{"id":1422,"date":"2009-03-12T06:39:47","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T14:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=1422"},"modified":"2009-09-28T19:34:32","modified_gmt":"2009-09-29T03:34:32","slug":"brush-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=1422","title":{"rendered":"Brush-Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previously, I wrote<\/a> of how a Jack Black® Pure Performance Shave Brush<\/a>, with synthetic bristles, proved to be far better than the Burma Shave™ boar-bristle brush<\/a> that I had been using.<\/p>

I said that I would probably try, for the sake of comparison, an Art of Shaving® badger-bristle brush<\/a> that I had, and there was some interest in my doing so<\/a>.<\/p>

That badger-bristle brush is not of the highest grade. Above it would be the best<\/q> badger, and better than the best<\/q> would be the silvertip<\/q> badger. I'm not going to be trying a best<\/q> brush or a silvertip<\/q> brush, because I'm not going to contribute to the the deaths of more badgers. (Again, I got my boar-bristle brush in a state of ignorance, and my badger bristle brush was likewise got by someone who didn't know that badgers were killed for the bristles.) FWIW<\/abbr>, I've read that there isn't much difference between an ordinary badger-bristle shave brush and a best<\/q> badger-bristle shave brush, but that there is a remarkable<\/q> difference between a silvertip<\/q> brush and a best<\/q> badger-bristle shave brush.<\/p>

In any event, I found the Art of Shaving® badger-bristle brush<\/a> much better than the Burma Shave™ boar-bristle brush<\/a>, but the Jack Black® synthetic-bristle brush<\/a> significantly better than the Art of Shaving® brush<\/a>.<\/p>

The Art of Shaving® brush<\/a> still irritated my skin somewhat. I don't know to what extent that was a result of the overt texture of the bristles and to what extent it was an allergic reäction or something like<\/em> an allergic reäction. The Black brush<\/a> has no such effect.<\/p>

Both the badger brush<\/a> and the the Black brush<\/a> have a much greater tendency to hold water than does the boar brush<\/a>.<\/p>

I've only tried the badger brush<\/a> and the Black brush<\/a> with a hard cake shaving soap. (I once tried the boar brush<\/a> with a thick shaving cream from Lush<\/a>, but that the experiment suggested that that stuff shouldn't be applied with a brush at all.) I have other shaving soaps with which I can experiment later, but I don't mean to conductive extensive further comparisons of these brushes.<\/p>

For those who are interested, here is a list of the synthetic shave brushes of which I am aware: