loose the market to omegas.
So my advice is; if you want a good performing boar brush, buy an Omega. Buy a Semogue to place on the shelf with a Rolls Razor standing next to a shaving scuttle just for the looks and decoration.
So my advice is; if you want a good performing boar brush, buy an Omega.
The ultimate shaving brush.......Omega 011829 from Connaught Shaving, can it get better? I don't know but it's the best I've used so far!!!
I'm sure you will be more than happy with it Chris!Paul, just ordered one from Connaught's - your "it's the best [brush] I've used so far" got me intrigued. That's the last of my Christmas money gone!
Chris
@Batou :
Your Semogues don't sound like being deteriorated... Most probably they just need some cleaning, due to soap and hard water residues accumulating on the knot. That's why they don't lather (or hold the lather) properly.
There is a more detailed explanation of this procedure here: https://www.luxurybarber.com/blog/clean-shaving-brush/
The Proraso pro has a 27mm knot where as the Omega 49 Pro has a 26mm knot so it's not the case that the Proraso is just a shortened O49 although Omega doe's make the brush for Proraso , both great knots.The best boar I have is Proraso Pro. It is a rebranded Omega 49 with a shorter loft. Leather machine.
Ok, I cleaned now two of my three Semogue boar brushes (Models 620 and 830) with the described method, using warm water with decent amounts of dishwashing detergent and vinegar. There was quite a noticeable amount of dissolved lime soap within the cleansing solution but unfortunately the whole procedure it didn't help anything at all. There was no noticeable change whatsoever.
For my opinion there must be some relationship to the pre-production processing of the boar bristles at the manufacturers site before the bristles are assembled to knots. And there must be a difference between the processing done by Semogue and Omega. If I remember, those Semogue boar shaving brushes behaved from the very beginning noticeably different compared to Omega's boar brushes.
Unfortunately now my third Semogue boar brush, a very old 840 that I bought as NOS, begins noticeably to deteriorate. This is really disappointing!
Noticeably some other users are happy with Semogue brushes. I have no explanation what makes the difference. But for me personally, I will stay away from Semogue shaving brushes in the future and stick to other companies products that I've found to be better and durabler in any way (i.ex. Omega).
You say when you first cleaned your brush you saw quite a noticeable amount of dissolved lime soap in the cleaning solution which point's to the brush being in need of a good clean, that would have been the first step, you repeat this process until the cleaning solution is clear. So it's not a waste of time to complete the cleaning process because at the end of it you may well have a perfectly usable brush but be sure to rinse it to remove all traces of vinegar and any other cleaning solution as @oversaturn has already stated. This is only a friendly suggestion, if you want to give up part way through the cleaning process and throw the brush away then that's completely up to you . Good luck. P .I really don't think that repeating this process will getting any better results as the first try didn't gain any noticeable changes at all.
That's just a waste of time.
This is only a friendly suggestion, if you want to give up part way through the cleaning process and throw the brush away then that's completely up to you . Good luck. P .
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