Can you share any pictures of those brushes after they have bloomed and been used a few times? The Semogue I have owned end up looking kind of frayed after a while.
A Tale of 3 Boars and 3 Months…..
- Thread starter V12Stu
- Start date
This is one of them after a few uses. I don’t have most of my brushes with me at the moment as I’m moving house, so there’s no more recent picture.
Thanks.Do the others look similar?
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- #24
It's been a while since I started using these brushes so I thought I'd post a last update to this thread in case it's of interest and/or use to anyone. I've been using these 2 boar brushes almost exclusively for a little over a year now so thought I'd post up my conclusions - I guess each brush has over 100 shaves on their respective clocks by now and they haven't changed their characteristics for a while.
Here are the 2 brushes I've been using, alternating between shaves to let them fully dry in-between:
For interest, here are the specs again:
Zenith 502GIADA SE – a bleached boar in the 502 shape “jade resin” handle
Zenith 506U XSE – an unbleached boar in the 506 shape olive wood handle
Both knots are 27mm diameter and have 57 mm (bleached) and 51 mm (unbleached) knot heights according to Zenith - although you'd be forgiven in thinking this was the wrong way around given the picture above.
And my use case again - I mostly bowl lather but then continue to lather on my face with brisk back and forth strokes – I don’t just paint the lather on but equally, I don’t face lather completely.
After a year of use, do I have a preference between them? No. Both are great to use - they're just different.
The bleached knot is surprisingly slightly stiffer with more backbone but still has soft tips. It has a little more scrub than the unbleached boar which is nice sometimes if my stubble has grown a few days and is making my skin feel a little itchy. The 502 handle is great - sometimes I prefer this handle over the other, sometimes the reverse - so in reality I like the handles equally.
The unbleached knot is softer and more gentle - less scrub and backbone and slightly softer tips. It's a little more "luxurious" but with less "presence". The 506 handle is equally as enjoyable to use as the 502 despite my big hands - just a different feel and technique/hold.
Neither have scratchy tips - I think this is called scritch and is something I hate - none of that with either brush.
Both lather really well and neither hog the lather - they both release lather well.
The only downside to the wooden handle is some degradation of the varnish on the reverse side, despite meticulous care:
Nevertheless, it's a great brush and I hope it will keep going for years to come. The resin handle, of course, is in the same pristine condition as the day I bought it.
Hair loss has been pretty good but both shed a hair every other shave on average.
If I had to choose and take one brush to the grave? That would be the 506 handled unbleached boar - but not by much.....
Considering the combined cost of both (£45 or thereabouts), I think they're amazing VFM.
And now that I've had a year of boar, now for some experimentation with badger - more to come (in another thread).
But of course, both boars are here to stay for as long as they last (or I last, whichever is the sooner.......
)
Here are the 2 brushes I've been using, alternating between shaves to let them fully dry in-between:
For interest, here are the specs again:
Zenith 502GIADA SE – a bleached boar in the 502 shape “jade resin” handle
Zenith 506U XSE – an unbleached boar in the 506 shape olive wood handle
Both knots are 27mm diameter and have 57 mm (bleached) and 51 mm (unbleached) knot heights according to Zenith - although you'd be forgiven in thinking this was the wrong way around given the picture above.
And my use case again - I mostly bowl lather but then continue to lather on my face with brisk back and forth strokes – I don’t just paint the lather on but equally, I don’t face lather completely.
After a year of use, do I have a preference between them? No. Both are great to use - they're just different.
The bleached knot is surprisingly slightly stiffer with more backbone but still has soft tips. It has a little more scrub than the unbleached boar which is nice sometimes if my stubble has grown a few days and is making my skin feel a little itchy. The 502 handle is great - sometimes I prefer this handle over the other, sometimes the reverse - so in reality I like the handles equally.
The unbleached knot is softer and more gentle - less scrub and backbone and slightly softer tips. It's a little more "luxurious" but with less "presence". The 506 handle is equally as enjoyable to use as the 502 despite my big hands - just a different feel and technique/hold.
Neither have scratchy tips - I think this is called scritch and is something I hate - none of that with either brush.
Both lather really well and neither hog the lather - they both release lather well.
The only downside to the wooden handle is some degradation of the varnish on the reverse side, despite meticulous care:
Nevertheless, it's a great brush and I hope it will keep going for years to come. The resin handle, of course, is in the same pristine condition as the day I bought it.
Hair loss has been pretty good but both shed a hair every other shave on average.
If I had to choose and take one brush to the grave? That would be the 506 handled unbleached boar - but not by much.....
Considering the combined cost of both (£45 or thereabouts), I think they're amazing VFM.
And now that I've had a year of boar, now for some experimentation with badger - more to come (in another thread).
But of course, both boars are here to stay for as long as they last (or I last, whichever is the sooner.......
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