Ah, the wonders of marketing. Men-U "world shave brush championship"

[theJJ]

Is it just me or is this comparison complete BS? You can clearly see he works the Men-U brush more vigorously, for longer. He also fails to soak the badger brush, opting to merely dip it a couple times. And to make matters worse, he gives the Men-U brush one gentle flick, and the badger brush several hard flicks. So it's not synthetic vs badger, it's hydrated and vigorous vs dehydrated and lazy.

Any honest comparisons, from personal experience?

 

[Foyle]

There is a certain level of truth in that video. I've tried a synthetic and it really does take less product to produce lather. The rub is, I don't think that synthetics, even the current Muhle Fibre brushes, preform as well as real badger hair. That's just my opinion. I noticed that while a badger brush wold hold enough lather for three or four passes, the Fibre brush would dump most of its lather on the first pass. There is an upside to the fact that badger brushes absorb lather, they don't deposit it all at once.

I'll take the real thing over the fake any day of the week. I had some other issues with the synthetic but those are my thoughts as it relates to the video.

 

[BrookR1]

When I got my HIS brush a few months ago, for fun, I loaded it up and was able to get 14 passes out of it. It's my least used brush, however, because I don't care for the feel of it. I might be willing to try a Men-U because it looks like it splays better than the HIS brush. But conserving cream is not at the top of my priority list, so I honestly could care less about about how many passes (after the 3rd) you can get out of a brush. It's all getting rinsed down the sink anyway.

If I were a barber, then it might be a valid point (reduce cream costs and time spent soaking and lathering a badger). But here in the states, I can recall only one time getting my neck shaved with a brush, and it was with a boar. The rest of the time, the lather came out of a machine.

 

[Foyle]

When I got my HIS brush a few months ago, for fun, I loaded it up and was able to get 14 passes out of it. It's my least used brush, however, because I don't care for the feel of it. I might be willing to try a Men-U because it looks like it splays better than the HIS brush. But conserving cream is not at the top of my priority list, so I honestly could care less about about how many passes (after the 3rd) you can get out of a brush. It's all getting rinsed down the sink anyway.

If I were a barber, then it might be a valid point (reduce cream costs and time spent soaking and lathering a badger). But here in the states, I can recall only one time getting my neck shaved with a brush, and it was with a boar. The rest of the time, the lather came out of a machine.

Here in the states it's illegal for barbers to use brushes for hygienic reasons, unless the client wants to bring his own. That's why they all use lather machines.

 

[VerbaVolant]

There is a certain level of truth in that video. I've tried a synthetic and it really does take less product to produce lather. The rub is, I don't think that synthetics, even the current Muhle Fibre brushes, preform as well as real badger hair. That's just my opinion. I noticed that while a badger brush wold hold enough lather for three or four passes, the Fibre brush would dump most of its lather on the first pass. There is an upside to the fact that badger brushes absorb lather, they don't deposit it all at once.

I'll take the real thing over the fake any day of the week. I had some other issues with the synthetic but those are my thoughts as it relates to the video.

This is my opinion as well.
The only synthetic I ever used is a Muhle travel brush and I believe other synthetic brushes are similar.

 

[Foyle]

I would have liked to have seen this same comparison with a real shaving soap or cream.

 

[rajagra]

The video proves that if you select a method and amounts of cream/water to suit a synthetic brush ... then under those conditions a synthetic brush will perform better than a badger brush.
Hardly surprising, and it would be a trivial matter to reverse the roles.

 

[Domminigan]

Watching the clip multiple times, studying still images captured from the video, and repeatedly timing the lathering sessions has given me the following information:

29.3 seconds of lathering with the Men-U brush, pausing the stopwatch for the two times the "fan" of the bristles are being shown.

26.6 seconds of lathering with the Badger brush, again pausing for the "fan" pauses.

That's really not much time difference.

The biggest differences that I can find:
The Badger is clearly drier. While the hand is just as wet, the badger brush is shaken harder and dipped far less.

Both brushes are stood on their bristles at the same time during the intro, the badger spreads out a bit more than the Men-U brush. Comparing the size of the spread during lathering to the image of the brushes standing on their bristles seems to show that the badger is spreading out more during lathering than it does under it's own weight, while the Men-U brush is more often not spread out as much as it's own weight spreads it. This would indicate that the Badger brush is being pressed into the palm with more force than it's weight, while the Men-U brush is allowed to float across the cream it has created.

The Men-U brush is started vigorously, hard pressure momentarily at first and then light pressure, most often in a tight circular pattern and the "tailings" of cream that are forced in between the fingers and come off the sides of the hand are quickly brought back in and reworked into the main palm.

The Badger brush is started slowly, and used more often in a loose wide open pattern. Any lather forced off to the sides of the palm is left there and not reworked.

The Men-U brush is squeezed out between flat fingers, while the Badger is squeezed out between circled fingers. Trying this on my own with my own brush, flat fingers seems to froth the cream a bit more coming out while leaving residual cream in the brush.



This seems to point out an unfair comparison test between the two. Unfortunate, as a direct comparison between the two might show a slight advantage to the Men-U, a great advantage to the synthetic or even a tie between the two.
It's always a disappointment to me when an advertisement "Comparison" is obviously biased. It tends to make me severely dislike the product, even when the product is truly a great product.

 

[BrookR1]

I did a quick and dirty comparison with my HIS and a Rooney Victorian two band using KMF cream. Sorry, no pics. The HIS brush produced a nice lather and so did the Rooney. The HIS brush had more fibers and was pretty dense. The lather it produced was light and airy and fairly voluminous. The Rooney produced a lather that was denser and heavier but slicker and required a little more water (perhaps the Rooney doesn't hold as much water as the HIS). I'm assuming this had to do with the fact that the hairs were coarser and less densely packed.

So while the Men-U may have produced more volume, it's hard to tell whether it was a quality lather...something that would be as cushiony and slick as what the badger produced. You have to assume that because the same amount of cream was used, that the badger's lather was heavier, slicker, and more protective.

Maybe another member will try out the comparison and chime in.

 

[oldbluelight]

I decided it was hogwash when the narrator said "We've come a long way from the days when men shaved using a concoction of wood ashes and animal fat." That concoction is known as "soap". Lye and tallow are nowhere near as scary as the ingredient list on a can of gel. I don't think I'm interested in their miracle products, brush or cream. I will give them this; Bristish pitch-men are much more polished than Billy Mays. It's the Masterpiece Theatre version of a Ginzu Kife commercial.

 

[NeverOne99]

Isn't that Men-U just a rebranded Omega Synth?

 

[Foyle]

Isn't that Men-U just a rebranded Omega Synth?

Yup, at a hefty price increase as well.

 

[celestino]

Synthetics are amazing lather monsters. i love my Frank Shaving 24mm customs! You should give on a try for under $20 shipped.

 

[Mandina]

Yes, if you're inclined to purchase the Men-U, instead purchase an Omega equivalent (excellent prices at Connaught)--and spend the $30+ or so you save on soaps, etc. For various reasons I prefer to use a synthetic. As a newbie I mistakenly purchased the Men-U brush, which works fine, but now I use it as a much over-priced head-shaving brush (as its density and scritchiness work well on my scalp). I now use a softer Muhle HJM black fibre (just $25, shipping included, from Connaught) for face lathering. Comparisons with standard brushes aside, both of them are efficient at lathering soaps.