My new Muhle STF V2 21mm knot arrived from Bullgoose yesterday. I gave it a test lather last night and was pleasantly surprised at the improvement the new fibres have made in this brush over the V1. Today's shave confirmed that. This new brush is much better than previous incarnations. Let's see some pics.
First: here's the brush dry. It looks like you'd expect. The knot looks fairly realistic to a badger knot at a casual glance. It's a handsome brush. The faux horn is stunning. The handle is top quality with a good heft and nice grip even with wet hands.
The brush is not as densely packed as many badger knots. I'd say this is closer to a Vulfix 2233 in terms of bristle density. But, because of the nature of the fibres, the brush retains good backbone. A natural badger brush packed like this would be quite floppy. This brush is not.
Here's the brush wet. As you can see, the fibres sort of clump together when wet. The water retention properties of this brush are just as good as a badger in my opinion. I really didn't adjust my technique at all in this regard for today's shave. I just swirled the brush in the water for a few seconds to get the knot wet, shook out the excess water, and began loading. My soap for today is Proraso Green.
Uh oh... this doesn't look too promising, does it? Well, not to worry. This brush requires such a small amount of product to produce a ton of lather that you don't need nearly as much product on the brush as you would with a real badger. This is about 10 seconds of loading on the soap. The brush does not want to splay naturally the same way a badger brush or even a boar would during loading. That's OK. This is a different animal so to speak. Just roll with it. Everything will be fine. As a side note, my badgers and boars have always produced a fairly large volume of proto-lather during loading. This brush does not do that. Quite frankly, it doesn't need to. Just look at the next pic.
Within an astonishingly short amount of time face lathering, I had this:
I must say, I'm impressed with the new V2 fibres. The brush action face lathering is quite different from a natural badger brush. The knot wants to stay tight but with just a small amount of pressure it splays without trouble. The new V2 fibres are much less springy than the old V1 fibres. I found the V1 knot unusable as I could not get the knot to splay without pushing hard against my face which made face lathering a chore. This brush is much easier to work with. The tips are very soft, and the knot splays much more easily while still retaining good backbone.
There's another difference between the V1 and the V2 that I noticed. I think the V2 is better with flow through. The V1 seemed to want to dump lather. It just couldn't hold on to it. The V2 seems to be just right in this regard. It releases lather very easily but still holds onto it well enough that it's not falling out of the brush .
After just one shave I'm not regretting my purchase at all. I'm committed to using this brush for a good week straight to get really familiar with it. This brush isn't the luxurious experience shaving with my Savile Row is, but it is a very pleasant brush to use. As many others have opined, synthetics seem to have finally come of age. At the very least, this brush will make a fantastic addition to my DOPP kit which is why I bought it in the first place. It really does dry fast too. I shaved about an hour ago, and the brush is already almost totally dry. This brush performs so well, that I can see myself using this regularly along side my beloved Savile Row. I'll know more as I get more familiar with this brush. I'm already intrigued enough to want to try the 23mm knot.
First: here's the brush dry. It looks like you'd expect. The knot looks fairly realistic to a badger knot at a casual glance. It's a handsome brush. The faux horn is stunning. The handle is top quality with a good heft and nice grip even with wet hands.
The brush is not as densely packed as many badger knots. I'd say this is closer to a Vulfix 2233 in terms of bristle density. But, because of the nature of the fibres, the brush retains good backbone. A natural badger brush packed like this would be quite floppy. This brush is not.
Here's the brush wet. As you can see, the fibres sort of clump together when wet. The water retention properties of this brush are just as good as a badger in my opinion. I really didn't adjust my technique at all in this regard for today's shave. I just swirled the brush in the water for a few seconds to get the knot wet, shook out the excess water, and began loading. My soap for today is Proraso Green.
Uh oh... this doesn't look too promising, does it? Well, not to worry. This brush requires such a small amount of product to produce a ton of lather that you don't need nearly as much product on the brush as you would with a real badger. This is about 10 seconds of loading on the soap. The brush does not want to splay naturally the same way a badger brush or even a boar would during loading. That's OK. This is a different animal so to speak. Just roll with it. Everything will be fine. As a side note, my badgers and boars have always produced a fairly large volume of proto-lather during loading. This brush does not do that. Quite frankly, it doesn't need to. Just look at the next pic.
Within an astonishingly short amount of time face lathering, I had this:
I must say, I'm impressed with the new V2 fibres. The brush action face lathering is quite different from a natural badger brush. The knot wants to stay tight but with just a small amount of pressure it splays without trouble. The new V2 fibres are much less springy than the old V1 fibres. I found the V1 knot unusable as I could not get the knot to splay without pushing hard against my face which made face lathering a chore. This brush is much easier to work with. The tips are very soft, and the knot splays much more easily while still retaining good backbone.
There's another difference between the V1 and the V2 that I noticed. I think the V2 is better with flow through. The V1 seemed to want to dump lather. It just couldn't hold on to it. The V2 seems to be just right in this regard. It releases lather very easily but still holds onto it well enough that it's not falling out of the brush .
After just one shave I'm not regretting my purchase at all. I'm committed to using this brush for a good week straight to get really familiar with it. This brush isn't the luxurious experience shaving with my Savile Row is, but it is a very pleasant brush to use. As many others have opined, synthetics seem to have finally come of age. At the very least, this brush will make a fantastic addition to my DOPP kit which is why I bought it in the first place. It really does dry fast too. I shaved about an hour ago, and the brush is already almost totally dry. This brush performs so well, that I can see myself using this regularly along side my beloved Savile Row. I'll know more as I get more familiar with this brush. I'm already intrigued enough to want to try the 23mm knot.
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