+1 for Target's badger brush!
Went and picked up the Shea Moisture badger shave brush from Target today for $9 Shop Shea Moisture - All-Natural and Organic Skin Care products for Healthy Living / Face and Shave just to see what it would do in comparison to my VDH boar.
Wow! First, the brush is pretty large at about 20mm x 62mm...that's pretty lofty for a brush and my concerns were that it would just flop over and not support itself when it go wet. Wrong. It picked up and generated much more lather than my VDH could hope to create. Yeah, as mentioned by others, it was a bit scratchy, but so was my VDH for the first month or so, so we'll see how the brush ages.
I know that some Target stores carry the brush and others don't but if yours has some, pick one up. Even if you have an expensive brush, pick it up anyway and toss it into your dopp kit....heck, I got one of those today at Target too. Good stuff!
In a related note, I asked one of the assistants where their dual-edge blades could be found and the guy looked at me like I had spoken a different language...lol. :)