Burma Shave Brush

This was my first brush. I wanted to get started right away, so after my soap arrived, I bought this brush at the local grocery store. There was no funk at the beginning. I did use the method of soaking in Dawn and overnight lather just in case.

Each use, it lost about 5-6 bristles. I've had it two or three months. My last use, a tuft of bristles fell out--all still connected at the bottom. It left a small hole in the knot, and now, if I run the brush (dry) over my hand, a bunch of bristles will fly out, so I haven't used it again.

If I were to try a cheap brush again, I'd try the VDH.

I guess legs and arms aren't as picky as the face, but I love this brush for them. I haven't tried a badger because they're entirely out of my budget, but this both works really well for me and feels nice. (Note: I do not shave my face being female. I also happen to like using a boar brush for my hair. I am used to scratchy and like it not perfectly soft.)

No, it isn't the highest grade brush on the planet, but it's a good, basic brush that does what it's supposed to. I never had a problem with smell with mine, but I'm also very used to boar bristles. I've never had any problems with it soaking up water or not lathering well, but everyone has their preferences.

If you like other boar items, I'd recommend you try this brush if you're looking for economical. Though some do shed, mine shed a bit at the beginning and hardly does ever anymore. It also has softened a lot.

I have to disagree with many of the reviews on this brush. I purchased several of these (it was a deal I couldn't pass up) and I thought I'd give it a try.
After reading several of the poor reviews I thought I'd take a little different approach though. I took a new brush and treated it like a used one that needed cleaning: washed it with some dish washing liquid followed by some Mane & Tail conditioner and then a soak in hot water and distilled white vinegar. After shaking it dry I ended up with this:


I then proceeded to let it fully dry and then used it like any of my other brushes. It held a decent amount of water, I only lost four hairs in the whole process, and the conditioner softened it up some.
Here's what my lather came out like (Mama Bears Tuscan Memories):


Needless to say, it not going to replace any of my badgers, but for an inexpensive brush it isn't that bad.

It is my opinion that this is a very good brush at an unreasonably low price. It is denser that other badger brushes at the same price range like the Tweezerman, for instance. Another point I'd like to make is that, again, in my opinion, some have exaggerated how much this brush stinks. During the first shave or two it will have a "funny" smell, but it won't stink up your face, the bathroom, or interfere with the scent of your soap/cream. That, by the way, is a normal thing to experience with boar brushes. After 3 or 4 shaves the smell dissipates and it will smell like your soap/cream.

Now, do I recommend it? well, that depends. I prefer soaps to creams so I feel a boar brush is a must for me. So, if you like soaps and are having a hard time with your fancy badger brush then the answer is yes, I'd recommend it.

I've had a few high end badger brushes and after using this brush for about 6 years I feel ripped off by dovo, vulfix, and all those guys. This brush holds water just fine, loads easy, generates tons of lather and lasts a while. Let's face it, a badger brush isn't necessarily better than a boar brush, it's just more expensive, period. I have had a few badgers and find them uncomfortable since the tend to be stubby (shorter bristles) and waaaaay too soft so it feels like i'm using a shaving mop instead of a brush.

Keep in mind that, with any boar brush, a break in period is required. Yes, it is stiff right out of the box but after about 6 or 7 shaves it will get VERY soft.

Yes it's kind of ugly so unless you want to make a museum out of your private bathroom i'd recommend this brush. A winner in my book.

Like a lot of others I picked this up as a cheap option from my local Walmart. I've been using mine for well over 2 years now as I switched to soap lathering before I made the jump away from multi-blade shaving to DE shaving. Initially, the brush was as wretched as some have described it. However after some time to improve my technique as well as some time to break in the brush, it has performed very well. It did shed hairs frequently in the first 6 month but not much afterword. After I learned to soak the brush 5-10 minutes prior to use, it has performed well for me. I just bought my first badger brush because I want to experiment. If I was going on just necessity, I could easily stay solely with my Burma boar brush.

Price: Can't be beat!

Ergonomics: No really, it can't be beat. I get a bit of a cramp whenever I shave. Since this is so far my only brush, I'm outta luck here.

Quality: you get what you pay for.

Density: pretty dense, I guess. Like I said, this is my only brush, so its hard for me to be objective.

Stiffness/softness: Pretty scratchy.

