Boar VS Badger shaving brush

[AlgebraicMirror]

Actually I found the OP extraordinarily misleading and I shutter to think of how many guys were duped by this post over the years. Comparing a $5 Burma shave brush to a $100 Vulfix? So all boar brushes stink, shed, feel scratchy, and only last three months? Gimme a break. I had a Perfecto pure badger that shed a half dozen hairs every shave, felt like a fistful of needles on my skin, and was floppier than a wet mop. I guess I should conclude that all badger brushes are floppy, prickly, and shed worse than a shaggy dog. By contrast, my first Omega boar, is soft, has great backbone, and rarely sheds a hair. My Semogue boar is even better. Oh yeah, neither brush smells bad. They just smell like the last soap I lathered with them. Anyway, I realize that Semogue brushes weren't readily available in the U.S. in 2005 and it could be that Omegas were hard to get too. But I hope anyone reading this now has the good sense to realize that well-made boars are great brushes.

+1
I'm just a noob, but started with an omega boar based on B&B wiki recommendations. The smell was gone within a week tops (and not overpowering by day 2), and I only lost half a hair. Haven't had it long enough to comment on other factors, and have no experience with baggers, but my experience has been much better than that original post and I don't beleive I was steered to a bad brush based on performance thus far.

I do hope to try badger at some point though.

 

[tankerjohn]

This! Well said brother.

Thank you sir.

 

[tankerjohn]

+1
I'm just a noob, but started with an omega boar based on B&B wiki recommendations. The smell was gone within a week tops (and not overpowering by day 2), and I only lost half a hair. Haven't had it long enough to comment on other factors, and have no experience with baggers, but my experience has been much better than that original post and I don't beleive I was steered to a bad brush based on performance thus far.

I do hope to try badger at some point though.

Good on you, AM! You were smarter than me. When I discovered Omega, I pitched that stupid Perfecto and used boar exclusively for many months. Eventually I ponied up for a good badger brush, a Simpson Colonel. It's a great brush that I really enjoy using, but it's not better than my boars. The Simpson whips up lather a bit differently and feels more dense on my face. I enjoy the variety. However, I would happily use only boar brushes if I had to.

 

[Pepin]

Actually I found the OP extraordinarily misleading and I shutter to think of how many guys were duped by this post over the years. Comparing a $5 Burma shave brush to a $100 Vulfix? So all boar brushes stink, shed, feel scratchy, and only last three months? Gimme a break. I had a Perfecto pure badger that shed a half dozen hairs every shave, felt like a fistful of needles on my skin, and was floppier than a wet mop. I guess I should conclude that all badger brushes are floppy, prickly, and shed worse than a shaggy dog. By contrast, my first Omega boar, is soft, has great backbone, and rarely sheds a hair. My Semogue boar is even better. Oh yeah, neither brush smells bad. They just smell like the last soap I lathered with them. Anyway, I realize that Semogue brushes weren't readily available in the U.S. in 2005 and it could be that Omegas were hard to get too. But I hope anyone reading this now has the good sense to realize that well-made boars are great brushes.

+1 very true.

Thank you for a well written response.

 

[Pottertons]

Great post OP. Very informative. I think I may try a good boar before a badger, mainly because my objective is to really get the hairs lifted as much as possible, rather than the quality of the lather.
That said I'm a complete noob and will eventually try the highly recommended bashers sooner or later.

 

[williabe]

Love boar brushes - The majority of my 14 brushes are boar. The SOC, 620 and 1305 are great. Unfourtunately I discovered a Simpsons Chubby 1 Super. Great face feel, backbone and whisker lifting ability - the legen of the Chubby is real (so is the $) Im hooked on Simpsons now.

