I recently purchased this brush from Classicshaving.com, so a brief nod and a thanks to the quick service and ease of process from this vendor. I am not associated with the vendor but I, like many on here, appreciate prompt service.
Review:
First of all, I purchased this brush mainly due to wanting to try a brush that was smaller, dense, and carried an excellent reputation from the maker. To be honest, when I first took this brush out of the box I was a little disappointed in the feel of the bristles. The two-band super badger of this Rooney, when out of the package was more reminiscent of really well broken in Semogue 620 meaning that while it was soft as a well-broken in boar will be, it was much stiffer than I was anticipating. I'm not sure what I was expecting but this was not it.
Granted, the brush itself is beautiful in construction. The size of the handle is small and while I have big hands, my daily brush is a globe-handled Da Vinci 290 so I didn't find the diminutive length all that troubling. Simply put, the fit and finish of the handle is easily on par with the best Simpsons or Plisson. This softened the blow I felt in regards to the hair itself but didn't alleviate my initial thoughts entirely.
Proceeding, I first soaked the brush and then whipped up a very wet lather from a combination of Truefitt and Hill 1805 and Stirling Soap's Scots Pine. I figured this noxious combination would quickly get rid of the slight badgerness of the brush and let it sit in this mixture over night. The following morning, I rinsed the brush and let it dry until the evening.
Returning to the brush for the first actual test run, I whipped up a batch of Cella for the evening shave and was surprised at some of the properties of the brush. First, the brush took to Cella like a duck to water. The cream that it whipped up just in the palm-test was impressively moist and thick. I then rinsed the brush to get an idea of soap retention and noticed that the incredibly dense for its size brush held onto the soap somewhat predictably. On the second run, the actual soap was applied to my face and a shave commenced.
Now lest you think this is a negative review, this is where this little brush surprised me. Not only did it whip up a considerable lather on my face, the properties of the hair really shone through. This is not what I was expecting of a possible "gel like" Rooney I had heard of, instead what it gave me was a very responsive, clean scrub feeling when applying the soap. To compare it again to the Semogue 620, this is a short, springy, and very scrubby type of badger brush but without the scratch I was expecting. Its not gel-like but its not abrasive either. To be honest, its really hard to characterize what makes this little brush so great, but it really is great. The density of this brush is amazing and its responsiveness is very endearing.
So out of curiosity, I changed soaps half-way through my shave and changed to DR Harris Arlington. While the lather regimen is rather different of course, the same thick, pasty peaks of the soap were achieved with similar ease and the way it released the lather on my face was very nice despite its noted tendency to hog.
All said, I'm very happy with this brush despite my initial tactile disappointment. I will absolutely be purchasing other Rooney's in the future.
Review:
First of all, I purchased this brush mainly due to wanting to try a brush that was smaller, dense, and carried an excellent reputation from the maker. To be honest, when I first took this brush out of the box I was a little disappointed in the feel of the bristles. The two-band super badger of this Rooney, when out of the package was more reminiscent of really well broken in Semogue 620 meaning that while it was soft as a well-broken in boar will be, it was much stiffer than I was anticipating. I'm not sure what I was expecting but this was not it.
Granted, the brush itself is beautiful in construction. The size of the handle is small and while I have big hands, my daily brush is a globe-handled Da Vinci 290 so I didn't find the diminutive length all that troubling. Simply put, the fit and finish of the handle is easily on par with the best Simpsons or Plisson. This softened the blow I felt in regards to the hair itself but didn't alleviate my initial thoughts entirely.
Proceeding, I first soaked the brush and then whipped up a very wet lather from a combination of Truefitt and Hill 1805 and Stirling Soap's Scots Pine. I figured this noxious combination would quickly get rid of the slight badgerness of the brush and let it sit in this mixture over night. The following morning, I rinsed the brush and let it dry until the evening.
Returning to the brush for the first actual test run, I whipped up a batch of Cella for the evening shave and was surprised at some of the properties of the brush. First, the brush took to Cella like a duck to water. The cream that it whipped up just in the palm-test was impressively moist and thick. I then rinsed the brush to get an idea of soap retention and noticed that the incredibly dense for its size brush held onto the soap somewhat predictably. On the second run, the actual soap was applied to my face and a shave commenced.
Now lest you think this is a negative review, this is where this little brush surprised me. Not only did it whip up a considerable lather on my face, the properties of the hair really shone through. This is not what I was expecting of a possible "gel like" Rooney I had heard of, instead what it gave me was a very responsive, clean scrub feeling when applying the soap. To compare it again to the Semogue 620, this is a short, springy, and very scrubby type of badger brush but without the scratch I was expecting. Its not gel-like but its not abrasive either. To be honest, its really hard to characterize what makes this little brush so great, but it really is great. The density of this brush is amazing and its responsiveness is very endearing.
So out of curiosity, I changed soaps half-way through my shave and changed to DR Harris Arlington. While the lather regimen is rather different of course, the same thick, pasty peaks of the soap were achieved with similar ease and the way it released the lather on my face was very nice despite its noted tendency to hog.
All said, I'm very happy with this brush despite my initial tactile disappointment. I will absolutely be purchasing other Rooney's in the future.
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