Latherability: I'm able to get a decent lather with this brush. Works pretty good for a superlather to get a decent amount of Williams into the mix.

I bought this as a "spare" brush to take travelling so that my main brush (a "no name" pure badger) wouldn't come to any harm.

Out of the box it seemed awfully slim and stiff. The smell honestly didn't leave much of an impression on me, one way or the other. The first few uses it shed several bristles and for the first few weeks didn't seem to have much capacity for water or lather

**but**

with time it's grown to be a very pleasant brush. It's soft when wet and seems, if anything to have as much or more lather capability as my (admittedly low end) badger brush. It still sheds a bristle a week or so, but (after 3 months of ownership) it's definitely grown on me. I might pick up another to keep in the box to replace this at whatever point it goes away.

$5 at Meijer.

This is what started me on Wet Shaving. My wife bought me a shaving soap/mug/brush set at one of those boutique handmade soap places. The very cheap brush didn't make it near as long as the Shea Butter soap. So, off to Wally World and the Burma Shave brush that has been in my collection ever since. Had it not been for this brush, I'd likely still be using goo and cartridges.

To me, this is the most classic shapes of handles.

This brush is very expensive for what it does. It is stiff, smells badly and doesn't hold any larger amounts of water, thus no lather.

I purchased this brush while traveling. 5$ and still not worth it. No brush at all is better than this brush. I thought it might be an alternative to use on the road, but I would have been better not wasting the five bucks.

I just brought this one out for a test drive after having it sit in the closet gathering dust fo guite some time. I did so after having given the KMF patchouli a review that was less than flattering for its scent. The scent was hard to eliminate from my better brush(s). I used the KMF pat again this morning with this little brush with the idea that if the scent lingered, who cared. I made three discoveries. One, I liked the KMF pat better today than I did a month ago, two: I still want to dedicate a single brush to this scent, and, three; this brush works great if treated properly. I soaked the heck out of it because I gave it little credit for water retention. The soak worked wonders!! Now I have to give the KMF cream a lot of credit for the result, but, otheriwse I felt no prickly feeling from the brush at all. It lathered great and held its shape throughout the three passes. Granted, after rinsing and a good shake it still looks like a wet dog, it blooms by late afternoon. I don't remember what it felt like when new. All I can say is that it performed well, not like a high end brush, but very acceptable after the break-in I had given it (approximately three weeks prior to this last shave). For those interested in proper wet shaving, but not interested in a big investment, I recommed this brush, Kiss My Face cream or Van der Hagan soap and a Gillette tech for a newbee. If you are in an area with a Whole Foos Market get the KMF creams. I don't know how you can shave cheaper with better results for the money. Once you get the bug, you can get into the addiction that leads some of us into shavers ananomous.

This has been my every day brush for quite a long time. I'm guessing 5-6 years or more, possibly closing on 10. It lost some bristles when I first got it and didn't smell too good. But at the moment it's comfortable to use and works great on soaps, reasonably well on creams. Maybe I'm just so used to it that whatever failings it has are compensated for by experience, but it's really quite usable. It's not beautiful, but it works well.

I just got a new Vulfix 660 in super badger, but don't see myself getting rid of this one any time soon. You can do better by spending more money, but you can also do much worse!

This brush doesn't really hit its stride until after several months of daily use. So, those who buy one, try it once, say it sucks, well, yea, it sucks right out of the box. It takes a while to soften up those bristles.. I just threw out my old one (2 or 3 years old maybe), and my newer one is about 5 months old, so it's performing great for me. I find that it holds water nicely, and I always get fine lather "out of the center" ..

This brush cost me $9 from a small pharmacy, I guess they have taller margins than wal-mart. It was my first brush and now that I have a second to compare it to I decided to review it. Note: My "stiffness" is the rating of the bristles, not the tip, and 9 does not mean "nearly the right amount of stiffness" but rather "approaching maximum stiffness before eye injury becomes a significant problem." They are very stiff and do not bend well; they tend to splay as a group, not granting your face contact with the hopefully-lather-dense center of the bristles. I say "hopefully" because, well, good luck getting lather in there and out again! So I don't really know what's going on in there.

That said, you *can* build a proper lather, and with a little work, transfer it to your face. In fact, I like the feel of it prickling my stubble and rubbing my skin -- I'm thinking of using it as a pre-shave tool to wet and scrub my face. It takes significantly longer (about 30 seconds) to build the same amount of lather as my other brush, a Body Shop synthetic.

