As promised, I have a short review of my new SOC Mistura which has newly arrived from Portugal.
Shipping time was only about 14 days which greatly exceeded my expectations given the current global situation. The seller quoted up to 45 days and I was very pleased when this showed up on my doorstep, complete with complimentary brush stand, in only a matter of weeks. The price disparity between domestic sellers and international meant that I was willing to be patient to save a few bucks as I truly "did not need this brush" lol.
Out of the box this Semogue brush is incredibly attractive with Taj handle and had no offensive smell to speak of. My new Semogue brushes tend to have a smell reminiscent of moth balls when new which leads me to believe that a highly effective chemical process is used to treat all brushes before leaving the factory. A quick cleaning with Dawn detergent left the brush ready for use and only a single hair shed.
I have used this brush twice and unsurprisingly find the performance sits between my SOC boar and SOC finest badger brushes. It is noticeably softer even fresh out of the box than the two-band yet has more backbone than it's boar counterparts which tend to go a bit "mop-like" after break in. Face feel is fantastic. It is extremely soft with just enough back bone to be controllable on the face. It did eat some lather leaving a stingy third pass on my initial use but this is a problem I expect to go away in short order.
I think this may be the perfect balance between the lovely SOC boar brushes and the somewhat scrubby two-band offerings. Where I love to use my boar brushes with Italian croaps I often wish they were a little more firm and controllable. The SOC badger had a fair bit of scritch for the initial 6 or so uses and works a charm with my Tabac puck, but lacks the soft face feel of a well broken in boar. The Mistura performs incredibly out of the box and with time will only get better. The ivory colored Taj handle is objectively the best looking of the bunch and my gut feeling is that this brush will shape up to be a favorite!
Shipping time was only about 14 days which greatly exceeded my expectations given the current global situation. The seller quoted up to 45 days and I was very pleased when this showed up on my doorstep, complete with complimentary brush stand, in only a matter of weeks. The price disparity between domestic sellers and international meant that I was willing to be patient to save a few bucks as I truly "did not need this brush" lol.
Out of the box this Semogue brush is incredibly attractive with Taj handle and had no offensive smell to speak of. My new Semogue brushes tend to have a smell reminiscent of moth balls when new which leads me to believe that a highly effective chemical process is used to treat all brushes before leaving the factory. A quick cleaning with Dawn detergent left the brush ready for use and only a single hair shed.
I have used this brush twice and unsurprisingly find the performance sits between my SOC boar and SOC finest badger brushes. It is noticeably softer even fresh out of the box than the two-band yet has more backbone than it's boar counterparts which tend to go a bit "mop-like" after break in. Face feel is fantastic. It is extremely soft with just enough back bone to be controllable on the face. It did eat some lather leaving a stingy third pass on my initial use but this is a problem I expect to go away in short order.
I think this may be the perfect balance between the lovely SOC boar brushes and the somewhat scrubby two-band offerings. Where I love to use my boar brushes with Italian croaps I often wish they were a little more firm and controllable. The SOC badger had a fair bit of scritch for the initial 6 or so uses and works a charm with my Tabac puck, but lacks the soft face feel of a well broken in boar. The Mistura performs incredibly out of the box and with time will only get better. The ivory colored Taj handle is objectively the best looking of the bunch and my gut feeling is that this brush will shape up to be a favorite!