 

[mentat6059]

Actually I found the OP extraordinarily misleading and I shutter to think of how many guys were duped by this post over the years. Comparing a $5 Burma shave brush to a $100 Vulfix? So all boar brushes stink, shed, feel scratchy, and only last three months? Gimme a break. I had a Perfecto pure badger that shed a half dozen hairs every shave, felt like a fistful of needles on my skin, and was floppier than a wet mop. I guess I should conclude that all badger brushes are floppy, prickly, and shed worse than a shaggy dog. By contrast, my first Omega boar, is soft, has great backbone, and rarely sheds a hair. My Semogue boar is even better. Oh yeah, neither brush smells bad. They just smell like the last soap I lathered with them. Anyway, I realize that Semogue brushes weren't readily available in the U.S. in 2005 and it could be that Omegas were hard to get too. But I hope anyone reading this now has the good sense to realize that well-made boars are great brushes.

you took the words out of my mouth.
Any new comers to wet shaving please ignore the OPs post

 

[BobLH]

I started shaving about 45 years ago with a boar brush and never discovered badger brushes till a few years ago. While I really enjoy my 2 band badger brushes every time I use a well broken in inexpensive Omega 10066 I wonder why I bothered with badger brushes for the cost difference.

Bob

 

[psfred]

A new boar brush with a decent knot will feel better on your face after a couple of uses than a pure badger ever will, because the pure badger will almost certainly have been trimmed to shape, and the bristles poke badly. They will not split, unlike the soft ends of boar bristles (unless you bought a really cheap boar with trimmed bristles!) and will stay "poky" as long as the glue in the knot holds out.

A decent boar brush will have bristles that split in use at the tips, making for a very nice face feel but quite a bit of "backbone". Badger bristles are much softer and will splay more.

Badger holds more water and may (or may not) hold more lather, depends on the brushes in question. They are definitely softer and floppier, but the old advice was to hold the bristles at the base in your fingers to stiffen the brush if needed -- that's why the standard handles are fairly short.

Best (or Finest) badger and all varieties of Silvertips will have untrimmed bristles and are much softer on the face, but I prefer a bit of "scrub" for face prep. Boar gets softer in use, too, while staying stiff enough to lather hard soaps easily, and a good (rather than minimal) boar brush is maybe $20 in large sizes. I find a 20 mm badger quite large enough, no need to spend $100 for a brush.

I buy knots from China (Ace Shaving and Virginia Sheng) and turn handles for them. 24 mm Boar knots (dyed to look like badger) are something like $8 for three plus $4 for shipping, cheaper in larger lots. A 22 mm Silvertip from Virginian Sheng was $15 plus $3.75 for shipping and got here in two or three weeks -- very nice full brush and as large as I will ever want.

Boar brushes work quite well, and I would never sneer at someone who bought one and never used a badger. Dollar to a donut my father didn't have a badger, and he wasn't cheap, he carried a Hamilton 299b railroad watch.

Peter

 

[auk1124]

To be fair to OP I think he was just starting to dip his toes into porcine waters at that point, and didn't realize there were much better boars out there. One of the reasons boar might get a bad rap, at least in the US, is all of the cheap crappy drugstore brushes everyone buys at first, that fall apart.

Myself, I love boar, and currently have three Omegas and a Semogue in rotation. But I like badgers too.

 

[RandySp]

Misleading review.

1. The boar brush is dripping and is full of water and it is natural not to create a rich lather.

2. The quality of that boar brush is nowhere near Omega brushes which are handmade and create a very rich and dense lather.

3. The badger hair, pure,best or silvertip have no backbone and they work well only with creams and soft soaps. Boar are soap destroyers with plenty of backbone and work well with everything.

4. Expensive isnt always the best thats a rule. Maybe with badger hair we can create a rich lather thats true but what about face lathering? No scrub of the grain, no uplifting the hairs,no massage of the face correctly.

 

[BradWorld]

Misleading review.

You do realize this review is 12 years old, right?

 

[RandySp]

Wow jeez didnt even notice.Thanks pal.

 

[BradWorld]

Wow jeez didnt even notice.Thanks pal.

No worries. I think the world of shaving brushes has changed quite a bit since then. I haven't touched anything but a synthetic in many moons. All of my expensive badgers, an not so expensive boars are collecting dust now.

