I'v got something never before seen, to share everyone today. Its the 30mm x 40mm Roydal & Langnickel Cruelty Free Italian Badger brush, in a Bob Farvour Cosmic Pirate's Gold Chubby handle. My shaving lunacy has had me chasing Kabuki brushes all around the internet. Many of which were not suitable for wet shaving. However, in my explorations (where no wet shaver had gone before), I stumbled over this gem, the Royal & Langnickel Italian Badger Kabuki. Its a kabuki brush made from "Cruelty Free Italian Badger hair". While I'm not aversed to using a brush made from an animal eaten by the Chinese, its nice to supporting a cruelty free approach for a change.
The brush is incredibly dense and soft, and with that combination, sports tips and a face feel that is different than anything I have ever used. In the same way that the Rooney Heritage line is said to have "gel tips", I feel this brush feels closer to a solid mass of hair. Not unlike the feel of memory foam. Soft, smooth, and really more like a solid mass than individual hairs. The density is off the charts here too. Using the scientifically questionably, "ball up the hair in your hand" test, it winds up being 20~30% bigger than the knot bed.
When I got the kabuki brush, the stock loft was 30mm x 60mm. At this loft it was disastrously floppy, worse than any other brush I'v ever used. I had to take drastic measures to correct the issue. Even at 45mm loft (a loft unheard of even for the most extreme of face lathering fanatics with a traditional badger brush of 30mm) it was still more of a bowl lathering brush IMO. Although, I think most users would like this brush tuned to 45mm, as the flow threw was better there, I liked it better at 40 where it took on such a unique and massivly scrubby face feel.
Have you ever seen a lather mushroom?
At 40mm loft it does suffer mildly from lather hogging, however as you can see from the photo's it still leaves a plenty thick layer of lather on my hand. The lather is similar to what you get with any Kabuki brush, mostly soap and water, with gel like consistency. The uber dense forest of ultra fine hairs mix much less air into the lather than a traditional shaving brush does. This is exactly how I prefer my lather. Also, after 15~20 lathers it easily holds 4 passes. At 45mm loft it held even more.
A while ago I had recommended a goat hair kabuki brush and then changed my mind after it broke in. This brush has all of the qualities I lusted over in the goat brush, but with none of the detriments. Goat hair is also very thin, and that particular brush was packed very very densely. However, goat hair absorbs water like a sponge, and after some of the die had washed out of it, it would suck up lather faster than you could build it
rendering it useless for wet shaving. This Italian Badger hair is structured exactly the same as the goat, but since its badger, it does not absorb much if any water or lather. Even though the hair is an identical twin for the goat haire, I'm sure this is badger, it has the right musky smell out of the package, and acts the right way when left to soak in water.
As for the size of a 30mm x 40mm its big, but not as big as other 30mm brushes. I Showed it next to my 24mm x 56mm Shavemac D01 for two reasons. One to show that it only feels like a 26~28mm brush on the face IMO. Plus I know its hard to see with the black hair on the R&L, but the density of the D01 cant hold a candle to the R&L. I dont think anyone can fault a D01 for being anything other than very dense. Plus, as you can see the D01 has been stored away on my brush shelf packed tightly with other brushes so it has partially de-bloomed.
My biggest problem with this brush was Royal and Langnickel themselves. The brush was listed at 35mm, however, when I got it, it was 30mm. Now 30mm is clearly the better size for this knot. It holds plenty of lather for four passes, and you can find handles for it with out to much trouble. However, even after a letter and three surveys all addressing the discrepancy, they have not changed the web sight nor done anything to make up for it. While the cost was in line with other 30mm Badger Knots at $30, its still not what I agreed to pay for.
Plus order prepossessing takes a full work week, letters asking about their products were ignored, and finally, when items are out of stock you dont find out until its to late to make substitutions. Now, I realize we are all spoiled by the amazing level of customer service in the Wet Shaving world, but I'v never been this dissatisfied with the purchasing experience from an online vendor. I wanted to try several of their synthetic kabuki's and it took me three (four if you count a last batch of substitutions) orders to get everything I wanted to try. It was a very very frustrating experience. Especially when the only times I heard from them were to tell me something was out of stock a full 24 hours before they would ship out the remaining products.
However, their products are unmatched. The badger kabuki is as far as I'v found, uniquely fantastic, and the synthetic knots are not only better than anything else I have tried, but they are the ONLY vendor who sells them by knot size like TGN. Every other time I'v got a Kabuki, I'v had to fight for vague knot dimensions, so finding multiple model in more than one size is unheard of. The knot sizes are 25mm (much to small for wet shaving), 30mm (3 pass brushes) and 35mm (a little big, hold 4+ passes). So for now, its the only place to get these unfortunately.
