Cleaning and handling problems?

[Cepasaccus]

I do have a Mühle badger brush. (Don't ask me, which hair quality. Could be the highest one, but I am very unsure.) I clean it after use more thoroughly than shown in this video

and I am as careful with it as I can. It is stored hanging down. When I use the brush once after cleaning it really thoroughly with hand soap and (vinegar or soda) and let it dry it is full of white dust. That in itself might not be a problem, although I don't believe it should show that behavior, but the brush looses to many hairs from what I have read about brushes. Maybe a few hairs a week, i.e. less than one a day, but more than one a week.

So is that loss of hair still within normal range?
Is the white dust something I should worry about?
Is there something I can change to help the brush to last longer?

After all a badger has suffered for that brush.

 

[ackvil]

First, how old is the brush and how long have you used it? If it is a relatively new brush losing just a few hairs a week is normal. What you can do is to run a comb through the brush to eliminate any loose hairs.

The method used in the video is what I do daily. I would not use hand soap and vinegar is not necessary every day. If your brush needs to be cleaned (when its performance deteriorates of you see white scum at the base of the bristles) I wash the brush using a little bit of mild dishwashing soap such as dawn. I then rinse it out thoroughly and follow it up with the method below.

Every six months I take a cup or container and fill it with one ounce of white vinegar and warm water. I stir the mixture and put the brush in the liquid using a pumping motion. I soak the brush for about two or three minutes. I take the brush out of the mixture, rinse again under running water, shake out the water, and twirl it around a towel to dry.

 

[Cepasaccus]

I bought the brush new beginning of October and started to use it a week later. I definitely do not see any scum at the base of the bristles. I don't clean it every day with vinegar and don't want to. So it seems I do everything fine and just need to stop worrying.

 

[ackvil]

I bought the brush new beginning of October and started to use it a week later. I definitely do not see any scum at the base of the bristles. I don't clean it every day with vinegar and don't want to. So it seems I do everything fine and just need to stop worrying.

Yep. I have had only one brush that had a shedding problem. You can read about it here. Unfortunately, the photos of the brush have disappeared. However, this brush shed about 25 to 30 with each use. The brush maker replaced the brush.

 

[Cepasaccus]

Thanks for your help.

 

[Dog Whiskerer]

I clean it after use more thoroughly than shown in this video

Then you are over doing it. Like he shows in the video, you only have to rinse out the soap. Maybe once a year you have to do a deep cleaning, but many would say even that isn't necessary.

 

[EclipseRedRing]

Then you are over doing it. Like he shows in the video, you only have to rinse out the soap. Maybe once a year you have to do a deep cleaning, but many would say even that isn't necessary.

I agree, I rinse my brushes thoroughly after use and especially ensure no soap remains at the base of the hairs near the knot. I give them a couple of light swipes on a dry towel and leave them standing upright to dry completely before reuse. I have never used vinegar, hair conditioner, or anything else. I may give them all a thorough rinse and reshape the knots once a year if I am at a loose end but it is not really needed. I simply think that brushes look aesthetically more pleasing with little or no bloom and in the more narrow form they were when new. In fact overly widely bloomed brushes look positively unattractive to me, fortunately this does not happen much with my mainly stiffer 2 band brushes. Anyway, to my mind, a brush that needs the high degree of cleaning and maintenance suggested by the OP would not find it's way into my den.

 

[BigJ]

Then you are over doing it. Like he shows in the video, you only have to rinse out the soap. Maybe once a year you have to do a deep cleaning, but many would say even that isn't necessary.

+1! Plus, there is no need to hang the brushes upside down in a holder (that’s for aesthetics IMO)!

 

[Cepasaccus]

At the moment it is losing 3 to 5 hairs a day. The residue on the handle is after two days of not wiping it. And I can harvest every day that dust after it is completely dry.

 

[Cumberland Sausage]

I thoroughly rinse whichever brush I have used in warm water, shake the excess out of the knot and give the handle a quick wipe down with a hand towel to get rid of the light soap film. Every six months or so, or maybe once a year, I give the knot a more thorough clean with a special brush soap I bought to bring an online order above the free postage level (I'm pretty sure mild dish soap would do just as well). All my brushes look good and perform well with this regime, with perhaps the odd hair lost every now and then.
It would worry me if many hairs were dropping out with each use, and more so if there was a white dust coming from the knot. I would contact the vendor about this.

