Historically I have not been a fan of synthetic brushes. I bought an expensive (at the time) omega about eight years ago, and I hated it. The performance was not just different from natural brushes, it was bad - it did not hold water and felt like using a cheap paint brush on your face. Also, supposedly the handle was nice, but when I received it you could see the glue through the gold finish around the knot, and it was just a bummer. Reading how synthetic knots have improved I decided to take the leap and try one of the new-fangled synthetics. There are a million to choose from but I really liked the handle of this Yaqi, and West Coast Shaving had it for a good price so I took the plunge.
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I was very pleasantly surprised when I received the brush. I did not know what to expect, but the quality of the handle blew me away. The picture does not do it justice but it is a mint green with darker green swirls in the lower portion of the handle. It is large and easy to grip. The finish is fantastic, it has a high polish and does not look cheap in any way - I would pay the purchase price just for the handle and feel that I got a great deal.
The knot is the Yaqi arctic/polar knot. This is my first of the Yaqi knots so I cannot compare it to any others, and I have not had much luck finding information on this particular knot so I will share my experience. The loft is shorter than what I expected, but I think this is necessary to give it backbone as the bristles are very fine, soft, and flexible. With the short(ish) loft, however, it has enough backbone to be a little scrubby on the face. The bristles are super soft and feel great on the face. There is no "scritch." It holds heat and water very well. I soaked the brush (out of habit more than anything, I was not really expecting it to do anything) and then squeezed it out and gave it a gentle shake or two before I loaded it. My test soap was the tallow version of the lime/mint Artisan Soap Shoppe soap. This is great stuff and I will post a review of that soon. The brush loaded easily and had no problems holding enough soap for three or four passes. I built the lather in my Fine lather bowl. I have read that the new synthetics take less soap and build lather more easily than badger or boar. I did not find this to be the case. That is not to say that this performed poorly, it did great, but the lather took about the same effort as any badger or boar, and seemed to hold about the same soap as a similar size and brush density badger. For me this was a good sign because neither of those things could be said about my older synthetic, where the performance was noticeably worse.
Building the lather was easy and in about a minute I had all the thick, warm lather I could want. The brush surprised me at how well it held heat, I would go so far as to say that it seemed to retain heat better than my natural brushes. How it feels on the face is hard to describe. It has less backbone than my 26mm extra density silvertip badger or any of my boar brushes. It is very soft but does have enough backbone to face lather or get a good scrub going, but it lacks the "push/resistance" of a boar or a really packed badger. It releases lather with no issue and held heat throughout the shave. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience and a very effective tool. It has its own feel, soft in the tips, soft in the backbone, but with enough density to hold lather and get through a multi-pass shave session. It dried much faster than the natural bristles and I do not think I lost a single bristle.
If I had to offer any criticism I would say that I would like a little denser brush fill. The brush is great, there are no deficiencies, but I like extra density brushes and this, while having a nice brush fill, does not rise to that level. I like everything about the brush, though, and would buy this knot again either to load into a vintage brush handle, or if I saw it in a new handle that I loved. Right now it is not offered in very many handles (I think only two, this one and a blue variety) and that is a shame because it looks great and has very good performance. The price/performance ratio is off the charts, and the quality is so high that it has me thinking about trying one of their silvertip brushes (if they offered an extra density silvertip knot, which I have not found yet, I would jump on it). This really is a no-brainer for less than twenty dollars and the performance is definitely many, many steps up from the earlier synthetic brushes. I use my Omega about once a year. I will be using this at least weekly.
View attachment 1097882
I was very pleasantly surprised when I received the brush. I did not know what to expect, but the quality of the handle blew me away. The picture does not do it justice but it is a mint green with darker green swirls in the lower portion of the handle. It is large and easy to grip. The finish is fantastic, it has a high polish and does not look cheap in any way - I would pay the purchase price just for the handle and feel that I got a great deal.
The knot is the Yaqi arctic/polar knot. This is my first of the Yaqi knots so I cannot compare it to any others, and I have not had much luck finding information on this particular knot so I will share my experience. The loft is shorter than what I expected, but I think this is necessary to give it backbone as the bristles are very fine, soft, and flexible. With the short(ish) loft, however, it has enough backbone to be a little scrubby on the face. The bristles are super soft and feel great on the face. There is no "scritch." It holds heat and water very well. I soaked the brush (out of habit more than anything, I was not really expecting it to do anything) and then squeezed it out and gave it a gentle shake or two before I loaded it. My test soap was the tallow version of the lime/mint Artisan Soap Shoppe soap. This is great stuff and I will post a review of that soon. The brush loaded easily and had no problems holding enough soap for three or four passes. I built the lather in my Fine lather bowl. I have read that the new synthetics take less soap and build lather more easily than badger or boar. I did not find this to be the case. That is not to say that this performed poorly, it did great, but the lather took about the same effort as any badger or boar, and seemed to hold about the same soap as a similar size and brush density badger. For me this was a good sign because neither of those things could be said about my older synthetic, where the performance was noticeably worse.
Building the lather was easy and in about a minute I had all the thick, warm lather I could want. The brush surprised me at how well it held heat, I would go so far as to say that it seemed to retain heat better than my natural brushes. How it feels on the face is hard to describe. It has less backbone than my 26mm extra density silvertip badger or any of my boar brushes. It is very soft but does have enough backbone to face lather or get a good scrub going, but it lacks the "push/resistance" of a boar or a really packed badger. It releases lather with no issue and held heat throughout the shave. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience and a very effective tool. It has its own feel, soft in the tips, soft in the backbone, but with enough density to hold lather and get through a multi-pass shave session. It dried much faster than the natural bristles and I do not think I lost a single bristle.
If I had to offer any criticism I would say that I would like a little denser brush fill. The brush is great, there are no deficiencies, but I like extra density brushes and this, while having a nice brush fill, does not rise to that level. I like everything about the brush, though, and would buy this knot again either to load into a vintage brush handle, or if I saw it in a new handle that I loved. Right now it is not offered in very many handles (I think only two, this one and a blue variety) and that is a shame because it looks great and has very good performance. The price/performance ratio is off the charts, and the quality is so high that it has me thinking about trying one of their silvertip brushes (if they offered an extra density silvertip knot, which I have not found yet, I would jump on it). This really is a no-brainer for less than twenty dollars and the performance is definitely many, many steps up from the earlier synthetic brushes. I use my Omega about once a year. I will be using this at least weekly.
