Thread: Horsehair anyone ?

Originally Posted by scrapcan

I have had the Vie long 13061 for a couple of week sand have come to like it alot. It does lather much nicer than my badger brushes

The Vie-Long 13061 to me feels like a soft silver tip but with backbone. The Bestshave # 6 is not as soft as the Vie-Long, but it can whip up the hardest soaps with ease. I rarely ever use my silver tips or boar now. There's a reason Horse hair brushes were at one time the most popular. Hopefully more manufactures will start using horsehair again.

Just perfect
Softer then my cheap silvertip and more backbone

Originally Posted by scrapcan

I have had the Vie long 13061 for a couple of week sand have come to like it alot. It does lather much nicer than my badger brushes, I don't have any high dollar badger brushes so mprobably not a good comparison. Yet I have come to tlike the feel of hte horsehair.

One thing to note is it took several intense washing to get the die odor off of the brush. I used creme, it lathered well and turned a very dark brown. I rinsed and then repeated a couple of times before I actually used it on skin.

Do double check the knot size.
As best I can tell, here is not a price advantage to a horse hair brush
over a decent badger. So a 22 mm knot brush is about the same price
good badger or horse hair.

My gut feeling after using mine a while is that a big well made boar brush
is a better investment and that my monster THÄTER gets most of my attention
day in and day out.

Originally Posted by newb

The Vie-Long 13061 to me feels like a soft silver tip but with backbone. The Bestshave # 6 is not as soft as the Vie-Long, but it can whip up the hardest soaps with ease. I rarely ever use my silver tips or boar now. There's a reason Horse hair brushes were at one time the most popular. Hopefully more manufactures will start using horsehair again.

I read somewhere on the internet today that they stopped using horsehair because at the time they did not have a way to sterilize it for anthrax, which I guess was a concern at some time (?). I have good memories of the one I had, which I believe was purchased at a Crabtree and Evelyn in the late 1990s. I am going to have to give this Vie Long brush a try!

Originally Posted by niftyshaving

Do double check the knot size.
As best I can tell, here is not a price advantage to a horse hair brush
over a decent badger. So a 22 mm knot brush is about the same price
good badger or horse hair.

My gut feeling after using mine a while is that a big well made boar brush
is a better investment and that my monster THÄTER gets most of my attention
day in and day out.

I'm not sure if it's a price advantage to use horse hair. But the #6 from bestshave cost less than 3 dollars US. You would be hard pressed to find a brush that performs on this level in the same price range. It looks crude, it's not fancy, but I enjoy the way it face lathers so much that I can't keep my hands off of this ugly girl. The Vie Long on the other hand is much more refined, it's a quality handle with softer horse hair, it's 23mm with 57mm loft. Costs around 40 USD or less, it's silvertip soft but not floppy. IMHO Badger brushes in the sub 40 dollar price range are often lacking in substance. (too prickly, too scratchy, too floppy) Brushes though are a YMMV thing. Some Like boar, some like badger. I luckily stumbled across horse hair, and to me it seems to combine the good qualities of both. Kind of like the Vulfix 404 mixed (another darn good brush I enjoy) It's too bad that the choices in horse hair brushes are so limited.

Uh, ignorance stepping in here with a quick Q. Is bestshave.net based in Turkey? All their shipping rates start off with Turkey.

Originally Posted by BigJim

Uh, ignorance stepping in here with a quick Q. Is bestshave.net based in Turkey? All their shipping rates start off with Turkey.

Shipping is not that expensive from Bestshave. I just placed another order, bought 6 brushes to give out. Registered Shipping came to 7.00 US. Cheaper shipping than most US dealers. Checking the shipping chart 1 brush would cost 3.50 to ship worldwide. The Brush actually costs 2.45. So I guess it would be a total of 5.95 if you only ordered 1 brush.

It would actually be $7.70 for one brush cause they tack on a $2.50 low order fee if you just order one. I ordered one last night after reading your thread. Sounds like a a good brush for still cheaper then a VDH brush.

Originally Posted by newb

Shipping is not that expensive from Bestshave. I just placed another order, bought 6 brushes to give out. Registered Shipping came to 7.00 US. Cheaper shipping than most US dealers. Checking the shipping chart 1 brush would cost 3.50 to ship worldwide. The Brush actually costs 2.45. So I guess it would be a total of 5.95 if you only ordered 1 brush.

Yeah, I'm not really complaining about shipping costs...just seemed weird to me...but I guess I'm a little Ameri-centric. If I knew of anybody else who would be interested in a HHB I would definitely order from Bestshave...the shipping is in no way prohibitive.

Does anybody know how many you have to order to avoid the $2.50 low order service fee?

You can always grab some Arko , and they have some d/e blades such as perma-sharp , and others not so easy to get in the states, it's pretty easy to avoid the small order charge. If your only interested in the brush I think Bestshave sells them on ebay for a more reasonable cost with s&h for one brush.

Naturel Shaving Brush - eBay (item 170620668372 end time Apr-25-11 13:30:18 PDT)