Is This Horsehair?

[mjclark]

I bought a Vie-Long brush yesterday in a local chemist. On the box it says (in English,Spanish and Italian) "natural hair" so I assumed it was going to be horse hair.
Also when I compare it with my pure boar bristle Culmak Knight (on the right in the picture below), the hairs are a much grubbier colour than the boar, and feel a lot "woolier", a bit like our terrier. They also take longer to dry out than the Culmak.
I didn't smell the brush out of the box, but after one use it still has a bit of a "wet dog" smell:



In fact it behaves so differently from the Knight that I was confident it was horsehair til I looked at the Vie-Long website and saw a similar (but J&M logo marked) handle on a bristle brush there.
My brush is unmarked, so is it just a horsehair but with their cheapy handle or is it some kind of different grade of boar?
My only other experience of horsehair is with a 1943 government issue brush, but the hairs on that are black.
In any case this is a lovely brush and a pleasure to use but can someone tell me how to work out if it's horsehair or not?

 

[u2u]

If you have the box there will be a product number you can google. I have three Vie-Long horses and none look like yours but mine are natural. Yours looks to be dyed and is scrubbier looking than mine. Good luck.

 

[mjclark]

The box has a sticker "www.johnodonnell.com 73-0159".
The brushes with similar handles on the Vie-Long website are numbered 00159 so the designation could be due to the handle, but johnodonnell website doesn't show these brushes, but supplies horsehair brushes to Amazon

 

[u2u]

Was hoping for a Vie-long number. Anything under the sticker?

 

[seanusa]

This is my horse compared to a boar, I don't know if this will help

 

[mjclark]

Was hoping for a Vie-long number. Anything under the sticker?

Nah- under the sticker it's just the blank blue box.
I've scoured the box for any other numbers but there's nothing.
It's the same handle as the J&M bristle 00159 on the Vie-Long website but without the J&M branding, but it says Vie-Long natural hair on the box and, like I said, it's behaving very differently to the Culmak boar.

 

[seanusa]

The hair seems finer on the horse than the bristle, both your pics look like coarse hair and there is the tell tail black hair in your shot, if I were to guess I would say boar

 

[mjclark]

This is my horse compared to a boar, I don't know if this wil help
View attachment 347394

Thanks, that's a massive help and has pretty much convinced me that mine is horsehair. Vie-Long make a whole host of horsehair brushes with that faux badger stripe and the contrast in colour with the boar, along with the general "woolliness" match your picture closely- my confirmed boar is on the right in the picture below:

 

[seanusa]

Yeah, in that picture I would agree it looks more like horse, they have a few different tail/mane mixes they do that can make it hard to tell

 

[mjclark]

Yeah, in that picture I would agree it looks more like horse, they have a few different tail/mane mixes they do that can make it hard to tell

Thanks again- your pictures were the clincher.
My brush has only had one outing so we'll see what it's like after it's broken in.
It already reminds me of our terrier when he's come in from the rain, something the Culmak Knight has never done

 

[rickboone1]

Is it pretty soft on your face? I vote horse. Went through same thing yesterday. Got a surprise gift in the mail. A vie long brush. Same markings or lack thereof. Just natural bristle or whatever it says. Looks like boar but felt very soft. I was told it is white horse mane hair. Really like it!! Enjoy.

 

[Demolition]

Resurrecting this thread because I stumbled upon it while looking for info on Vie-Long brushes and felt compelled to correct some mistaken impressions...

The J&M/Vie-Long 00159 is a boar brush.

I had two of them. One was purchased in 2014 for use as a travel brush due to its diminutive size. It was a pile of crap. The other was purchased in 2018 because I somehow forgot that I'd already bought one; the first one was so bad that I must have blotted it from my memory! The second brush was also unusable. Vie-Long should be ashamed to produce such a garbage brush.

Anyway... Both boxes had this label:

"Pelo de cerdo" is Spanish for "hair from pig". If it was horse hair, then it would have said "caballo".

Also, if you have a look in Vie-Long's current catalog (note: PDF) you'll note that the entry for this brush (bottom of p.29) states "Cerda".

 

[Rudy Vey]

Resurrecting this thread because I stumbled upon it while looking for info on Vie-Long brushes and felt compelled to correct some mistaken impressions...

The J&M/Vie-Long 00159 is a boar brush.

I had two of them. One was purchased in 2014 for use as a travel brush due to its diminutive size. It was a pile of crap. The other was purchased in 2018 because I somehow forgot that I'd already bought one; the first one was so bad that I must have blotted it from my memory! The second brush was also unusable. Vie-Long should be ashamed to produce such a garbage brush.

Anyway... Both boxes had this label:

"Pelo de cerdo" is Spanish for "hair from pig". If it was horse hair, then it would have said "caballo".

Also, if you have a look in Vie-Long's current catalog (note: PDF) you'll note that the entry for this brush (bottom of p.29) states "Cerda".

Swine's hair!!