 

[RandySp]

Thats for sure. And I think many of the synthetic brushes are more expensive nowadays. But they do a pretty good job with lathering. E.g Bluebeards Revenge Synthetic Brush.

 

[paintflinger]

Thats for sure. And I think many of the synthetic brushes are more expensive nowadays. But they do a pretty good job with lathering. E.g Bluebeards Revenge Synthetic Brush.

They've actually decreased in price quite a bit.

 

[adductum]

I guess I feel obligated to put in my 2 cents for balance.

All of my shaving life, until a couple of weeks ago, I have used a boar bristle brush. It belonged to my dad before that, and he had it many years before he passed it on to me.
Do bristles break from time to time? Yes. But even after all those years of use, it is still plenty full.
Does it make an adequate lather? Yes. Not as quickly or as voluminous as a badger brush, but adequate.
Does it smell? No, not at all. I can detect no odor at all.
Is it prickly, no, I would say that my pure badger is scritchier than the boar bristle brush.

In short, a well made boar bristle brush can last for decades. This one has been in use for at least 1/2 a century. It does a fine job of lathering, and it doesn't smell. Granted it doesn't hold as much water or heat, but it can be very serviceable and affordable.

I couldnt agree more.Badger 2 band semoque 24 knot is totaly useless,compared with my semoque 24 Knot boar.
I use a shaving brush to pick up shaving soap and deposit on my face ,not hang on to it ,not froth it up ,that happens by
default I Had a slight weeper first time for ages using that badger for the first time for years.Badger is just fashionable,it deposits less soap on the skin =less protection

 

[MntnMan62]

I'm finding that my badger brushes don't see much use either. The only one I really like using is an Envy Shave Luxury Silvertip. Very dense with lots of backbone and super soft tips. The others take a back seat to my boars and synths. Boars and synths are much less expensive than the badgers. And once you break in a boar brush properly and soak it before each shave, they can be as soft as any silver tip or synth but much less floppy. As for pricing on synths, I'm a huge fan of Razorock's Plissoft brushes. Ranging in price from $10 to $15 you just can't go wrong with them. I now have 3 and am looking at getting two more Plissofts.

 

[chente12]

Just for reference I lathered up some proraso with my semogues. I'm not the best at lathering proraso as I don't use it much (menthol irritated my face a bit I suppose) but I had a tube so I thought why not .

No doubt in my mind (fwiw) that they're a better value than badger rivaled only by synthetics.

I define value as performance for the price. Of course there's also nothing wrong with people buying expensive badgers. It's all about whatever you enjoy personally . But I'm more than happy with my boars and are actually looking forward to buying more of them .

 

[Doc4]

Actually I found the OP extraordinarily misleading and I shutter to think of how many guys were duped by this post over the years. Comparing a $5 Burma shave brush to a $100 Vulfix? So all boar brushes stink, shed, feel scratchy, and only last three months? Gimme a break.

Well ...

Firstly, the boars hair brush I chose for the review is quite inexpensive and is not indicative of all boars hairs brushes. There are higher quality versions available

I certainly wish I had a more suitable boar hair brush to use for the comparison, but alas, I am a college student, and do not have the time or patience or wish to spend the $ to order one specifically for this test.

a Proraso Boar brush (made by Omega) is actually a heck of a lot nicer than the P.O.S. Burma shave

at the time of this comparison, the only boar brushes I had used had been $5 or less, so the Burma seemed like a bit of a P.O.S. - Since this review I have tried several others such as an Omega boar and a Vulfix boar bristle brush, and they have been outstanding.

Seems the OP Joel knew and admitted the boar he was using was from the bottom of the barrel. Funny how this necropost from the early early days of B&B keeps popping up every few years.

I'm a big fan of boar brushes, BTW.

And ultimately ...

Having already given a disclaimer, I don't know what to tell you other than my apoligies. If you feel it was "unfair" I strongly encourage you to post a more appropriate comparison.

Nobody needs anyone's permission to post an in-depth badger-vs-boar comparison review!