Thread: Funk's not dead yet!

Of course, I refer to the lovely odour that emanates from a badger brush, rather than the musical genre. I just got my new Tweezerman brush today. I washed it twice with my shampoo and conditioner to break the bristles in. I let it dry, then went and shaved as per usual. The thing reeks still, which is obviously normal, as I've read several comments about badger funk. Seriously, this thing completely overpowers my soap's fragrance, and it's adding its own aroma to my bathroom as we speak. My question is how can I kill this smell? Is there anything I can apply that will reduce the longevity of the smell or remove it completely that won't damage my brush?

Getting rid of the badger funk is actually the easiest thing in the world.


Step 1. Use your brush as normal.
Step 2. Repeat step one until the funk goes away.


Seriously though, this is really really normal, and will go away soon. Within a week, it will smell like your shave soap.

When I got my Tweezerman I was not really impressed with its uhmmm.... 'natural scent' either. I guess there's a pretty big variance, because some people have no smell whatsoever. But it goes away. What you can do is soap it up with some regular soap just to clean it. Load and lather up some handsoap and after time it should go away (or at least be masked out). Or just use it as Veedub said, it will be better soon.

I know it's normal, and that it'll go away in time, I just want to do everything I can to reduce the time it hangs around, since I only shave every couple of days, so it'll take a while to leave just from use. When I melt my soap into its shiny new bowl I'll be adding a hefty slug of Pinaud Bay Rum, so hopefully that'll overwhelm the smell of badger soon. I just have to fix the bowl first, bloody shoddy craftsmanship.

I honestly think the best thing you can do, to make it go away as fast as possible, is to simply use it.

Anything else you try to use has the chance of either damaging your brush, or replacing one unpleasant smell with another one. I'm sure you could instantly kill the smell by emptying a bottle of Febreeze into a bowl and swirling your brush in it.

Of course, your brush will smell like febreeze for twice as long as it would have smelled like wet badger. You see where I'm going with this?

Actually so.

If you really want to speed this up, I'd wait til its aired a little, cause it most likely comes from being packaged tightly. Then you could put it into a can with fresh ground coffee over a couple of days.

Strangely it doesn't smell at all at the moment. Then I soaked it in water for today's shave, and voila, badger funk.

Originally Posted by mosley59

Strangely it doesn't smell at all at the moment. Then I soaked it in water for today's shave, and voila, badger funk.

A wet dog smells a lot worse than a dry one.

Same principle.

Originally Posted by VeeDubb65

I honestly think the best thing you can do, to make it go away as fast as possible, is to simply use it.

+1. Some brushes seem to take longer than others. But the smell will go away..