Thread: "Best" Brush for $100

Originally Posted by Hirlau

The key to affording more than one brush is, getting rid of the wife,,,

If this is true I'll keep my wife!

Am certain that Thater will be a stellar Brush John.

She must be standing next to the computer,,,,

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Am certain that Thater will be a stellar Brush John.

No doubt Pixel,,, many members with more experience than I, have ranked her at the top.

But,,,,

The 6 Renegades will be no push overs either,,,,

To the OP,

Look in the Classifieds,

Pix has a Lignum/ Ivory, 24mm TNG Finest, 2 band for a little over a hundred… an absolute steal.

You will not regret it, even if it is 5 bucks over your budget.

Originally Posted by Hirlau

As promised Robin, she's here. I will break her in for 10 days, then have a "Lather Off" , pitting her against "6" other brushes,,, customs & known manufacturers. We will just refer to the 6 as "Renegades" for purposes of the contest. Three well known soaps/creams will be used. All information & results will be posted in a seperate thread, 30 days from now.

A commendable effort. My I humbly suggest a slight variation to your planned set-up?

1. Forget the break-in period. Thäter brushes do not need them. They do not break in. Once used, they keep their shape. Give it a try nonetheless, but do not expect anything to happen.
2. Use one brush for one half of your skin, and the Thäter for the other. Makes finding the difference a lot easier.
3. Mistreat the Thäter with difficult products. MWF comes to mind, or pedestrian melt-and-pour soaps, or even a glycerine one like Col Conk. Any brush can produce lather from Castle Forbes, but many fail with low end products. If you have it, give Otoko a try, because all my synthetic brushes failed to produce decent lather from it.
4. Pit it against silvertip badger only. Grey badger, synthetics, boar and other natural fibres have their own uses, but if you want to compare them, I personally would compare them to something theoretically in the same league. Again, personally, I would not even pit it against a Mühle or Frank Shaving brush, because their floppiness puts them in a different league entirely, but that is just my personal preference.

So there. Good stuff. I am much looking forward to seeing the results. I went through the same process a few years back, and a liquidation of every other brush ensued. While I own a few other Thäter brushes, this exact brush is the one I have been using almost exclusively for several years without any noticeable difference in shape, backbone, or fluffiness. The latest generation of handles looks quite tasty, though.

Enjoy!
Robin

I have the Thater 4125/2 two band and I cannot say enough good about it

Originally Posted by Hirlau

No doubt Pixel,,, many members with more experience than I, have ranked her at the top.

But,,,,

The 6 Renegades will be no push overs either,,,,

So we are gonna have ourselves at front row seat at Hirlaus Gunfight at the South Floridian Shave Shop.

I wish there was such a place,,,,,
I'm actually going out today to try a new barber shop, I'll let you know later about it.

Originally Posted by RobinK

A commendable effort. My I humbly suggest a slight variation to your planned set-up?

1. Forget the break-in period. Thäter brushes do not need them. They do not break in. Once used, they keep their shape. Give it a try nonetheless, but do not expect anything to happen.
2. Use one brush for one half of your skin, and the Thäter for the other. Makes finding the difference a lot easier.
3. Mistreat the Thäter with difficult products. MWF comes to mind, or pedestrian melt-and-pour soaps, or even a glycerine one like Col Conk. Any brush can produce lather from Castle Forbes, but many fail with low end products. If you have it, give Otoko a try, because all my synthetic brushes failed to produce decent lather from it.
4. Pit it against silvertip badger only. Grey badger, synthetics, boar and other natural fibres have their own uses, but if you want to compare them, I personally would compare them to something theoretically in the same league. Again, personally, I would not even pit it against a Mühle or Frank Shaving brush, because their floppiness puts them in a different league entirely, but that is just my personal preference.

So there. Good stuff. I am much looking forward to seeing the results. I went through the same process a few years back, and a liquidation of every other brush ensued. While I own a few other Thäter brushes, this exact brush is the one I have been using almost exclusively for several years without any noticeable difference in shape, backbone, or fluffiness. The latest generation of handles looks quite tasty, though.

Enjoy!
Robin

I will take into consideration the difficulty of the soaps & creams, I will increase the number to 4. I won't be buying outside the variety I already have on hand. I will compare the Thater to brushes of similiar size, all types of badger will have to compete. ,,, there will be no boar or synthetics.

Regardless of the outcome, I won't be liquidating any brushes,, I collect & have yet to find a badger brush I did not like.

Thank you for the recommendations Robin,