Nice to have options IMHO!!
For me, the answer is ‘badger,’ just not any badger grade. I do not care for ’pure’ and find my sweet spot between ‘finest’ and 2-band.
I started with boars and still appreciate them. Just never developed a taste for the synthetics.
I have a single boar Omega #10029 ‘Baby Pro’ boar. I’m a bit of a traditionalist, so I gotta have a good boar with my Italian Proraso cream/soap shave.
I’m with you on my badger preference being between a Finest and two- band. I find these to be the best badger knots for their price point. I would never spend $200 on a high mountain popular name brand badger.
This is why synthetics have become my go to. I couldn’t say if my synthetic rivals an expensive badger, but I have found they rival and or exceed any of the finest two bands I have owned.
They’re just as soft, can be found with the same amount of backbone and heat retention for badger is a myth imo. I also believe the water retention of a badger is not necessarily a virtue when it comes to face lathering.
When face lathering, synthetic knots retain plenty of water between the bristles instead of absorption like badger. This water between the non absorbing synthetic hairs releases into the soap or cream and makes great lather. And who doesn’t use extra drops of water from their fingers during the lathering process with any type of knot?
For me, when badger absorbs water, it doesn’t interfere with the initial lathering process, but the lather that’s left over, sits on those water logged badger knots and turns the lather that will be used for the second pass, into a watered down flat lather.
The lather sitting on the wet badger tends to dissipate when I am busy shaving my first pass. When I pick that badger back up, there is no heat retention and the lather is flat.
And while there is no heat retention in synthetic either, the absorbed water in the badger seems colder to me then the synthetic. And to me at least, there isn’t anything more worse than a cold, very wet badger brush with flat lather on the second pass.
If one bowl lathers from a scuttle, there isn’t any difference between a synthetic or two band finest in my view and it’s just simply a matter of perception and preference.
But I face lather and there is definitely a difference.
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