Hi all. I have finally broken in my second custom Shavemac D01 2-band, 22/46, to the point where it lathers my face nicely without feeling as if I'm lathering with a hairbrush. My first Shavemac D01 2-band 26/46, required a lot of work - palm lathering almost nightly for >6 weeks, closer to 8. But now it is a pleasure. But my second, the custom 22/46 was a tiger. Nightly palm-lathering for almost 2 months helped the softness of the brush but not the prickliness. With the help of a magnifying lens it became clear that there was an abundance of solid black tips in the knot. These black tips are sometimes inverted hairs or just plain bad hairs that creep into the knot somehow and are responsible for the prickly feeling. My first Shavemac 2-band has very few of these hairs.
My next strategy was soaking the brush in hot water for a few minutes, then coating the knot, especially the tips with Pantene hair conditioner, and let sit for a few hours. I then rinsed out the conditioner and towel-dried the brush. Then I SOFTLY stroked a piece of very fine sandpaper (I forgot the grain; if you PM me I can find out for you) approx. 20 back-and-forth strokes. In all, I did this three or four times. What I was trying to do is to soften the black tips by gently fraying or disrupting them-similar to breaking in a boar brush. If, per chance, the white tips also frayed and softened, so what? After all, for some of us, softness is what one seeks in a great brush. The result is that I now have a thoroughly enjoyable brush with soft tips (but not perfectly scritch-free) and great backbone.
During my research on BB about D01 2-bands it seemed to me that the level of scritch was hit-and-miss; some did and some didn't. I love Shavemac's brushes but I think maybe there is a quality control issue with respect to their 2-bands. I say this as a heads-up, not to derail your buying one. These brushes are great once you get them tamed.
Cheers.
My next strategy was soaking the brush in hot water for a few minutes, then coating the knot, especially the tips with Pantene hair conditioner, and let sit for a few hours. I then rinsed out the conditioner and towel-dried the brush. Then I SOFTLY stroked a piece of very fine sandpaper (I forgot the grain; if you PM me I can find out for you) approx. 20 back-and-forth strokes. In all, I did this three or four times. What I was trying to do is to soften the black tips by gently fraying or disrupting them-similar to breaking in a boar brush. If, per chance, the white tips also frayed and softened, so what? After all, for some of us, softness is what one seeks in a great brush. The result is that I now have a thoroughly enjoyable brush with soft tips (but not perfectly scritch-free) and great backbone.
During my research on BB about D01 2-bands it seemed to me that the level of scritch was hit-and-miss; some did and some didn't. I love Shavemac's brushes but I think maybe there is a quality control issue with respect to their 2-bands. I say this as a heads-up, not to derail your buying one. These brushes are great once you get them tamed.
Cheers.
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