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breaking in a brush hack?

just wondering if anybody has found a way to break in a brush faster than just using it. or is it just one of those things where you just have to wait it out.
 
Old family method for breaking in a boar brush :

Soak the brush - half an hour will do.
Wrap it in soaked wet cotton hankerchief
Dry the tips over a dry heat making sure the handkerchief doesn't dry out.

The ends of the soaked boar hairs split like human hairs and feather when dried out rapidly. This was shown me by my grandfather, shown to him by his, I believe. In practice for over 150+ years in my family. Just be careful that just the tips dry out and the the brush doesn't get warm.

These days I dispense with the hankerchief, rub a little hair conditioner into the backbone, without getting any on the tips and use a hair dryer directed just at the tips on a high setting. With a good quality brush I find I need only do this once. With a more stubborn brush it might need to be repeated. With this method I hold the brush in my hand and sheild to make sure the hairs don't heat up.
 
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just wondering if anybody has found a way to break in a brush faster than just using it. or is it just one of those things where you just have to wait it out.

I am by no means a brush expert, but I have never found the need to break in a brush. All of mine worked well from day one.
 
There is one fairly popular method where you soak the brush in a cup of water in the refrigerator or maybe two or three days , pulling it out every maybe few hours to strop it on a towel.

For me, I might try it someday, but I haven't really felt the need for such extreme measures.

There's also another method floating around where you just after a shave take a blow dryer to the tips and you can even watch them split.

Again, a little too sudden for me. Unless maybe I had a super stubborn brush ,.

I am breaking seven boars in at a time and I wanted a more mild method. What I chose was a one to three hours soak before each shave and then letting the brush dry between uses , which isn't a problem since I'm rotating through so many. My Semogue brushes and my Zenith brush have responded very well to this and have gotten very comfortable and to be very good bowl lathering brushes in just a couple of uses. My big Omega is taking longer and my Stirling boar is as well. But that may just be the way they are. Besides, I'm only 10 uses in for all of them.so I just need to be patient for the two slower ones.

But before this Boar-a-thon, I have just used them, with no break-in method, and done just fine.

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You can leave it lathered up for a few hours, or some guys do overnight, before rinsing it out. If you feel the brush needs more breaking in, lather it up whether you shave with it that day or not. I'll just let it sit full of lather for a bit while I shave and get ready, maybe half hour or so, and then rinse and dry. I'm not crazy about the idea of soaking in water for hours or days.
 
I may be the minority here, I just use the brush!!

If it is a boar, then I may do a few extra, ‘practice’ lathers.
 
I have a new RazoRock/Zenith that I have soaked for DAYS off & on in a refrigerator, left overnight many times with soap intact and various other methods. Regardless, it is barely breaking in. I have also used it a few times. It will probably be the last hair brush I ever buy as the newest gen. of synthetics do away with this "voodoo" crap of days gone by. :rolleyes:
 
badgers and horses only need de-funking, so if you can stand the smell have at it. Boars take only a few lathers to get going. Synthetics are good from the get-go.
 
You can leave it lathered up for a few hours, or some guys do overnight, before rinsing it out. If you feel the brush needs more breaking in, lather it up whether you shave with it that day or not. I'll just let it sit full of lather for a bit while I shave and get ready, maybe half hour or so, and then rinse and dry. I'm not crazy about the idea of soaking in water for hours or days.
I've only broken in one boar and I did a variation of the above where after the shave I rinsed the brush dried it a bit on a towel then put left over lather on just the tips and let it dry. I'm not sure how much faster this was than just using the brush.

Actually, for some, the break in phenomena of boar brushes is one of the attractions. I've read of people buying boars that they didn't need simply because they enjoyed breaking them in. Similar to a razor strop in that respect, the positive change over time is one of the things that makes them yours. I suppose the fast break in hacks offer some of the same benefit in a different way.
 
I may be the minority here, I just use the brush!!

If it is a boar, then I may do a few extra, ‘practice’ lathers.

+1 for just use it.

That said... Here's a method for accelerating break in. Don't judge me for this.

Use it in the shower with a decent bar soap. Hold the soap in one hand and lather it up with the brush on the other. Build up a massive lather and brush it on your shoulder, neck, back, chest, etc... you get the idea. Again, no judging.
 
My method of breaking in Boars, Horses and Badgers is all the same- I just use it every day.

I break in 1 brush at a time and don't give it any days off; my experience has been that they break in very quickly.
 
I am with BigJ - just use the brush and enjoy the process of breaking the brush in. I would, however, shampoo the brush with hair shampoo or, as per BigJ's advice, a few "practice" lathers.
 
I may be the minority here, I just use the brush!!

If it is a boar, then I may do a few extra, ‘practice’ lathers.

+1 for me part of this shaving ritual is the whole “zen thing”. Accelerated breakin just doesn’t fit with that for me. Breakin is part of the process, unless I buy a pre-owned brush.
 
I've done this several times and it's made a noticeable difference in speeding the process.

1. Take the brush, soak the hair in some warm water for about 5 or 10 minutes as you'd normally do.
2. Lather the brush with a decent quality soap making a good amount of lather.
3. Get the bristles completely covered up with as much lather as you can.
4. Stand the brush on it's base bristles up in or on something, like a plate or bowl, to catch any fallen lather.
5. Let it sit there overnight.
6. The next day rinse and use the brush as you normally would.

You can repeat this process a second or third time if you need to. I did notice enough of a difference in doing this to make it worth doing.
 
I tried soaking my boar brushes for 3 days at room temp. and then after they dried soaking them while I was at work and then drying them while I was home and sleeping. I repeated that for two weeks with a new semogue 620 and an Omega 10066. I worked them on a towel after each soaking. I noticed the Semogue doesn't eat/hog lather like it did and both brushes bloom quite nicely and seem to soak up water better and the tips have gotten very split/fuzzy/soft. I havn't seen any shedding.
 

steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
I’ve used an Omega 10049 daily for ten years and after the tips split they are as soft as a Badger. I just got a new one last week and am enjoying breaking it in by just using it.
 
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