If you can get it for $5 it might be worth it, but I wish I'd gone to The Body Shop first; their synthetic fibers are about as hard/scratchy (4 on my subjective scale) at the tip but bend/splay much better, and don't require as much of a painting motion when trying to apply lather.

Ok boar brush. I find the van der Hagen to be superior in function, but the Burma has a little more retro style. Definitely not recommended. Spend a little more and get a Tweezerman. It has a lot of problems, but the plug of hair is far superior to the boar you get here.

I bought a Vulfix "Old Original" brush and like it a lot, but wanted to pick up a Burma Shave brush just for the nostalgia of it and for the box with the typical Burma quotes on it. Also thought it might be a good travel brush and the stiffer hairs might be better suited for lathering soaps. After getting the brush wet for the first time, I was inspired to write my OWN Burma quote:

Though the price is right, me thinks,
when you get it wet,
IT STINKS!

I've shampooed this nasty-smelling thing a few times now, but if the awful smell doesn't fade soon, I'll forget nostalgia and stick with my Vulfix!

I started out with this brush - it worked best for me lathering in the mug with Williams mug soap. Outside of that it hasn't done too well - and now that I have better I doubt I'll use it any time soon. That said, it served its purpose for years.
Price: It is dirt cheap. I think I paid around $5 at a grocery store.
Quality: Not so great. Hairs were falling out for the first couple years. Plastic cracked on the handle near the bristles, but still functional. Its made out of plastic, rubber, and boar hair.
Density: This is not super dense, but not skimpy either. I'd say the knot is about a 23mm or so, but it holds very little water, and is worse with lather.
Stiffness of Tips: The tips are pretty stiff which helps get the lather going especially with the hard soaps (like Williams).
Softness of Tips: These are not metal or plastic - but they are pretty darn stiff. If you have sensitive skin (especially on your neck) you probably will not want to lather on your face with this brush.
Ergonomic: It works fine - I never hurt myself using this brush. I'm sure it could be better - but then it would cost more....
Latherability: This brush can make a lather, but has a hard time holding it.

I picked up this brush from walmart as a brush to start learning with. The bristles absorbed virtually no water, I had to add water in with my soap to get a lather started, that said, it did create a good lather once i got past that. I noticed that the bristles started falling off from the start.
It did not do a good job transferring the lather from the bowl to my face.
You do get what you pay for, i would only recommend this brush unless you need one now and its your only option.



Justin

I was in Wal-Mart a couple of months ago, and I came out with this brush. I've been pretty happy with it in relation to the price, so I thought I'd give a bit of feedback.

My advice is to not even try to compare this to a good badger brush because they're in different leagues, but for $4.50, it whips up enough lather to shave, and that's the whole point.

Other than the stiff bristles, it was the stench that fills the bathroom upon first use that caught my attention. The smell is beyond words, and it would be difficult to over-emphasize just how badly it reeks. Thankfully, the stench was addressed with a good lather of Mama Bear's rosemary-mint soap. My only other legitimate gripe with this brush is bristle loss...the thing loses hair faster than a cat with ringworm.

Now for the goood part. The red/cream colored handle is reminiscent of retro-Americana, and for me, it's much more ergonomic than more expensive brushes I've used. The stiffness can be overcome with soaking in hot water for a few minutes prior to use, and I would go so far as to say I wouldn't use it without giving it a good soak first. I have yet to use it with cream, but it makes great lather with soaps. I've had good luck lathering on my face, but it works better in the scuttle over a puck of soap.

I wouldn't go out of my way to pick this brush up unless I'd just committed to a five-year stint in the Peace Corps and headed for deepest Africa, but if you shop at Wal-Mart and happen to be curious, I can attest to the fact that it's a great little soap brush for the money.

I'm still a novice so I don't know much about brushes. This was the first one I bought from Walmart along with a cheap puck of shaving soap. I guess I don't know what a quality brush is because this one doesn't feel bad at all. The only brush I can compare it with is the Crabtree & Evelyn $35 Best brush. The Burma doesn't hold as much water as the C&E brush but it's good for the price. I noticed that it excels more at soaps than it does at creams. I get a lot of lather from it but it doesn't fare well distributing it evenly on my face. Overall, I'd buy one again if I needed something cheap.