Thanks for reading everyone. As always, I'm glad I have an outlet to share my passion for random weird and unheard of shaving brushes, and for an audience to vent my shave geek rage when things are not perfect.
The brush is incredibly dense and soft, and with that combination, sports tips and a face feel that is different than anything I have ever used. In the same way that the Rooney Heritage line is said to have "gel tips", I feel this brush feels closer to a solid mass of hair. Not unlike the feel of memory foam. Soft, smooth, and really more like a solid mass than individual hairs. The density is off the charts here too. Using the scientifically questionably, "ball up the hair in your hand" test, it winds up being 20~30% bigger than the knot bed.
When I got the kabuki brush, the stock loft was 30mm x 60mm. At this loft it was disastrously floppy, worse than any other brush I'v ever used. I had to take drastic measures to correct the issue. Even at 45mm loft (a loft unheard of even for the most extreme of face lathering fanatics with a traditional badger brush of 30mm) it was still more of a bowl lathering brush IMO. Although, I think most users would like this brush tuned to 45mm, as the flow threw was better there, I liked it better at 40 where it took on such a unique and massivly scrubby face feel.
Have you ever seen a lather mushroom?
At 40mm loft it does suffer mildly from lather hogging, however as you can see from the photo's it still leaves a plenty thick layer of lather on my hand. The lather is similar to what you get with any Kabuki brush, mostly soap and water, with gel like consistency. The uber dense forest of ultra fine hairs mix much less air into the lather than a traditional shaving brush does. This is exactly how I prefer my lather. Also, after 15~20 lathers it easily holds 4 passes. At 45mm loft it held even more.
A while ago I had recommended a goat hair kabuki brush and then changed my mind after it broke in. This brush has all of the qualities I lusted over in the goat brush, but with none of the detriments. Goat hair is also very thin, and that particular brush was packed very very densely. However, goat hair absorbs water like a sponge, and after some of the die had washed out of it, it would suck up lather faster than you could build it
rendering it useless for wet shaving. This Italian Badger hair is structured exactly the same as the goat, but since its badger, it does not absorb much if any water or lather. Even though the hair is an identical twin for the goat haire, I'm sure this is badger, it has the right musky smell out of the package, and acts the right way when left to soak in water.As for the size of a 30mm x 40mm its big, but not as big as other 30mm brushes. I Showed it next to my 24mm x 56mm Shavemac D01 for two reasons. One to show that it only feels like a 26~28mm brush on the face IMO. Plus I know its hard to see with the black hair on the R&L, but the density of the D01 cant hold a candle to the R&L. I dont think anyone can fault a D01 for being anything other than very dense. Plus, as you can see the D01 has been stored away on my brush shelf packed tightly with other brushes so it has partially de-bloomed.
My biggest problem with this brush was Royal and Langnickel themselves. The brush was listed at 35mm, however, when I got it, it was 30mm. Now 30mm is clearly the better size for this knot. It holds plenty of lather for four passes, and you can find handles for it with out to much trouble. However, even after a letter and three surveys all addressing the discrepancy, they have not changed the web sight nor done anything to make up for it. While the cost was in line with other 30mm Badger Knots at $30, its still not what I agreed to pay for.
Plus order prepossessing takes a full work week, letters asking about their products were ignored, and finally, when items are out of stock you dont find out until its to late to make substitutions. Now, I realize we are all spoiled by the amazing level of customer service in the Wet Shaving world, but I'v never been this dissatisfied with the purchasing experience from an online vendor. I wanted to try several of their synthetic kabuki's and it took me three (four if you count a last batch of substitutions) orders to get everything I wanted to try. It was a very very frustrating experience. Especially when the only times I heard from them were to tell me something was out of stock a full 24 hours before they would ship out the remaining products.
However, their products are unmatched. The badger kabuki is as far as I'v found, uniquely fantastic, and the synthetic knots are not only better than anything else I have tried, but they are the ONLY vendor who sells them by knot size like TGN. Every other time I'v got a Kabuki, I'v had to fight for vague knot dimensions, so finding multiple model in more than one size is unheard of. The knot sizes are 25mm (much to small for wet shaving), 30mm (3 pass brushes) and 35mm (a little big, hold 4+ passes). So for now, its the only place to get these unfortunately.
Thanks for reading everyone. As always, I'm glad I have an outlet to share my passion for random weird and unheard of shaving brushes, and for an audience to vent my shave geek rage when things are not perfect.
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