How'd They Initially Settle on Badger?

[Crixus]

I'm sure the answer is accessible somewhere, but I wondered if any of our armchair historians know how badger hair came to be the standard bearer in the first place. Why not raccoon? Or weasel or mole? Squirrel tail?

I am aware of badger hair's ability to collectively retain water, but did they determine this was superior to other hair by side by side comparisons? Were there just plentiful badger populations where cultivated men tended to reside? What's up with badger?

 

[Parallax]

I don't have an answer but found this in a quick perusal of wikipedia:

The modern shaving brush may be traced to France during the 1750s. The French call a shaving brush blaireau, which is the French term for badger[SUP][1][/SUP] . Quality of these brushes differed greatly, as materials used to fashion the handles varied from the common to the exotic. It was not uncommon for handles to be made of ivory, gold, silver, tortoise shell, crystal, or porcelain. The more expensive brushes used badger hair, with cheaper ones using boar's hair. In the 1800s when the folding-handle straight razor design made it practical for men to shave themselves rather than visit a barber, a shave brush became a status symbol, and an expensive or eccentric brush was a way of asserting one's personality or even affluence.

 

[bigben91682]

Great question, subscribing to this one, maybe I'll find out the origin of my rare Simpson chubby 1 in finest platypus.

 

[rxonmymind]

Well, ever try to get hair from a silver back gorilla? Real occupational hazard there. So they went with a cute, harmless, roll over on it's tummy varmit the badger.

 

[hsamuels]

I think somebody found a dead badger.

 

[xraygun]

I recall reading that badger became most popular after an anthrax scare put horsehair out of business.

 

[CrotalusHH]

I recall reading that badger became most popular after an anthrax scare put horsehair out of business.

I read about the Anthrax problem. The badger must be better than horsehair because after they whipped the anthrax, horsehair didn't make much of a comeback.

The only time I read about it is when a Vegan mentions not killing animals to make brushes.

 

[Mick]

The first attempt was using porcupine but they found it had a little too much stitch

 

[Vlad]

Great question. I'm sure it was a process of elimination, but it would be great to hear from Simpson/Vulfix on this.

 

[Haggises]

Well, ever try to get hair from a silver back gorilla? Real occupational hazard there. So they went with a cute, harmless, roll over on it's tummy varmit the badger.

Ever faced a badger in the wild? They're vicious buggers

 

[Parallax]

Was probably like Edison and the lightbulb. Bunny hair? Too flopsy. Aardvark? Not enough hair. Gorilla? You harvest the damn gorilla! . . .

 

[kingfisher]

Ever faced a badger in the wild? They're vicious buggers

Pretty sure rxonmymind was being facetious.

 

[BlackBard]

Was probably like Edison and the lightbulb. Bunny hair? Too flopsy. Aardvark? Not enough hair. Gorilla? You harvest the damn gorilla! . . .

I think you're on to something.

 

[redrako]

Squirrel is too tasty with the skin on.

 

[olegunnar]

turtle:
Porcupine breaks in after the borax soak and test lathers on the hand. Give it one month and it got really nice split ends.

I have actually been attacked by a badger. I was bicycling early in the morning while still dark and I saw something that resembled a torpedo coming towards me from the cabbagefield.
I didnt have that high speed so I was a very easy target. The animal tried to get my right leg but I pulled it up when the animal jumped so it forced head first in the bike gear near the pedal. Ouch.
I increased my speed dramatically because I thought it might try a second attack. Didnt see it on my way home.

You probably now this but they bite till they hear the bonebreak.

 

[Thesaurus Rex]

I read about the Anthrax problem. The badger must be better than horsehair because after they whipped the anthrax, horsehair didn't make much of a comeback.

The only time I read about it is when a Vegan mentions not killing animals to make brushes.

Not necessarily, cultural habit is a strong thing to break. You know pork? A trichinosis scare got people cooking pork well done whenever it was eaten in order to make sure the parasite was dead. The thing is, due to pork processing improvement, cases of trichinosis have gone down to only 11 cases in US each year. And they are predominantly from eating wild game, not pork. And despite it being incredibly safe to have a rare pork chop like a steak, almost nobody does.

Basically my point was is that you can't argue that badger being better than horse has a causal relationship with badger being more popular, especially with the anthrax scare component.

 

[mblakele]

http://wiki.badgerandblade.com/History_of_the_shaving_brush has a tiny bit of information about shaving brushes in general. The London writers seem to agree that purpose-made shaving brushes were introduced by French barbers, likely in 1756 (perhaps some of our French-speaking members can dig into the earlier history?). Before that, London barbers worked up lather by hand. But no one seems to have asked what the new brushes were made of. Back then, brushmakers were itinerant workers and not much respected, so no one paid much attention to what they did. Kent claims to have been in business since 1777, but according to their response to my email inquiry, they did not begin making shave brushes until later, ca. 1850.

I tend to think that earliest shaving brushes were simply based on common household brushes, and used the same materials. Unless there was a strong reason to seek out particular materials, brushmakers probably used whatever they could get cheaply. If you look at the fragment of the 1649 Koedijck painting on that wiki page, the Dutch barber-surgeon has a brush that looks like it could be boar or even ordinary straw. Probably badger, horse, and boar were all sold from the earliest days, possibly along with other materials too. We do know that Mechi's 1843 catalog includes badger-hair brushes, well before the anthrax scare.

We have also established that goat hair makes a decent brush: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...having-brush-anyone-know-anything-about-these and http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...Bang-for-Buck-Heavy-Weight-Champ-of-the-World. Probably there are other good materials out there, too. If I could not get any of the established materials, I might try camel or sable.

 

[CrotalusHH]

Not necessarily, cultural habit is a strong thing to break. You know pork? A trichinosis scare got people cooking pork well done whenever it was eaten in order to make sure the parasite was dead. The thing is, due to pork processing improvement, cases of trichinosis have gone down to only 11 cases in US each year. And they are predominantly from eating wild game, not pork. And despite it being incredibly safe to have a rare pork chop like a steak, almost nobody does.

Basically my point was is that you can't argue that badger being better than horse has a causal relationship with badger being more popular, especially with the anthrax scare component.

How many people have even heard of the Anthrax problem with horsehair? I've been wet shaving for 30 years and I never heard of it till a month ago.

I doubt Anthrax has anything to do with brush hair selection today.

 

[dpmtherrien]

It had to do with an extreme over run of badgers back in 17th century Europe. They were in such large numbers that they threatened the human population back then. There was a very successful kill of them by the population, but the numbers of dead badgers was proving to be a threat to public health. They found that the bodies could be turned into fertilizer, and the hair proved excellent for shaving brushes. The badger problems were taken care of and a crisis was adverted, and the shaving brush came into existence.

 

[SteveWY]

Ever faced a badger in the wild? They're vicious buggers

I have actually, on more than one occasion. I got them out of traps and captured one with a Catch-Pole one time, it felt like having a Tasmanian Devil on the end of a toothbrush! Badgers are in the weasel family (Mustelidae) and like all weasels they are pound-for-pound about the toughest critters out there. I don't know who first decided that badger hair was good for shaving brushes but the guard hairs of all furbearing animals hold/shed water to keep the underfur (soft, insulating layer) dry and thus the animal warm. Badger pelts in their prime are thick and luxurious. But I never thought I would soak a badger, swirl it across soap, and rub it on my face!