 

[Cepasaccus]

I think the white dust is lime soap. It covers the razor and the sink. I am using Speick shaving cream. It is great. Lathers well, the razor glides well, it smells good. All others, which I have tried were lacking somewhere, but I will try a different soap and check out it dusts the brush. Tried today my fist time the Mühle stick. No good lather, yet, and left a tense feeling on the skin.

 

[Cepasaccus]

I switched to my Mühle synthetic fiber brush. Needs to be used differently than the badger as it does not soak up the water, but it is so easy to use. The handle gets the same white layer as the badger brush gets, but there comes no or nearly no dust out of the dry bristles. Maybe it is easier to clean than the badger?

 

[Rosseforp]

I think the white dust is lime soap. It covers the razor and the sink. I am using Speick shaving cream. It is great. Lathers well, the razor glides well, it smells good. All others, which I have tried were lacking somewhere, but I will try a different soap and check out it dusts the brush. Tried today my fist time the Mühle stick. No good lather, yet, and left a tense feeling on the skin.

I'm thinking the white dust is coming from hard water. You might try adding citric acid to your water as a softening agent. There is a thread about that here somewhere. I just use filtered water.

 

[Cepasaccus]

Likely. If the synthetic brush is enough to cope with this problem I will be happy. Filtering water just for shaving is to much. Citric acid (or soda) could be done, but so far I do only face lathering and use no cup and don't fill the sink. The thread you are referring to is probably that Citric Acid for Hard Water Suffering Brits - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/citric-acid-for-hard-water-suffering-brits.540607/ .

 

[Rosseforp]

Likely. If the synthetic brush is enough to cope with this problem I will be happy. Filtering water just for shaving is to much. Citric acid (or soda) could be done, but so far I do only face lathering and use no cup and don't fill the sink. The thread you are referring to is probably that Citric Acid for Hard Water Suffering Brits - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/citric-acid-for-hard-water-suffering-brits.540607/ .

That would be the thread I was referring to.

I started wet shaving this year and thought using filtered or bottled water was a bit much also. Then I realized that I was just using hot water from the tap in a mug to soak my brush, and getting it from a Sparkletts dispenser in the kitchen was just as easy. It pretty much solved all of my lathering problems and takes an extra 30 seconds.........

Happy shaves

Doug

 

[Cepasaccus]

I switched to Mühle synthetic brush and I am using a Vie-Long horse hair brush now since maybe half a year. All of these brushes are full of white dust. I really think this is perhaps a problem of the Speik shaving cream, but because everything else is superb it is my favorite shaving cream and I'll continue to use it. The synthetic brush never lost one hair. The Vie-Long loses sometimes one and very rarely two hairs per shave. The Vie-Long is really a great brush and it shows that the hair loss of the badger brush is probably a problem of the brush and not my handling.

 

[Cal]

The text below copied from THIS SHAVEMAC PAGE.

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Why is my shaving brush shedding?

If the brush loses hair in the first few weeks:
Hair loss in the first few weeks in small quantities can always happen. Despite careful cleaning of the brush, loose or not completely fixed hair can still be present. These then come out gradually during shaving.

The hair loss occurs suddenly after some time:
Please check whether the brush in the dry state eventually forms a small cloud of dust, when you wipe over it with your hands. This means that soap residue has accumulated inside — one of the most common causes of hair loss in shaving brushes. The High pH value of the soap attacks the hair, so it breaks and falls out.

Here is an example of a shaving brush that was looking quite well outwardly, but when stroked it clearly showed why it lost hair. If that happens, only a thorough wash with mild shampoo and then comb out thoroughly can help.

If your shaving brush loses hair and it's none of the causes mentioned above, feel free to contact us.

You can find more information about this topic HERE.

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FOOTNOTE
If you have very hard water the chemicals coat the hairs and the soap clings to those chemicals. So rinsing in that situation just makes the situation worse (living in a permanent dust cloud). Further steps need to be taken to clean the rinse water e.g. use distilled water/add a small amount of citric acid to your tap water/etc.

 

[stoof2010]

Oh my God..... I remember hearing about the vinegar thing now from back when I started, but I haven't done it in 5 years....
I guess I know what I'm doing this morning when I get off work.
Yikes!!!
Never had any issues though.

 

[Cepasaccus]

With the horse brush now it loses only a hair, when I think "Oh great, this brush doesn't lose any hair". I am just cleaning it rarely with mild soap.